The sound of music

This is old news apparently, but it's only just come to my notice, and I am up in arms about it! During my chequered career, I spent many years playing the piano in pubs an clubs at weekends - often in partnership with a banjo player called 'Arry. Good fun. And if I went into a pub with a piano, and nothing was going on, I would quite often (after a few drinks) sit down and start to play. But it appears that if I were to do that today, I would be putting the licensee in danger of a fine, and if 'Arry and I wanted to resume our weekend activities, we would be hard pushed to find a pub where we could. Why? Well there used to be what was called the "two in a bar" rule, which said that live music in a pub or club did not need a licence provided no more than two musicians were involved. This rule has now been revoked apparently, which means that for any live music to be played, a full music licence is needed at a cost which can run into thousands of pounds - which, not surprisingly, many pubs are not prepared to fork out. To add insult to injury, no licence is needed for non-live music, so pubs can turn out ear-splitting dross on the juke-box for free, or have MTV blaring out on the tele, while 'Arry and I up the corner playing a few old favourites for people to have a sing-song to would be breaking the law. It's a mad, mad world.