Settle in, and I will deign to impart my wisdom and experience to you. A thankless task, but one that I undertake, it is almost a compulsion to attempt to spread culture unto the unthinking masses.

With swathing cuts on budgets for arts groups of all kinds, one thought that it had hit upon a novel way of raising the necessary capital by taking up sponsorships.

It all started with a Northern Colliery Brass Band who were sponsored by a surprise breakthrough feel-good hit British movie ‘Where there’s muck there’s brass.” The uplifting ending did not work out in this case though as the tuba player refused to wear the hat with a light on and the canary kept dying. Which just upset audiences.

Musicians the length and breadth of Europe saw this and tried to capitalise on it. Birmingham Symphonic Orchestra was the first to try on a much larger scale when they accepted a sponsorship deal rumoured to be worth around 1 million pounds with British domestic electrical company Morphy Richards.

The company name was emblazoned crassly all over the kettle drums and the audio mixers.

Speaking of culture, one university orchestra agreed to a deal in principle to have Dairylea Triangles in its percussion section.

Then a large confectionery and bakery company sponsored the woodwind section of Pontefract Metropolitan orchestra where they included Flute Pastilles, Cream horns and Drumstick lollies.

Uppingham Symphonia controversially went one further when they accepted a sponsorship deal with adult shop Ann Summers. The critics thought that renaming part of the percussion section ‘Sex cymbals’ was one step too far, but far more were upset by the fact that the violinists G strings were also included in the deal.

The whole practice seems to have died out now after it was deemed that a deal designed to link up with a book release from a radical feminist author was deemed simply too risqué.

The agreement hinged on all of the male piano players having at least one extra G key on their keyboard. This was meant to make it easier for the men to find the spot more easily, as they had struggled to find it before.

The practice has recently seen a brief resurgence with the BBC controversially attempting to agree a deal with a large wool company for the BBC and Knitcraft Prom tiddly om pom pom poms.

I abhor sponsorship in all forms, I hate that crass business interests can have a say in the higher art forms. It is appalling, unlike the company who sponsor my blog, The Dark Coffee Company, who are thoughtful and very understanding of what it is that I am doing.

I am thinking of forgoing the internet entirely and going back to producing a monochrome zine, on a mimoegraph machine. Art is not truly art I find, unless it is inexplicably purple and smells slightly of cheap alcohol.