Saving for that Rainy Day

  Frequently I put a bit by, safe for a rainy day: nobody here can say to what, indeed, the years are leading.

Click to hear "If Love Were All" sung by yours truly accompanied by Alys Kihl

I'd like to put something by, as it says in that most touching of ballads - except a certain producer keeps not so much raining as pissing on that particular parade.

ME. I need to be paid the arrears this week. It's been six months now.
CERTAIN PROMOTER. Can I call you to discuss?
ME. No, you can pay me to discuss this reneging, recidivist nonsense any further and add it the amount of the arrears. The arrears which are to be paid this week.
CERTAIN PROMOTER. Yoo Hoo! Here is the itinerary for the Scandinavian trip on Friday. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed early start. It should be hilarious fun! And don't forget your passport!!!!
ME. I will be ringing my bank at two thirty on Thursday. Two thirty is the latest that I can pack, catch the local bus to the branch line station and be in London to stay overnight for that very early start to Scandinavia. Any or all of the aforementioned will only happen if the arrears have been paid.

The arrears got paid.

I think the Playboy Club has it right getting payments up front. I was half in the tutu for last night's Wam Bam show at the legendary venue when two floor managers called in to check with Lady Alex that the room hire fee had been paid in full. And also the fee for the technicians? Could they be shown proof? Where was her i-pad? I then saw them eyeing up one of the burlesque girls in the troupe and thinking this one's clearly a lush, should we get something up front for what will be quite the bar bill while we're here?
They didn't. She is. And, lordy, there was.

Adelina Patti always refused to go onstage until she had been paid in full. In the last moments before curtain up impresario Sir Henry Mapleson would be lugging sacks of gold coin round to her dressing room direct from the box office tills.
Which is at it should be.
Though perhaps Patti was over-egging things having her parrot trained to squawk 'Cash! Cash!' whenever it saw Sir Henry.

And I fear I'm definitely over egging things listing that certain promoter on my self-assessment return as a tax deductible dependant...

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