Attempts to abolish the TV License are nothing new. So I can't see the latest effort, a petition to the Prime Minister, presenting any real hope. But I'll sign it anyway.
I'm mulling over my response to TV Licensing's latest assault on my peace of mind. The BBC Trust's website details their complaints procedure: in the initial stages this involves a circumstance so ludicrous that I'd think I had misread it, only I have checked it over and over. Of this, more gory details in a future post.
I know now that a really good stern letter will get you a respite of a year or so. Just long enough for me to have moments when I forget about the people who have been running roughshod over my peace and serenity. I was just beginning to hope that TV Licensing had finally gotten the message that I don't watch TV.
There's an article that gives me some hope. The BBC Trust has expressed concerns over the methods used by the agency, which is contracted by the BBC to collect and administer the TV Licence fee. But then I read the date on the article. I don't manage to laugh although there is some grim humour there.
A private company has the power to require action of me?
Did I miss you? No, actually
The only sense in which I'll see the back of them?
Fashions come and fashions go. It appears that, for 2009, letters from TV Licensing will be sporting a new, thinner look. A4 is just so 2008! Oh and there's a new name and a new post for the supposed letter writer, if he exists. But one thing stays the same: the content of these letters. The threats. The same logic is still there. If I don't reply their enforcement team will visit. If I do reply then they will visit. I have to say that I don't know why my 'details will be passed to the enforcement team'. They had my details long ago, along with enough authorisations to sink a battleship and refloat it afterwards.
It is this latest eruption into my otherwise peaceful life that prompts me to put my record of how TV Licensing behaves on the web. It's difficult to sleep when you are under attack and are powerless to strike back. By publicising their behaviour I may feel that I haven't just lain back and let them walk all over me. Perhaps I won't spend the night going over all of this in my head, time after time. It's not much, but maybe I'll get to sleep before dawn.
Audrey Tautou is cute. But sadly this isn't about the film of that name, or indeed about any of her films. There's nothing cute to talk about in this blog. There's a gap in the correspondence between TV Licensing and myself, that's all. I am sorry to disappoint.
And do I miss them? No, not really. I have fonder recollections of toothache. With toothache you can visit a dentist and get it excised.
Perhaps TV Licensing have decided to stop harassing me. But I don't know: after all that has happened up to this point, I feel sure that they lack the decency to apologise and end this on a civilised note. They are happy to leave me wondering whether tomorrow, or maybe the day after, the man with a search warrant is suddenly on my doorstep. So my nerves still fry. Perhaps that is the final hurt they can offer me.
First I was an engineer, then I was a programmer: neither of these professions are renowned for works of literary genius. But it happens that I do have some training: I used to write reports that went to the Ministry of Defence and to the Safety and Reliability Directorate. I won't ever win a Pulitzer Prize, but I am more than barely literate.
Here it is, the letter I hope will repel all hostile invaders. Because it is serious now, I put the letter together after careful thought. It costs an extra pound to send it by registered delivery, but I want them to be absolutely certain that I am not going to be easily crushed, and the Post Office will roll their eyes a bit if TV Licensing deny having received it.
I don't want to be pen pals but it seems we must.
I omitted the normal ending of 'yours sincerely'. Petty really, but 'sincerely' didn't seem to cover it and any words that would seemed abusive. Perhaps I should have outlined something in their favourite shade of 'stern but fair' red. TV Licensing seem to like that.
What really concerns me at this moment is that I am educated, and I can be articulate when sufficiently motivated. Hit me with a stick for long enough and I will fight back, and I have a fair chance of winning. But what happens to someone who doesn't have those characteristics: whose only sin is that they don't watch TV? I would have thought that this would be a matter of grave concern to the people in authority whose business it is to protect the average citizen. But TV licensing have been doing what they do for years. It seems the authorities, and the BBC, approve.
Am I paranoid? I'd say almost certainly yes. Perhaps it's the effect that TV Licensing have had on me. This has affected me, changed me. And remember, this hasn't been just for a year or two: my record of it starts when I moved house, but its been going on for longer.
I still don't know who that man in my porch was. But the next letter seems to imply that TV Licensing have been round. Was it them? Could their 'detection equipment' be a trespassing ear pressed to my front door? Strangers aren't in the habit of sheltering in my porch: perhaps this is a remarkable coincidence. I can't prove anything.
A New Friend In My Life That I Really Didn't Want
I have to say that at this point things are really scary. This is no form letter, this is close and it is personal now. I don't watch TV and I don't do anything that would require me to have a TV license. And yet these people claim to 'have reasonable grounds to believe that television receiving equipment is being used at this address'. So if the court finds me guilty based on these - unspecified - grounds I face a fine each and every time TV Licensing decide to prosecute me. I can't throw away a TV I don't possess. I can't stop watching TV programs when I never have watched them.
But there's a few things here that raise my spirits as I look over the letter. There's no reference at the top: in my day any competent bureaucrat would use a reference. And then, their threat is that they will get a search warrant, and even then they are only 'considering' doing it. So I doubt they think they have any grounds at all. And to cap it all, nobody at TV Licensing remembers to sign the letter. It's a lot more scary when you think the people attacking you are competent.
So maybe it's a search warrant next, and then they visit. But I doubt it, their record so far leaves me with little confidence of that. In fact, from what I've experienced, a visit is the one thing that is not going to occur. As usual there's the usual demand for money accompanying the threats. I won't pay, I'll send them a letter back. And this time I will exert myself.
It's evening, it's dark and it's cold. I'm sat at my computer playing an online game. Ever had that weird feeling that someone's there? That chill when the hair on the back of your neck stands up? That happens to me now. I don't believe in a sixth sense, so maybe I heard something that didn't properly register: but I am not alone. It's scary, but even so I'm hardly believing what is happening as I head to the door.
I open the front door, and there, inside my porch, stands a total stranger. Middle aged, slightly built, narrow face, short brownish hair. I stare at him, he looks at me. He hands me the free newspaper that's been on the floor of the porch since it was dropped there two hours ago. I'm in shock. He doesn't say anything, he leaves as I stand there gawping.
Have I finally met a member of my local enforcement team? Are they really capable of committing trespass? Or do their inspectors have a special vocation to gather up errant newspapers? I don't know, even now I don't know what to think. But I did get a good long look at him, an oh so very close look, so I'll know him if I see him again.
My porch is enclosed. You have to open a door to get inside it. And I never found anyone lurking in my porch before, and I haven't since. But surely it can't be a man from TV Licensing? They have been informed they have no right of access and have accepted this.
As I said before I just gawped. So I am not a man of action, and that inescapable conclusion depresses me. When I was a young man I wanted to be the tough guy. Nothing unusual in that. At the time, the martial arts were popular, so I joined a Karate club. A lot of people did that, but they'd usually quit after a few months. I stuck at it and I got my black belt. We'd travel down to Crystal Palace and compete in the Nationals. We'd lose. On the nights before the Nationals we'd practise Kata, our opponents would practise Kumite. We competed in the Kumite. I never became a tough guy, but I've met a few.
It's time to look at why I won't just pay for a license that I don't need. I could get them to go away by doing that. Isn't that really their game all along? The explanation requires a little family history.
My father was in Military Intelligence in Europe just after WW2. He wasn't some master spy, just a young man doing his national service. But he happened to have some talent for foreign languages, and so he found himself chasing after people who had murdered, or sent away to be murdered, thousands of people. It was all very different from life as a schoolboy in the heart of England, and he came away profoundly changed by the experience. He passed on to me the idea that it is not enough to just do what everyone else does, or to stand by, to do nothing. When you meet with bad people, when you meet them anywhere, any time of day, you must stand up to them.
We aren't talking genocide here, but for me TV Licensing are classed as bad people. If anyone disagrees with that, then I'd like to know why. Because I really don't see anything to excuse their behaviour. And if you think like them, can see the logic behind the way they operate, then explain to me why it's OK to intrude into my life, and make me unhappy, over the funding for a broadcaster. And do that for years. What kind of person are you?
So I'm not going to pay for that license (that I don't need) just because they are hounding me. That would only prove the method works, and encourage TV Licensing to do more of the same to more people. Once I am cowed the game isn't over: it will be time for them to move on to the next household on their list.
So let's look at what came through the letterbox in June 2007.
Old Friends Stay In Touch
So 'despite our previous correspondence, there is still no TV License at this address'. And despite our previous correspondence TV Licensing still don't understand that I do not watch TV, so I do not need one.
An Enforcement Officer is planning to visit me shortly. As he has no right of access to my property he'd better bring a warrant, else he's breaking the law. Should I phone the police and inform them TV Licensing are planning to commit a crime?
And then it goes quiet. For months I hear nothing from TV Licensing. I start to relax, some of the tension goes. My mood picks up. Perhaps TV Licensing have finally decided to leave me alone.
But in old Westerns there's a grizzled old sergeant who will tell you that it's too quiet. He's avoided a scalping several times so I should listen to him. Because TV Licensing have me on their list. I am not free of them.
