From the Birmingham Mail

I’ve a feeling in my water this is wrong
Feb 26 2007

YOU’VE heard of Chinese Water Torture? Lecturer Andrew Dubber reckons he’s identified the Birmingham equivalent after finding out that he was spending £300 over the odds for one of the basic necessities of life.

Andrew has just had a water meter installed in his Moseley flat and his bill has plummeted.

His new annual charge is just £131, a whopping decrease on the £431 he used to pay for his unmetered supply.

Although Andrew is delighted at paying less, he’s outraged at the extent to which local water provider Severn Trent were previously “ripping him off”.

“It means that people who live in our building are paying three and half times more for water than they should be,” he says.

And he has a point. The current system for charging customers who don’t have meters is based on the rateable value of the property in 1989 – a truly bizarre method of calculation which bears no relation to the amount consumed.

It means an elderly couple in a flat can end up paying more than a large family who have numerous baths and showers and run the washing machine all day.

Severn Trent insist the pricing structure is nothing to do with them. They are simply following a formula laid down when water supplies were privatised.

True enough. But can you hear them loudly demanding a change to the current system? Me neither. Why should they? Last year, it enabled them to rake in a profit of £488 million.

As Andrew Dubber says: “They were fined for systematically over-charging their business customers last year. But it seems they are doing the same to their residential customers every year.”

Link to story.

The Flannels

Jake’s been playing the drums for a long time. Around half his life — possibly more. A couple of weeks ago he picked up the guitar.

He’d owned one for a while — about a year or so. A friend of ours had rescued one from an untimely demise, and given it to Jake as a gift. It’s a somewhat battered nylon string acoustic, and Jake had showed almost no interest in it for the first 12 months of its tenure in our house.

But he made friends with Joe — a year 11 student at his school (Jake’s year 9) who had taken up the drums. Joe’s been playing guitar for over a year and is a fan of grunge rock.

And so Jake caught the bug.

The two of them have been hanging out, talking music, watching Nirvana videos, swapping rock and roll stories… and messing about on Joe’s guitar — as well as on the guitars they have at the school.

So he’s been noodling on the instrument, teaching himself and consulting books and websites. And in two weeks, he’s better than I was after two years. Another two weeks, he’ll probably be better than I ever managed to get.

Admittedly, I didn’t practice — but in my defence, I didn’t actually like playing the guitar all that much. I liked being ABLE to play the guitar, and I liked being in a band — but I always found the instrument itself to be a source of frustration. Practicing was a solitary affair, I was never as good as I wanted to be, and there were millions of people I’d far rather listen to playing it than me.

Of course, now that Jake’s playing, I’m picking it up again. Showing him things, and kind of learning with him as I go.

Joe and Jake spent the afternoon together yesterday ‘jamming’. Playing the guitar is a social thing and he’s ‘playing’ rather than struggling with the instrument. It’s really quite cool.

So they’ve formed a band. At least, they’ve announced that they’ve formed a band. A drummer who plays the guitar, and a guitarist who plays the drums.

Introducing… The Flannels.

Speaking engagements

I’ve got a couple of speaking engagements coming up that I thought might be of interest. They’re open to the general public, and I’d feel silly talking to an empty room, so I mention them here.

Moseley Creative Forum, March 15, 7pm
Actually, the title of it is something like ‘There’s never been a better time to be in the music industry‘, which I have one or two issues with.

There’s a bit of a presupposition in there that I don’t think I entirely agree with — so let’s call that a ‘provocation’, rather than an accurate summary of what my central thesis will be.

I’m being joined by music manager John Mostyn (The Beat, Fine Young Cannibals — and, more recently, Lizzie Parks and Trio Gitano), the guys from Jibbering Records and Steve Harding from the Conservatoire.

It’s upstairs at the Epic Skatepark in Moseley from 7pm. Not sure what the deal is about refreshments and the like. All I know is that I’ll be on in the second half.

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The other one is a Musicians Union all-day seminar on Online Music Promotion scheduled to take place in Ludlow, Shropshire sometime in June (date to be confirmed). Should be interesting.