ambient

All my gear is well looked after. If I sell anything I always give it a good look over before sending it on its way, and make sure to wipe it over with a clean cloth and polish. If it’s a bass then I change the battery and fit new strings. It beats me how people can invest good money in an instrument, and not look after it.

I’ve walked away from deals as a seller a couple of times. I know a few people who’ve been scammed when they’ve sold items. The buyer claims it’s faulty or not as described. There’s a thread on here somewhere from a few years ago, when someone tried to rip me off with a pair of studio monitors I was selling. I will accept PayPal, but not if they’re an absolute complete stranger i.e from gumtree or Facebook, where I can’t gauge their honesty.

I just sent something to a guy in Belfast. I had to complete an online customs declaration, which asked various questions about the item’s origin, and it’s value. I then had to print off three copies, which I signed and dated, and placed in an envelope taped to the parcel. That’s just one single item, taking maybe five minutes. I wouldn’t fancy having to do it for multiple different items, it would very soon get annoying.

I mentioned earlier in this thread, I had occasion to turn to my bank for help a few years ago. I bought an item through eBay as a guest, the item didn’t arrive. PayPal were useless, whereas my bank were fantastic.

Luck of the draw I guess. I’ve bought items from the USA expecting to pay import charges, and subsequently been shocked when they’ve arrived charge-free - despite them being well over the limit.

What’s Skrill?

I thought you could leave feedback for someone on Gumtree? I can’t see how to now, but I know you used to be able to.

Someone mentioned the new rules affecting businesses. Keeping it music business related, a friend shared this on Facebook earlier. This is yet another of the things that makes me incredibly sad - both for the buyers of the records, and obviously the seller/artist. For these small labels it’s all about the music, they don’t have a massive turnover - probably consider themselves lucky if an album’s sales are in double figures, so losing even a handful of sales is bad news for them. This won’t be the only person that stops buying from them for this reason.

It’s the gift that just keeps giving. Still, like I said elsewhere earlier, at least the fish are happy, nobody’s bothering to catch them.

Yes, and as above it’s not duty but VAT they pay, so it depends on the VAT rate in their country.

Plus the VAT on the merchandise at each border. That would be quite an outlay, and probably the biggest financial drain on a tour. You pay it upfront on every t-shirt, CD, cassette, poster etc, then claim back what you haven’t sold at a later date. There was a time a few years ago, that the sale of merchandise was what ultimately made the tour financially viable. I don’t know if that’s still the case. The last time I performed in Paris I took cassettes with me, the sale of those paid for my Airbnb. It mostly seems to be this and the carnet that artists - including well known artists - are complaining about. It’s not just the artist that I have sympathy for. There’s a few people I follow on social media, who are quite openly saying that it’s going to seriously impact their foreign touring - someone on Facebook shared a post from Fish, the ex-singer from Marillion. These artists have a very loyal fan base, the highlight of their year is often - for a variety of reasons - seeing their favourite artist on tour. It’s extremely upsetting for them too. So it’s not just us, the musician that’s affected by this.

That was to do with quotas and other things. The problem they’re facing now is selling what they catch - we sell 70% of our catch into Europe. It used to be that it was caught one day, and would be in the foreign fish market the following morning - all nice and fresh. Now it’s caught one day and spends the rest of the week sitting on a dock. If you see my post above suggesting a mass bass solo outside Parliament, that’s inspired by a guy who’s threatening to dump hundreds of tonnes of rotten langoustine outside parliament. Scottish trawlers aren’t leaving port, there’s no point.

When the minister for fish admits that she was too busy organising a nativity play to read the trade deal - bearing in mind that fishing was a big part of this whole malarkey - then what chance does an industry that they don’t care about got?