Licences

There's this funny old thing in Britain called a TV licence. Now the TV licence, if memory serves me correct, and every so often it does, costs about £8 a month over ten months and it is used to fund that great British institution the BBC, affectionately known as Auntie Beeb or just Auntie.

No-one wants the BBC to have to be ruled by sponsorship money or to take in advertising like an old washerwoman taking in dirty laundry, and by no-one I do of course mean me. This would compromise the integrity of the BBC.

But the existence of a licence outside of the main taxation system means that there is a whole industry whose job is to seek out defaulters, travel the streets in little vans with high-tech detecting equipment on the top, giving out extraordinarily large fines for anyone found to be watching TV who is not on their database as having bought a licence. And there are adverts for this too, although more 'information' than advertising, showing luckless residents hiding in backstreets doing evil.

And this spin-off industry, we are told, is now in overdrive as the country grinds to a halt during World Cup matches. Companies who do not normally have television sets on the premises and who therefore have no licence, have incurred the wrath of the detector vans - like daleks or cylons these must have independent existence. They have installed TV sets so that their employes can watch the footie during working hours.

Now it seems to me that the main offence here isn't the watching of the football without a licence, but surely...isn't it....having your workforce stop work to watch? Isn't this what people are supposed to do in their own time?

We are always being told how many hours are lost to British industry due to backpain or period pain or flu or the common cold. Will we be seeing a bill for hours lost to World Cup watching? Ah probably not, I imagine it comes with a get out of gaol free card.

But still, before I pondered that I was going to suggest that maybe the whole TV licence thing had had its day. Perhaps the BBC should just be funded by general taxation, save all the money spent on chasing down little old ladies who have forgotten to renew. Auntie is a national treasure, she should be cherished, why Blue Peter alone is worth an extra penny on income tax, even if you never watch it. I'm joking, but it does seem that the TV licence is past its sell-by date. Many people nowadays pay for cable or satellite every month, and do so quite happily, I know I did, especially when the line rental for your telephone line was thrown in for free. But on top of that you still have to pay for a TV licence.

Perhaps the detector vans could be put to a new and improved use. Does anyone know if the dog licence still exists?