Decommissioning the telly

[sojournermike]

Since then I've cited Entick v Carrington 1765

Bet he didn't have a telly either! Cheeky blighters.

[ian]

I have a telly though. Herr TV van Detector can see that through the window (as the path to the porch and front door goes right by it). There's not much detecting to be had on that score. There's also a ginormous aerial (and satellite dish) on the side of the house (as I live on the side of a steep valley). But I don't watch terrestrial TV, just DVDs and Amazon/Netflix. I am a child of the future, DVDs aside. I wear shades indoors. I'm that cool. Either that or the heating's off.

The aerial isn't connected to the TV (it's not connected to the socket, the coax is just coiled up where it appears in the cupboard of ineffable mysteries in the annex to the asbestos palace). So I guess I could invite Herr van Detector into my house (generally I'm wary about this, I spend a lot more of my day than the average person worrying about vampires) and shove him into the cupboard. There's no actual handle on the inside, if I recall, so I might forget to let him out (I was going to say her, but locking ladies in cupboards is frowned upon, and usually a segue into an Hollywood movie featuring Morgan Freeman and, oh, it going to get complicated).

I'm not sure what he'd be proving, I could – even with my limited technical competence – uncoil the cable and scrabble it back into the arse-end of the socket and have the TV sucking up terrestrial TV quicker than a zombie with a bucket of brains and a straw.

[davelodwig]

I phoned them once when they sent me an aggressive letter marked to the occupier.

The person on the phone asked for my name, they were surprised when I declined on the basis of as I didn't have a TV there was no need for them to hold any personal information on my person and that further attempts to hold information of which there was no requirement for them to hold would result in a letter to the information commissioner.

But I've not received any more letters or visits.

D.

[hellymedic]

My fifteen seconds of fame came when I read out a non-TV grink for 'You and Yours' in 1998...

[sojournermike]

From the BBC's policy on the TV Licensing website

9. Detection and Search Warrant Procedures

9.1 Detection and search warrants will be used as a means of last resort where:
there is reason to assume that television receiving equipment at the
address is being used to receive television programme services AND
it is believed that access to the premises will never be gained.

9.2 Detection will be carried out in accordance with the BBC Policy on the
Authorisation and Operation of Detection Equipment under the Regulation of
Investigatory Powers Act 2000. Search warrants will be executed in
accordance with the relevant TV Licensing search warrant policy.


Interestingly the wording at the start has needed to be updated to allow you have equipment capable of receiving, even if you don't use it to receive. That's a step on, but makes it hard for them to enforce when someone has equipment, but doesn't use it for live TV. Short of peeping through the curtains or using the detector van it's  a case of my word against their assumption.

Reasonably, if you want to watch live TV then you sould pay the licence fee. We have a licence, but it's really for the benefit of the rest of the family...

[Cudzoziemiec]

Perhaps in time the licence fee will become payable by anyone having an internet connection. Or levied as a part of council tax or similar. Or, maybe more likely, the BBC will be made commercially funding.

[rafletcher]

Perhaps in time the licence fee will become payable by anyone having an internet connection. Or levied as a part of council tax or similar. Or, maybe more likely, the BBC will be made commercially funding.

As in France.

[ian]

So basically they'd have to crash through the window like the SAS and catch me in flagrante delicto with an episode of Crimewatch (double points for irony).

I'm not sure how they can reasonably prove I'm watching broadcast TV short of me inviting them in for the cup of tea and an episode of EastEnders. Hobnob, Herr van Detector? Maybe they have a giant ear thing (like they had during the war to listen for the throaty of warble of Herr Messerschmitt's approach) that listens for the open notes of the EastEnders theme tune at precisely the moment it is broadcast. That would be cool. They should spend licence payers money not on more celebrity crap but a giant ear trumpet the size of four double-deckers. Or perhaps an olympic swimming pool (I'm not sure on the SI unit for giant theme-tune detection trumpets). I'd pony up the cash for cool shit like that.

[Otto]

I just cancelled my direct debit and told the my 86 year old mother in law was now living with us...  result!

