This Gob has almost nothing to do with singing abroad, but by the time you are singing abroad your career will probably have progressed to a level where this über-sexy subject has caught your attention. Yes, let me talk you through the warmed, scented massage oil that is… Value Added Tax. Mmmmmm.
Reading this could save you quite a lot of money.
There, that’s got your attention.…
All the stuff that has gone before in these Gobs – getting the work, doing it, and the logistics – those are in so many ways the easiest aspects of singing abroad. The hardest task when singing abroad is stopping yourself going out of your mind with boredom and loneliness.
“How can this be?” you are probably asking yourself. …
It’s interesting to report that of all my recent Gobs, the one that provoked the largest response from fellow old pros was the one on money. Some of them, prompted by their own experiences, felt that there were more gobbets of information that I should be sharing. I’m not remotely surprised by this. I was once at a post-concert dinner in Amsterdam where the salaried administrators were all talking about music and the working musicians (including two top composers) were talking about the best place to exchange their fees into pounds. (It used to be the Bank of Abu Dhabi near Hyde Park Corner but anti money-laundering laws came in and the bank hurriedly closed; not surprising as you could walk in with a thick envelope of foreign cash, but without any ID, and quite simply change it into pounds, and at brilliant rates. Now, if it’s cash it’s Marks and Spencer for me. Much less exotic.) …
Aled The Ashtray
Despite being a non-smoker, I own an ashtray that’s made from a piece of granite from the old London Bridge. And it’s just like Aled Jones.
No, I don’t mean that Ex Boy Soprano and TV’s “Cash In The Attic” Presenter Aled Jones has carved out a career as an object without any practical use; that he’s a crumbling fragment of his past and he’s living off his former glory. I wouldn’t do a thing like that. Uh huh. No way. Tsk.
I should explain.…
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