Cancelled
Spotify cancelled my account Sunday. Both the podcaster section and my own listener one. My followers will have to carry on listening via SubStack, or find Raven’s Readings on Apple, YouTube, Alexa, etc. And I’ll start listening to Amazon Music. I’ll add the gory details farther down.
Drunk paddling
Apparently, drunk driving on the water can affect your automobile driving licence. Even in a canoe. North of here, on Golden Lake, a canoist was charged with being impaired while operating a ‘conveyance’ and lost his licence for 90 days. Both he and the canoe were tipsy. He had capsized in high winds and was found on shore, with no life jacket.
Tariffs
MtlBlog did an article on 10 things Canadians have reported that they stopped buying. Are you on this list?
Tipping - An H&R Block survey found 82% of us think it’s out of control, not only with the initial base prices higher before tipping, but then with suggested prompts starting at 18%.
Hockey tickets - Prices do keep rising for the games, as well as food and drink. Ditto for concerts. I’m not sure it’s a tariff issue, though. Hockey players used to be an export, not an import.
Fruit - Especially small containers, although frozen is still an option. Or those syrupy canned peaches.
Housing - Prices are rising, plus less of it is actually affordable as tariffs eat into our budgets.
McDonald’s, etc - As prices rise in all fast food places, those ‘value’ meals aren’t really a value. Plus, there’s that tipping.
Month in review
A look at May’s videos and movies for me. I use Trakt for tracking, but I still may have missed a few. Have you watched these? Should I do this for June?
Ongoing (some)
The Gilded Age - It’s 1882 and the Gilded Age is in full swing. Set in an opulent New York, sort of a Downtown Abbey meets Dallas. Lots of intrigue, but romance and humour too. Season 2 ended favourably in my eyes. #3 will start to dribble out soon. 8/10 so far
Murderbot - I liked the sci-fi book. At 23 minutes a week, this series will take a while to see to the end, though. 7/10
Altered Carbon - After 250 years on ice, a prisoner returns to life in a new body with one chance to win his freedom: by solving a mind-bending murder. Book was good. This is good too, but long. 7/10 so far.
Outpost - “A warrior rises. A legend unfolds.” Interesting, but only 6/10 so far, on Season 2 of 4. Might disappear in my next purge.
Kleo - After the fall of the Berlin Wall, a former East German spy resolves to find out who betrayed her and why — and use her lethal skills to exact revenge. German, with subtitles. Season 1, 8/10. #2 is online.
Done
Twenty Twelve - Hugh Bonneville, Olivia Coleman - The tirals and tribulations of preparation for the London Olympics 8/10
W1A - Follow-up to 2012, it’s a very good ‘re-imagining’ of the BBC. 9/10
Killing Eve - My second pass is done of Season 1-4. I’m sure I will repeat. The novels were also excellent, as is the sequel to be published soon.
Annika Bengtzon: Crime Reporter - Swedish. Only one season, but 8/10
The Station Agent - slow, but good. With Peter Dinklage 8/10
The Goes Wrong Show - a spoof of all the bloopers possible in theatre. Season 1, 9/10. Season 2, 5/10
MEC is Canadian
FYI - in case you missed it, Canada’s favourite co-op hiking store is ours again. Founded in 1971, Mountain Equipment Co-op was sold in 2020 to a US capital management firm, after entering creditor protection. It did OK, but there was less MEC branded stuff. It’s now owned by a group of Canadian investors, including a textile manufacturer and two of MEC‘s own executives. Here’s a link to their Canadian-based outdoor brands.
My Spotify Story
I started podcasting The Big Sleep, by Philip Marlow, a while ago. It’s in the Public Domain here in Canada. Episode 1 of the Big Sleep had not been flagged, #2 was, and blocked, with a vague reference to a possible copyright infringement. No further details were supplied, even after my requests, as I suspect it was all some internal bot’s issue. Episode #3 was also flagged, with the option to explain why I believed I had the rights. I included links to Canadian copyright law as well as the relevant part of the Berne Convention, and they said, “Thanks for your response, you’re still wrong and the episode is blocked”. #4 was flagged, same response exchanges between us, but #5 went up fine on Friday, so I assume the bot was happy this time. Nope, on Sunday, my account was cancelled for repeated TOS violations. Cancelled completely.
I almost hesitate to point it out, but none of the other channels have complained. This whole exchange with Spotify seems like either arguing with a customer bot, or a real but indifferent person, with no discussion of the content of my responses, and with their default position being when in doubt, just delete the problem.
My podcasts are free and done for fun, and this channel was maybe 4%, so no loss. But as a listener, being dropped after paying for Spotify for many years and creating a lot of playlists and collections is annoying. I'll survive. I’m on Amazon Music Unlimited now - same price and better audio quality. And I also have over 3000 tunes from my own collection, so I won’t be tuneless.