I went to a series of meetings in Whitehall once. In the middle were the men from the ministry. My team were the good team. The Taxpayer had bought some equipment and it didn't work very well. Sitting opposite us were the team from the other side. They had explanations. It wasn't their fault. At one point they even said it was me that broke it. But we had the logs. They couldn't explain how I broke it while I was hundreds of miles away, on the plane going up to Glasgow. I'd like to tell you more, but there's this thing called the Official Secrets Act, and I signed that when I was 21. Maybe I just broke the law by telling you that. Its a long time ago now, and I really don't remember where the boundaries are.
TV Licensing have meetings. They must have. The bosses can't just allow their underlings to run riot. They have to direct what is going on. My point is that I have been in meetings with what I consider to be bad people. I think I know how they operate.
So let's see what fun TV licensing put me through in May 2007. Did that action get beyond impending and actually occur? Apparently not. It seems that a mere investigation is not enough. But May did turn out to be a busy month
I Keep My 2998908642th Place
Is there a difference between an investigation and a full investigation? Or is this merely another form letter that's been sent out to thousands of households? It seems that no matter what I do TV Licensing will keep sending me these letters threatening me with a visit, and then not show up.
It is good to see that my unlicensed property number has remainded stable (its in the reference at top right) for this month. So Michelle is not the inconstant flirt I was beginning to think she was. But I'm not playing any more: if I withdraw their presumed right of access to my property perhaps I can nudge them out of form letter mode and into genuine action. And as I'm writing to them anyway, I'll inform them about my circumstances.
So here's my letter to them
It's not a well written letter. Much of it is simply cut and pasted from other people's that you can find on the internet. But it makes things pretty clear: shut up or come round with a warrant.
They respond and it looks like they at least recognise that the law applies to them too!
TV Licensing Know The Law
A citizen of ancient Athens would be expected to march out to battle with his fellows until he reached the age of 45. I am well past that age now. I would be condemned to line the city walls with the toothless old men and youths, and watch the phalanx marching proudly out. The Athenians had a point: I am not up for a fight like once I was.
So lets step back into the dark side and see what TV Licensing got up to in April 2007. Oh, those unnecessary, alarming, aggressive phrases are spreading to the envelope now. Maybe the postman needs to know about this as well.
Contagious Phrases
Do You Need To Read It to Know What is Says?
At this point they have annoyed me so much I have to respond. The innocent telephone survives a short battering as I phone 0870 241 7204. I press a few options as directed, and get put through to a speech recognition system. That works surprisingly well, managing to understand sentences spoken in a clipped snarl. But the automated system doesn't give me a 'no TV license required' option, and then the system tells me it can't connect me to a human being. Not because its scared of the emotional caller, but because it's broken. Silly me: money from the call goes to TV Licensing and I, fool that I am, have wasted money on a premium rate phone call. CaChing! And the phone does well to survive ungenerous handling as it is replaced.
I am now unlicensed property number 2998908642. Good to know that. But I thought I was 2926392796. have I really dropped back some seventy million places in Michelle's affections? These people hurt you in the most unexpected ways!
I must just simmer down and wait. At least the Enforcement Division will be proceeding with an investigation of the address. Action is impending: so is this the end of the beginning, or the beginning of the end?
Besides all this, a hundred men in silk gowns stood swaying from side to side and making speeches. These were the lawyers who served at the bar, pleading their causes for as much money as they could get. Never once did they open their mouths out of love for our Lord; indeed you could sooner measure the mist on the Malvern Hills, than get a sound out of them without first producing some cash! William Langland, Piers the Ploughman.
The Malvern Hills have not changed so very much since the fourteenth century, but has our legal system? In the UK we are supposed to be shielded by the Protection from Harassment Act but I fear that this does not seem to apply to mere mortals such as myself. Perhaps it only applies to people who watch TV. I must read through it more carefully.
So how did that visit from the Enforcement Team go?
Oh dear, still no show. Just another letter. The second letter from them in one month.
How TV Licensing Apologised For Their No Show
But now look more closely. Take your time: did you spot it? They have sent the same letter as they did in January. You may now have realised something. What I say will matter and may be held against me. But TV Licensing will put things down in print and you will find that it is just not what is going to happen. Can it really be that TV Licensing have created an automated system for lying to people?
Fabrication A fabrication is a lie told when someone submits a statement as truth, without knowing for certain whether or not it actually is true. Although the statement may be possible or plausible, it is not based on fact. Rather, it is something made up, or it is a misrepresentation of the truth.
Deja Vu
In my next post I will move forward to April because that's when it really hots up.
