Who Was That Dark Stranger?

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.