geden

It’s all very confusing :)

W-8BEN form is the most obnoxious form I've ever seen. It's written in incredibly opaque and obtuse language and covers far too many scenarios.

And the most incredibly annoying thing about it is that for most UK companies (dont' forget if you are a limited company you need the W-8BEN-E variant!) you probably only have to fill in about 5 short fields. So it only really needs to be half a page. However working out which fields is virtually impossible and I'm still not entirely sure I fill it out correctly.

Why are you thinking solely in terms of subscription?

Some artists, though not all, (especially older ones who don't want to look like charity cases) allow you to make one off donations, or overpay via Bandcamp for instance. Though Bandcamp and their payment processor take a hefty chunk.

Indeed. But by using one you are tacitly signalling to the industry you are not a serious player. Typically 10-15% is what you'd pay now an aggregator that caters to recognised artists and labels.

But better than nothing as a place to start.

Let me try and explain again, because I think you missed something.

I don’t think many people do want to listen to this music. And even fans that do might not listen very frequently.

That music might still be incredible, in the same way that any peak experience is. But by kind of by definition, peak experience is not usually everyday. (see psilocybin etc).

CDs enabled those musicians to make a living. Streams mediated by Spotify, which seems to optimise for background listening, do not.

Many indies offer a 50/50 net profit split. At volume the costs become quite small with CDs.

Majors usually seek to minimise royalties and have many well documented and some less well documented ways to reduce royalties by either chipping away at the headline rate with deductions or shrinking the base price.

They were signed by labels who also made money from the sale of those records.

Those labels are now looking for different music.

No.

This assumes all artists are alike, which patently they are not. Artists that make amazing music that doesn't stream well, are pretty fucked and their revenue stream from recorded music has basically vanished.

Spotify algorithm filters these artists hard.

I call these artists peak experience artists, they make music you might listen to occasionally, perhaps even just a handful of times, but you don't listen to in the background daily / weekly / monthly.

Whereas' pre streaming to listen to it once you bought a CD for £14.99 and the label got £7 and the artist on an indie got ~£3.50. Now the artist gets <0.01p for that listen.

Huge difference and a chiling effect on the sort of music that can be made.

(I've worked for a big UK indie and currently manage musicians and have seen the trends in music distribution first hand since 1992).

Many artists who happily make Spotify friendly music do handsomely if the algorithm is generous. But many do not and can no longer have a full time career in music.

And no, live shows do not make up the shortfall. Not all artists are comfortable playing live and it's harder for artists to reach critical mass where touring is even possible / profitable.

Unless they are already wealthy, which is why you see again and again the same ilk of rich kids breaking out in music (see Fred Again, Fourtet, etc etc).

And there was me thinking I opposed the death penalty.

Do you think we’ve been ground down sufficiently by corrupt wholly self interested politicians, so just feel resigned to something like this? When we’ve fucked our biosphere with CO2, a much more dangerous issue we’ve failed to solve?

People should be able to sell at the price they want, to who they want. Scalpers always act in bad faith. Most people are capable of good faith, they don’t need laws or the market to limit their behaviour.

She passed the Brexit bill.

The reality is that it’s consistently been the House of Lords that save us from the nuttier ideas.

Apparently not, according to this study at least.

Or dad.

Glass is completely fine for liquids. It's only relatively recently that plastic became ubiquitous. In my UK childhood (70s/80s) most drinks, milk etc were in glass bottles that were re-used and/or recycled.

It's mostly the desire to save a few pennies per product that drove plastic.

There are several brands in Europe now that sell water in aluminum cans rather than plastic bottles.

I stopped drinking during the pandemic. I think for good. I wasn't drinking much. A bottle of wine or two at the weekend with my wife. Never really liked beer that much. It's hard to articulate exactly why I stopped

I think there was some sort of insight into how boring and mechanical it had become, how little I was gaining from it, the drip drip negative effect it had on my body and crucially, how my drinking enabled and encouraged others to drink.

Me continuing to drink was also making me feel morally very queasy when I personally knew two people who drank themselves to death. Not close friends. Both close enough for it to sting. One of them was an incredible talented music producer and a great loss to the world.

It's a very shit drug. The only reason I ever started drinking was to be inside the 'in' group and to have fun with friends.

It's abundantly clear now that alcohol isn't necessary for that at my age.

The only downside has been watching with crystal clarity how boring and dull when intoxicated people become at gatherings.

Better drugs for inhibited teenagers please. Microdosed kombucha for the win.

I went from a pandemic high of 87kg to 75kg and now a steady 77kg with the app Noom. Was very sceptical but just followed it blindly for three months. It’s very simple, runs you at a calorie deficit by tracking food intake and calories burnt through exercise. Crucially though it combines that with a carefully measured daily CBT style course around eating, to help lock in new habits.

It was a definitely aimed more at women than men and was a bit USA centric but I let that wash over and got very decent results.

I felt it was a bit expensive and by their own admission it doesn’t cope well as an app when you reach your target. I’m unsubbed now but have a new base level weight I’m much happier with.

Eh? They’ve passed a law which means that if you even call the war a ‘war’ you face 15 years in jail.

Nginx rose out of the cesspit that was Apache config files. For me it was night and day better and I love the fact Nginx is just set and forget.

That's not to say it can't improve...

Hard disagree. Thorntons has always been quite low end chocolate.

Waitrose No1 range is the only decent ostensibly British chocolate that immediately springs to mind

https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/shop/browse/groceries/waitrose...

We got a private diagnosis for my son (to save potentially a year waiting) and that was recognised by the NHS paediatrician.

Horrible experience with his school though, that’s another story!

Find a sport or sports that you enjoy. Focus on getting good at them with a coach and PT. Would recommend tennis and/or badminton. Join a local club.

That’s health and socialising covered. Which is most of happiness.

Oh and deal with any underlying trauma with a talking therapy and some kind of somatic therapy.

Much to learn here for modern music journalists. Instead of inserting their own desires, shallow beliefs and ego into the review, the book is reviewed for what it is, with the artists intention considered and respected.

Compare and contrast with this tiresome Guardian review, which leaves you very unclear about the performance but all too sure about what the reviewer likes and wants

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/jan/30/the-smile-revi...

I just add the tickets to Apple Wallet and they appear on the watch. I buy either directly via LNER website or The Trainline app.

Our Victorian property still has a (shared) lead supply pipe. I've been repeatedly told it's not an issue due to (presumed) calcification on the inside of the pipe. All the interior pipework is copper.

Our water was tested years ago by the waterboard and came back way below the legal limit.

Yet still... I'm suspicious. Can anyone point me at resources to help prove it's unsafe?

My Series 7 lasts all day and a night. Charges super fast.

I've also found myself using it as a 'dumb but useful phone'. Having Apple Pay / train tickets on it has been surprisingly useful.

The activity tracking has been surprisingly motivating.

Hard recommend.

Stewart Lee, another British institution, telling you all you need to know about ‘wokeness’, 10+ years ago.

https://youtu.be/bmsV1TuESrc

It’s extra charged in the UK because ‘PC gone mad’, please don’t show me inconvenient truth types, map neatly onto Brexit supporters.

If we only study 'what is', we miss 'what can be'.

Now we just need Spotify to hide play counts... These have a terrible effect on artists.

Agreed. The problem with this stance though is verification.

How do you verify that someone is stepping over the line and violating the rights of others.

We rely on various NGOs and media reporting for the raw data and the law courts for independent verification.

So it’s no surprise of course that these are early targets for people with malign interests.

It’s a simple litmus test. Both of those functions should be made far more independent of political control.

Easier said than done.

(grammar edit)