Orchestral Manoeuvres

‘HOW much does a flute weigh? More or less than a clarinet? And what about a triangle?

We ask in light of the Mail’s story of how members of the BBC’s Scottish Symphony Orchestra are each being handed a £3,000 relocation package.

The 80 musicians are being given the cash to help pay for additional transport costs brought about by the orchestra’s move from Queen Margaret Drive in Glasgow’s west end to Candleriggs in the city centre. That’s a distance of three miles.

As a BBC spokesman explains: “Every member of the orchestra gets it because they are moving their business. As to how the figure is worked out, that’s a human resources matter.”

Not being experts in such things we can only wait for HR to enlighten us. While we work out that the current rate for relocation is £1,000 a mile, and consider it fortunate that the orchestra has not moved to London or some other destination favoured by Scots.

And we listen as a BBC staff member tells the Mail that this is a misuse of licence payers’ money. And hear from Don Foster, the Liberal Democrat cultural spokesman, who says that to spend the equivalent of 1,300 licence fees to move a few miles “will have licence fee payers up in arms”.

Only it won’t. Licence payers are rarely if ever up in arms over such things. And, in any case, we see a solution, a way in which the orchestra can pay for itself.

Rather than carrying their instruments in cases, the players could move through the city making music, like a mariachi band with strings, trombones and timpani.

And if the admin staff could follow behind, shaking a hat as they go, so much the better…’

Posted: 14th, December 2005 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink