Music to one's Ears

Over many years it has been the musicians 'lot' to bring the attention of the masses to wrongs that need to be righted; music creates unity. We've seen it over the decades with Live Aid, Band Aid and numerous other musical creations from our talented artists of the vocal orientation.
Well, I suppose we could call this one "Pub Aid" for we have our very own singing star who has now completed writing a song to help fundraising for the long fight ahead to save the Great British Pubs/Clubs. Bob James, formerley lived in Uxbridge but left these shores in 1998 to further his career in America-and he has certainly done that for Bob now owns a recording studio & an independent record company, Magic of Music records.
Bob is only too aware of all that is wrong in this sad old country of ours thus has offered his invaluable services to our sister organisation, Justice for Licensees and ourselves in an attempt to bring awareness to the masses as to exactly what is going on in this country. Bob knows the value of the British boozer, he knows that it not just somewhere to sit and get sozzled; he knows it is an integral part of community life!
Bob is only too aware of the number of closures over the past 34 months and like all of us involved in saving our pubs & clubs, cannot simply sit back and watch the eradication of our way of life.
After much negotiation withInez Ward (JFL) Bob has written a song especially aimed at supporting the fight to save the pubs/clubs. "What Can We Do Now" will be released very shortly and thanks to Bobs'extraordinary generosity (and fully backed by a video!) all proceeds will go straight into the fighting fund that we so badly need to right the wrongs heaped upon us.
Bob is a non smoker but he is tolerant of those that do smoke and fully believes that a separate room for smokers is the correct and proper way to go. If only those in power even considered such a simple format!
Obviously I have left Inez to do most of the talking as this is 'her baby', but in brief conversations i have pointed out to Bob that 68% of pub/club regulars were smokers. I say 'were' simply because now they have gone the pubs & clubs are suffering mightily from the ridiculous legislation passed in 2007-so mightily that 5,000 venues have disappeared. Only last week Admiral taverns announced the sale of 200 'sites'. 200!
M&B have announced something similar for their 'wet-led' pubs-where will this end? If all the pubs that are left are turned into gastro-pubs then we are going to be flooded with them instead-and they will start closing due to lack of business!
Back to the record and our hero Bob James. There are plans afoot to get a world tour under way with venues here in Britain, America and quite possibly Australia so, with the possible help of other musicians this could be big-very big!
We have long known and had to accept that governments use our money against us, the people, but this is a golden opportunity to redress that balance for Bob has unselfishly declared that all profits from sales will go directly into the fighting fund now being set up by Inez Ward. Plus money from concerts etc and we could be looking at a tidy sum to help the fight to regain our rights.
So there you have it folks! With the power of the music behind us i think we can now start to look forward to brighter times for our pubs & clubs. It matters not how hard and long we fight, it sometimes takes one special man or woman to highlight the desperation of a situation. In this case we have one of each!
My heartiest thanks go out to Inez & Bob for this wonderful opportunity to save the pubs & clubs of this country.