My Mum's just got Digital TV and there's a History Channel on it. She knows I'm a history fan, so I watched it at her house with her. Jaw dropping, really. If you are talking about Cleopatra nowadays it seems you have to have an actress dressed up as an ancient Egyptian and looking, well, stern. And if you are talking about Julius Caesar then you have an actor dressed up as a Roman and looking, well, stern again. Apparently Mark Anthony was pretty stern too (and there you go, I thought he was a bit of a lad).
The title of this blog entry is taken from the opening words of a series called The World At War. World At War was made during the golden era of TV, and it is still considered to be a benchmark for TV documentaries. It's so good that I have the entire series on DVD. In the special features on the DVD set, the producer, Jeremy Isaacs, laid down his rules for the making of the series.
'The reconstruction of history on film is not only, unless it is clearly labelled, deceptive in itself; it also devalues authentic material used alongside it.'
It's good to know that these words of wisdom have been properly digested by modern programme makers. Not.
So back to February 2007 and ..... No! those authorised regional officers didn't visit. I think you were probably beginning to suspect they wouldn't. But look at the letter, honestly, they will be visiting me soon.
Oh Michelle! So little time together, and yet I think I know you so well.
What a relief, we can resolve this soon then. Even better, they tell me there's an enforcement team just for the small, middle class, relatively law-abiding town that I live in. With so few people to 'attend to', it really, really cannot be long now. But no, wait. My belief in my neighbours is shattered. TV Licensing have caught no less than 1318 people in the last three months alone. It's anarchy here!
It's raining heavily as I write this. I like rain: as long as I don't happen to be out in it. The ozone-fresh smell in the air makes you feel alive, a minor resurrection to someone in their fifties like me. But I can't enjoy the rain today. The way TV Licensing is attacking me, intruding into my otherwise happy life, has an impact. You know how you feel when the brain releases chemicals into your body, to improve your chances of survival, when there's danger? Well thats how I'm feeling now. Worked up. And it's because of an organisation, and people, who have no business with me. So let us see what TV Licensing chose to do to my January 2007, because that's the next record in my file.
One Of Those Official Warnings - Again
Sadly the Enforcement Officers appear to have been delayed. What could have happened? As so often with TV Licensing I can only speculate: perhaps they were insufficiently authorised, or just too darned busy. If its the latter then, oddly enough, they can still find time to write me the letters that stress me so. And, sadly, there's no explanation for the lack of a visit in the letter. In fact, it looks like another variation on the same theme as the previous letters.
Oh but wait a minute! Now its Michelle Tunstall the 'Head of TV Licensing Enforcement Division'. What happened to John Robinson: has he really given up on me so soon? Or do these people take it in turns to send out the letters that I find so horrible? I don't know if they get some kind of perverse pleasure in sending them, but I know I do not enjoy receiving them.
Still, as the Enforcement Officers have been authorised a bit more now, we can rest assured that the process of 'ordeal by letter' will soon be over. Perhaps we just needed that little bit of extra authorisation to ease things along. And I would think that simple decency dictates that some officers will arrive soon. But I find myself beginning to wonder if it will ever happen.
And what exactly is an 'Official Warning'? What does that mean when it comes from a private organisation that supposedly has no more powers under UK law than the bakery down the road from me?
My Mum is in her late seventies now and I look in on her most days. When I'm at her house I get to see glimpses of the TV she is watching. The latest thing is a programme where they open boxes in a random order. And that's about it: that's the show, and it's night after night, just in case you hadn't seen enough of it after two minutes like I had. My Mum's not a fan either: she struggles to find things she wants to watch. But at her age a night on the town isn't an alternative.
Well, let us step back to the heady days of November 2006 and see what happened with TV Licensing then. I have a surprise for you all. TV Licensing were all out of regional officers, unless perhaps they come in brown paper envelopes and can pass through my letterbox. Here's what arrived instead. Lets assume that it isn't a regional officer in some fiendish disguise, its just another of those letters from TV Licensing
The Enforcement Division Strikes Back
So what happened? TV Licensing said nothing about continuing to badger me with these letters. Surely this doesn't constitute the investigation by their 'Enforcement Division' that they referred to? To me this seems to be nothing more than continued harassment via the post. Only now its John Robinson of the Birmingham Enforcement Division, rather than Suzanne Avent of Customer Services, who is sending me letters I would much rather not be receiving.
The good news here is it won't be long before the matter will be resolved. The letter tells me that the Enforcement Officers have been authorised to visit me. Thank heavens, the anxious waiting will soon be over. In my next post we will see what happened when those 'Enforcement Officers' visited - presumably with authorisation at the ready.
