Later in red and white cans.
- Thread starter luka
- Start date
IdleRich
IdleRich
In the UK I think they more typically tend to say vice taxes - applied to alcohol, tobacco and gambling - although they had the drop the latter when it became possible to play online and thus overseas and avoid paying taxes. The government basically had a straight choice of dropping the tax or just completely losing the entire gambling industry.
Prior to that it was quite a strange system, the tax used to be 9p in the pound and you had a choice between paying tax on your original bet, or on the amount you received if you won. So, say you bet £5 at ten to one against, you could pay 45p straight off, or pay nothing at the time, but if you won, you would win fifty pounds and get the original five back for a total of fifty five which would be taxed at 9p and so you would pay £4.95 and finally get back £50.05.
I suppose that the reason you paid tax on your overall receipts rather than the winnings was cos, if someone was odds on then your winnings would be less than the bet and so that would be a way to pay less tax.
A famous example of this was one time in the Wimbledon final, I think it was Steffi Graf (or was it Monica Seles?) who was the huge favourite at 12 to 1 on, if you put one pound on that and paid at the start, then the tax was 9p and your winnings would be 8.3p - however if you paid on your winnings then you would pay tax on 1.08 which would be more than 9p, leaving you with approx 99p - in other words, because of the tax, you simply could not win by betting on Steffi, which seemed a little unfair. Presumably every serious gambler knew that if you wanted to bet on something that was 12-1 on or worse, you could not win, however, when it occurred at Wimbledon which I suppose (like the Grand National) might cause a number of random, casual sports fans, to have a little flutter, then it generated a bit more in the way of bad publicity I guess.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
That last bit reminds me of a story in Peter Cook's autobiography, about when he and Dudley Moore got their first big gig, for which they were going to paid £100 each, which I guess was a pretty decent sum in those days. Pete had by this point contracted an agent (Dud hadn't), who'd talked up his client's fee to £110. Which meant that, after the 10% agent's fee, he got £99.
IdleRich
IdleRich
I often wonder at what level it becomes worth getting an agent. And that's because I suppose, at the size of gigs we tend to put on, sometimes we speak to people who have agents and managers and all that, and sometimes we don't, basically we are dealing with people (as a rule) who on the cusp of that decision. And also, in my experience, the agents always fuck it up... I guess cos they are cheap crap agents of the "my first agent" type, they always take ages to reply and sort things out and sometimes that means that you miss out on the cheap flight or cheap hotel room, which is frustrating to say the least.
Or it can happen that you speak to someone and they say "Oh yeah, I really want to dj there and that price seems fine" but then the agent starts putting in all these extra demands and trying to raise the fee and so on. With that you don't know what is happening cos I am certain there are times when the artist pretends to be enthusiastic about things s/he doesn't really want to do and uses the agent to get rid of it without themselves having to get involved in any unpleasantness.... but other times we have been genuinely good friends with the person we are trying to book and it really feels as though the agent is sort of inserting themselves into the whole thing and just making it more difficult, and trying to raise their own fee regardless of whether that puts the whole event in jeopardy.
Or it can happen that you speak to someone and they say "Oh yeah, I really want to dj there and that price seems fine" but then the agent starts putting in all these extra demands and trying to raise the fee and so on. With that you don't know what is happening cos I am certain there are times when the artist pretends to be enthusiastic about things s/he doesn't really want to do and uses the agent to get rid of it without themselves having to get involved in any unpleasantness.... but other times we have been genuinely good friends with the person we are trying to book and it really feels as though the agent is sort of inserting themselves into the whole thing and just making it more difficult, and trying to raise their own fee regardless of whether that puts the whole event in jeopardy.
woops
is not like other people
welcome to the desert of the real
IdleRich
IdleRich
Yes I'm sure that's how it is supposed to work, but I wonder how often it all falls into place as it should, and how often things go wrong.
I have known lots of art school graduates who have described how they or their close friend or just someone they knew from school, has come face to face with the dilemma (as I suppose almost anyone who has reached a certain level of success must do) wherein they have been part of an exhibition or simply done a solo show, and at the end, some guy in a suit asks to speak to them and says "I love that thing you did with the yoghurt pot filled with dyed green dog shit, how much are you selling your stuff for?" and they go "Errrrrrr..... " - is he a representative of some major gallery or Saatchi or something, can they say £10,000,000? Or is he a minor gallery meaning that it is still potentially exciting but you should probably set your price at a more realistic £10... or is he just a pervert who has never eaten dog shit that is green before?
And I have had friends at film school who again have been struck dumb by similar questions which are kinda fundamental to their industry and yet which the schools you study at to get into that industry consider too crass and nakedly commercial for them to include such venality in their courses.
I never really thought of agents as part of that whole "thing you are supposed to know about but no-one ever teaches you" until I had to deal with people's agents who seem to be slowing down the whole process, making everything worse and harder to get off the ground for everyone involved and who were charging for that privilege.
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IdleRich
IdleRich
Anyway, someone mentioned Cristal yesterday and I said I had heard the name but not seen it, however today I was in Auchan Supermarket and what should I come across?
I did pick up a few of them and a few others too... I thought I would start at the top though tonight with Top Beer, it's red and white so it belongs in this thread. Priced at a "competitive" 32 cents per can I'm looking forward to this bad boy.. cheers!
I did pick up a few of them and a few others too... I thought I would start at the top though tonight with Top Beer, it's red and white so it belongs in this thread. Priced at a "competitive" 32 cents per can I'm looking forward to this bad boy.. cheers!
Leo
Well-known member
and also the exact opposite: Canada