The Root Of Quite A Bit Of Evil

No!  Not Barney
Although, now I come to think about it - no! stop trying to change the subject.  I refer, of course, to money, which either makes the world go round or threatens to stop it spinning.  Metaphorically.  No matter how many trillions there are, they won't counteract the Earth's rotation.

The Earth.  Just so we're clear

     Now, we are going to be talking about Pink Floyd here, so if you don't like them, THE EXIT DOOR IS THAT WAY!  and, of course, some of you out there will expect a link to the track "Money" from "Dark Side Of The Moon".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48PJGVf4xqk

     Well you're not going to get it because I don't like that track and that above is a link to "One Of These Days".  
     I did a little digging about Floyd's involvement with a finance company called Norton Warburg, which makes for entertaining reading, as long as it's not your finances they're dealing with.  Okay, DSOTM picture please Art.

With a sticker for clarity

     This album saw PF make an awful lot of money, and we are talking very large sums indeed.  The coin continued to roll in thanks to their 1975 album "Wish You Were Here", and the chaps decided that they rather wanted to keep their well-gotten gains and not render them up to the taxman.

A taxman

     Enter Norton Warburg, a financial management company, who took the Floyd's money and then invested it in various high-risk ventures that universally failed.  Not only that, they whizzed that same money between different accounts, paying themselves handsome management fees each time.  Thus it was that PF found they had been ripped-off to the tune of some £2.5 million, perhaps even more - the figures are a little uncertain here.
     "A fascinating insight into money mis-management, and one of the reasons the Financial Services Act came into force.  And?" I hear you comment.
     Well, the band said goodbye to NW in 1978, but were now broke.  Not only that, they might be hit with a huge tax bill that they could not possibly pay, requiring them to become tax exiles.  Not only that, they needed the advances for "The Wall" in order to be able to, you know, eat.

Band on the Wall.  Close enough

     At which point Roger Waters decided that Rick Wright, their keyboard player, simply wasn't pulling his weight and thus had to go.  If he didn't then he, Ol' Roj, would pull the album, because he'd written nearly all of it.  Rick got a choice: contest his sacking and have to go to court (which would be expensive and remember, Norton Warburg); or go quietly and continue to get royalties.  He wisely chose the latter.

Will this do?

     He got kept on for "The Wall" tour as a paid session musician, keeping the acrimony under wraps for some time.   Until you read it here!
     There's more.  Norton Warburg didn't merely rip off the Floyd, they did the same to a whole bunch of ex-Bank of England employees, too.  The BoE was not impressed, which had consequences.
     Another consequence was NW going bankrupt in 1981, and you might well rub your hands in glee.  The collective anger of the BoE, not to mention Pink Floyd, meant that Andrew Warburg suddenly decided to take an extended holiday in Spain; no extradition treaty, you see.  When he returned to the Allotment in 1987 he was promptly prosecuted and sent to jail for 3 years.  After that he seems to have faded away, to nobody's great bother.

Except Barney's.  A nice considerate chap, Barney

     Well, I hope you enjoyed that tortured travail through the field of finance as it refers to music.  There are other stories even more torrid than the above, but I think we'll leave them for a later day.  Too much of a good thing and all that.

Lack Of Schadenfreude
As you hopefully recall, Conrad spent some time on Saturday laughing himself silly at other people getting irate about ballfoot and that Rayne Wooney chap.  54 pages of comments, that's how concerned they were.  Consequently I checked out the Comments on another sporting thread, about the Saracens beating Clermont - Rugby Union don't you know - and was severely disappointed.  Where were the trolls?  Where was the unreasoning hatred?  The bitter invective?  The - ah, whatever.

Saracens celebrating winning - something.

     No, I don't know why they're called 'Saracens'.  But here's another type of Saracen:

Probably quite good at being a full-back, too