I'm going to move forward to the point when, just a few years ago, I moved house. The process I describe is, in its initial stages at least, similar to that experienced at my previous residence. Only I still possess all the documentation for this time around.
Most of us have a pretty routine, mundane life. We may have a few crises: but life generally plods on without major ructions in a civilised country where the individual has rights, where the law exists to protect as well as to prosecute.
Things are happy and sedate in my new home. The living room is decorated in a fetching pink that doesn't quite fit with its new male occupant. So I might have to get round to decorating some day, but thats about it: all is generally peace and quiet. And then, one day in September 2006, a letter arrives for me out of the blue. This one:
TV Licensing Asks Me A Question
It's a Two Page Question
The first time (about ten years before) I ever saw a letter like this it was a shock. But now I just felt angry. Let's look at this letter and see what the options are if you don't watch TV:
What if you do not use TV equipment at this address? Please call us on 0870 241 8209 and let us know. We will arrange a visit to confirm the situation, following which we will update our records.
So lets see. If you tell them you don't use a TV they will send their people round to 'confirm the situation'. And that is exactly the same thing they say they are going to do if you ignore them, only they charge you a premium rate phone call for the privilege. Oh, and if you look on the back of the letter you can, instead, waste a postage stamp for the same lack of effect.
Well, at least they say they will visit. My experience, from my previous address, is that whatever I do now they'll keep directing stuff like this at me. The only way to stop them would be to buy a TV license, even though I do not require one. And how do I know I don't require one? I go to the TVL website where they inform us all:
You need a TV Licence to use any television receiving equipment such as a TV set, set-top boxes, video or DVD recorders, computers or mobile phones to watch or record TV programmes as they are being shown on TV.
If you use a set-top box with a hi-fi system or another device that can only be used to produce sounds and can't display TV programmes, and you don't install or use any other TV receiving equipment, you don't need a TV Licence.
*The advice has been updated and is now clearer as to the use of the internet and downloads.
Phew that's me covered then. I definitely don't need one. I'm not going to ring their premium rate line so they can take money from me just by sending me letters like this. So regional officers will be scheduled to visit my address, which seems to me to be the best result. I don't have a TV, so one quick invasion of my privacy and the thing will be resolved.
In my next post let us see what happens when the 'regional officer' visits.
A long time ago, I used to come in from work and flop down in front of the TV. It might be hard now for any intelligent person to believe that people did that back then. But as John Cleese recently remarked:
But I do proudly say that in the 60s, 70s and 80s we did have the least bad television in the world, and that’s quite a claim.
Then something happened - TV got broke. Not my set, but TV in general. Michael Cox in his book, A Study In Celluloid, A Producer's Account Of Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes gives an insider's account of what occurred.
Since the launch of ITV in 1955, the BBC and the Independent companies had shared a cosy duopoly. Both institutions had public service obligations, particularly in the area of news and factual programming in peak time. ITV also had a carefully defined regional structure which encouraged coverage of the world outside London and the development of talent from the provinces. The renewal of each regional franchise depended on the extent to which these standards were upheld. The result was a very successful mixture of entertainment and information, funded by advertising income but not driven by it.
The Broadcasting Act of 1990 was to sweep all that away in order to expand the private sector... ... All this inevitably produced the British television we enjoy today, in which ratings and cost efficiency are all-important and programme decisions are taken by schedulers and accountants.
To meet this challenge the ITV companies felt obliged to shake out the people who had given them thirty-five years of respectable success and replace them with a new breed whose cultural horizons were bounded by laptop computers and mobile telephones.
We had arrived in a new age when television was now targeted at the lowest common denominator. People like me, that's a lot of people, were no longer thought to be worth making programmes for. My realisation of this was a gradual process. I spent less time watching programmes, more time flicking through channels, trying to find something worth watching. Eventually I stopped expecting to find anything, instead I'd read the TV guide and plan to watch specific programmes. The problem was that often I'd realise at perhaps 9.00 I'd missed that programme at 8.30 that might have been worth watching. And if I remembered any great interval of time before 8.30 I'd not want to watch the rubbish that was guaranteed to preceed it.
I didn't realise it immediately, but it dawned on me eventually that TV was, for me, no longer an entertainment but rather an irritation that I could do without. I got rid of my TV set and that should have been that.
Only it wasn't.
There is a body of people who go by the name of the TV Licensing, TVL for short. As someone who does not watch TV I would have thought that they have no business with me. But TV Licensing has a different opinion. Their's, apparently, is the only opinion that counts. And in my next post we will begin to discover what that means for any UK householder who does not watch TV.