[Kim]

I'm not sure how they can reasonably prove I'm watching broadcast TV short of me inviting them in for the cup of tea and an episode of EastEnders. Hobnob, Herr van Detector? Maybe they have a giant ear thing (like they had during the war to listen for the throaty of warble of Herr Messerschmitt's approach) that listens for the open notes of the EastEnders theme tune at precisely the moment it is broadcast. That would be cool. They should spend licence payers money not on more celebrity crap but a giant ear trumpet the size of four double-deckers. Or perhaps an olympic swimming pool (I'm not sure on the SI unit for giant theme-tune detection trumpets). I'd pony up the cash for cool shit like that.

The technology exists.  I seriously doubt they ever bother to use it.  Much simpler to keep a list of addresses and intimidate people occasionally.

I've reported before on the time I met an unattended TV detector van up close and personal.  It was an empty (apart from some sandwiches) minibus with blacked out windows, enormous TV Licensing logo and implausible (to anyone with a basic understanding of RF) looking aerials stuck on.  Seems to me that the most important piece of equipment there was the enormous TV Licensing logo...

[andrewc]

I have cancelled my direct debit,  I have ticked the box on their web page that says "don't have a TV"....

When I got home tonight I found a shifty looking chap lurking outside my front door,    in the letter box was a missive warning me of he consequences of not having a license...

Spoke to chap,  "Oh, I've cleared your entry on my PDA, so can't record the fact that you state you don't have a TV, you'll have to call them...."

I was tempted to ask him in to see for himself,  making him walk up the 8 flights of stairs would have been a fitting punishment ......

[ian]

I'm not sure how they can reasonably prove I'm watching broadcast TV short of me inviting them in for the cup of tea and an episode of EastEnders. Hobnob, Herr van Detector? Maybe they have a giant ear thing (like they had during the war to listen for the throaty of warble of Herr Messerschmitt's approach) that listens for the open notes of the EastEnders theme tune at precisely the moment it is broadcast. That would be cool. They should spend licence payers money not on more celebrity crap but a giant ear trumpet the size of four double-deckers. Or perhaps an olympic swimming pool (I'm not sure on the SI unit for giant theme-tune detection trumpets). I'd pony up the cash for cool shit like that.

The technology exists.  I seriously doubt they ever bother to use it.  Much simpler to keep a list of addresses and intimidate people occasionally.

I've reported before on the time I met an unattended TV detector van up close and personal.  It was an empty (apart from some sandwiches) minibus with blacked out windows, enormous TV Licensing logo and implausible (to anyone with a basic understanding of RF) looking aerials stuck on.  Seems to me that the most important piece of equipment there was the enormous TV Licensing logo...

I've seen the insides of Herr van Detector's chariot too (as I think I may have reported). Back in the lost epoch of the studentocene I was banished to the land of Kenny (that's Liverpool L7). Back in the day Kenny was the area of Liverpool that people on Toxteth estates used to talk about in hushed tones. You keep robbing them cars, little Jimmy, and you'll end up in Kenny, they'd threaten errant children. Probably. It was a bit rough anyway, our landlord was a bona fide gangster and he never walked alone.

Some bout of endearing optimism sent Herr van Detector and his mighty chariot of righteousness into the midst of Kenny. I'm not sure what they expected but when I arrived home there was an upside down van being kicked into next week by about fifty kids. Then their brothers and dads turned up. There wasn't much left other than the paintwork by the time police finally turned up (not having an armoured division, they used to wait until it was safe). Anyway, there was no technology worth nicking, it was just an empty van with the logo on the side. Once the police retreated the kids came back out and set fire to it.

I don't think they came back.

[andrewc]

I've seen the insides of Herr van Detector's chariot too (as I think I may have reported). Back in the lost epoch of the studentocene I was banished to the land of Kenny (that's Liverpool L7). Back in the day Kenny was the area of Liverpool that people on Toxteth estates used to talk about in hushed tones. You keep robbing them cars, little Jimmy, and you'll end up in Kenny, they'd threaten errant children. Probably. It was a bit rough anyway, our landlord was a bona fide gangster and he never walked alone.

