No Rock And Roll Fun

THE COMPENSATION CULTURE: It's only going to be a matter of time before we start seeing adverts of a Declan Swain nature: "Have you ever appeared on a record and feel you've been jibbed? Did your music teacher make you sing some "alley alley os" on a folk tune? Do you feel you have the right to some money? Call claim4royalties now..."

This, of course, is in the light of some of the kids who appeared chanting moronically on the fantastically over-rated Another Brick In The Wall have now popped up demanding their share of the cash. We don't know if they feel they were cheated - we're picturing a sillhouetted talking head murmuring "We woz told it were a proper campaign against over-use of dark sarcasm in the classroom, we didn't know it were just a song" - or if they're trying it on.

We're not very sure where the legal opinion will fall on this one: the school they came (Islington Green School) from did get a thousand pounds, and we'd have thought that there would be the done deal: the kids were minors, the school was acting in loco parentis and acted as their guardians; albeit guardians who put the cash towards school funds. (And isn't there something glorious knowing that a song which supposedly railed against education ended up funding the minibus for geography field trips and a set of Ich Kann's German text books?)

On the other hand: the headmistress hadn't given permission, and wasn't happy with the whole business, so maybe the school wasn't acting as guardian at all. In which case, surely the kids should be claiming the money from the school rather than the royalty societies?