Some bout of endearing optimism sent Herr van Detector and his mighty chariot of righteousness into the midst of Kenny. I'm not sure what they expected but when I arrived home there was an upside down van being kicked into next week by about fifty kids. Then their brothers and dads turned up. There wasn't much left other than the paintwork by the time police finally turned up (not having an armoured division, they used to wait until it was safe). Anyway, there was no technology worth nicking, it was just an empty van with the logo on the side. Once the police retreated the kids came back out and set fire to it.

I don't think they came back.

I'm technically in Kenny (L7 postcode) but geographically closer to Tockey...    the old tenements between Crown St & Grove St.

[gerwinium]

Pedantry compels me to point out that it's either Herr von Detector or Meneer van Detector.

I should get out more.

[ian]

I've seen the insides of Herr van Detector's chariot too (as I think I may have reported). Back in the lost epoch of the studentocene I was banished to the land of Kenny (that's Liverpool L7). Back in the day Kenny was the area of Liverpool that people on Toxteth estates used to talk about in hushed tones. You keep robbing them cars, little Jimmy, and you'll end up in Kenny, they'd threaten errant children. Probably. It was a bit rough anyway, our landlord was a bona fide gangster and he never walked alone.

Some bout of endearing optimism sent Herr van Detector and his mighty chariot of righteousness into the midst of Kenny. I'm not sure what they expected but when I arrived home there was an upside down van being kicked into next week by about fifty kids. Then their brothers and dads turned up. There wasn't much left other than the paintwork by the time police finally turned up (not having an armoured division, they used to wait until it was safe). Anyway, there was no technology worth nicking, it was just an empty van with the logo on the side. Once the police retreated the kids came back out and set fire to it.

I don't think they came back.

I'm technically in Kenny (L7 postcode) but geographically closer to Tockey...    the old tenements between Crown St & Grove St.

I'm sure it's improved, though a brief peruse of Google maps leads to believe my student digs haven't changed so much in last few decades (I think it's the one with the likely lad outside, because I remember climbing that lamp post in an other-flatmate sponsored attempt to spoil one of my flatmate's attempts to get off with a girl). It used to be a home brew supply 'store' that our landlord owned which somehow fell foul of the law on the technicality that the booze had managed to brew itself in the space between him setting up the enterprise and Liverpool's finest coming around to say hello. I know this because he used us to dispose of much of the evidence. The shop below was thereafter used to store things that had previously had one careless owner.

I'm pretty sure mine and David Cameron's university days had much commonality.

[andrewc]

   Ah, just up the road from the Royal*  No where near good enough for today's students,  .  The city is being taken over by newbuild student flats with all mod cons.  http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=584695&page=27  and Liverpool University is expanding massively.     When If the Chinese economy collapses there's going to be a lot of empty spaces.   

* Also due for demolition, when they've moved to their new buildings http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=539859&page=28

[ian]

   Ah, just up the road from the Royal*  No where near good enough for today's students,  .  The city is being taken over by newbuild student flats with all mod cons.  http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=584695&page=27  and Liverpool University is expanding massively.     When If the Chinese economy collapses there's going to be a lot of empty spaces.   

* Also due for demolition, when they've moved to their new buildings http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=539859&page=28

Given that it was twenty five-ish years ago, I'd imagined our Kenny abode had somehow been converted to a contemporary lateral living experience, but I guess not. It looks worse. I'm pretty sure we had windows. I fondly remember scuttling across the Royal's carpark to get to the showers in the student union every morning (our bath had cement in it).

Anyway, I don't think we had a TV licence. We did have a TV at some point, some giant behemoth that survived on account that there was no scally strong enough to lift it. You weren't getting that fucker out of the window. Plus we never got burgled in Kenny owing to the protective spell cast by Norman and his baseball bat and garden implement-wielding henchmen. The fish and chip shop a few doors down wouldn't even take our money. You good friends of Norman, they'd say. We felt bad about that unless we were drunk and hungry. Sorry about all the pies, dear chip shop owners.