Lunchtime Bonkers-watch, the TABATO* edition
Veronica Connolly is refusing to pay her BBC licence fee. Her grounds are that Auntie has ‘violated her conscience’ by demonstrating support for abortion. Using an EU Human Rights Court ruling, the leading Pro-Life barrister Paul Diamond will defend Mrs Connolly against a prosecution for non-payment of the licence. Somebody please help me out of this paragraph before I kill myself.
Thank you. As I’m forever being told, we must all check our sources these days, as bonkers becomes not only more prevalent, but also more….bonkers. Yet I am reliably informed by a tame Torygraph hack that this news item is entirely correct: indeed, the lady involved has actually been interviewed by the newspaper.
“We get this Government propaganda shoved down our throats” Mrs Collins told the Seismograph, “And so it’s time someone said ‘no – enough’”.
I for one have had enough already. There are three ripostes which (I humbly suggest) Mrs C should embrace. One, turn the telly off. Two, turn over: these days, 80%+ of what the telly provides for just the one licence fee has nothing whatever to do with the BBC. Three, if you find yourself constantly turning the telly off, sell the bloody thing: being Pro-Telly isn’t obligatory.
And another thing: I’m fed up with names like Pro-Life. For one thing, it suggests the rest of us are Pro-Death. For another, it is akin to McDonalds being Pro-Meat. I reserve the right to be Pro-Life and Pro-abortion, Pro-Meat and Anti-McDonalds, Pro-Women and Anti-Connolly.
The madder things get, the richer will lawyers become. Even if you are Pro-Insanity, surely this is enough reason to seek a cure.
However, in the same edition of the Sunday Telegraph was ample evidence of the fact that you’d have to be bonkers to take everything in the media at face value. No, sorry – I’ll rephrase that: anything in the media at face value.
No doubt like me you’ve been reading about expenses trougher Sir Ian Kennedy, the vile taxi-abuser who diddled us all out of £16,000. Sir Ian would be on a better wicket if he wasn’t in charge of rapping MPs over the knuckles about precisely this kind of wanton approach to taxpayer funds.
But in mitigation, it is worth pointing out that Kennedy’s cabby largesse was related to his previous job. And further, the bloke was supporting London’s private hire sector in lieu of receiving any lucrative pension payments from his then employer, The Healthcare Commission.
Now, one could argue that as a prominent and unproductive Quangoista, Ian Kennedy should’ve been executed a long time ago; and on the whole, such a view would garner much support from me. But sadly for this probably quite well-meaning chap, he will now forever be known as Three-Taxis Kennedy. That is not only unfair, it is also bonkers – punishing the skilled negotiator doesn’t invalidate the Treaty.
To sign off today, I bring you tidings of a bonkers-backlash….from the unlikely quarter of Emperor Sarkozy hisself. On Saturday at the Davos jolly, Sarko suggested that remote, short-term driven shareholders are not the way ahead, and business should perhaps be looking at the 17,209 alternatives to the greedy-investor-barmy-bourse model of capitalism. For a man elected to Thatcherise la belle France, this is a ronde-point of biblical proportions. Zut-alors Nicolas, enfin tu as vraiment compris le bonkers.
*They’re all bonkers, and that’s official!
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1
February 2, 2010 at 15:01 -
Noel Edmonds is also refusing to pay his TV licence, a bit ironic from the man who brought us Mr Blobby.
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2
February 2, 2010 at 15:03 -
I’m Pro-Guinness, if everyone else hates it, good. More for me.
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3
February 2, 2010 at 15:17 -
I get your point but I’ll side with anyone who’s prepared to have a go at the odious scottish gay communists who run the BBC at our expense, with their relentless agenda of left-green, liberal, diversity politics.
Good luck to her !
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4
February 2, 2010 at 15:22 -
I’m Pro- Crastrination, and I’ll tell you why.
(can it wait until tomorrow)?
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5
February 2, 2010 at 15:27 -
A fine piece as usual.
The ‘Pro-Life’ thing also gets me. The worst example being the ‘Patriot Act’. As if any objection means you are part of a fifth column. So cynical and such contempt for ones own people. Fortunately in the UK we still name our acts by their function rather than employing such shameless spin. It is no doubt only a matter of time though.
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7
February 2, 2010 at 15:41 -
Not yet.
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8
February 2, 2010 at 15:42 -
To be honest, I couldn’t be bothered.
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9
February 2, 2010 at 18:22 -
:0)
I too refuse to pay my licence fee, on the grounds that I am not a member of Pro-Shite. This has led to all sorts of fun with the telly Nazis. Thanks to the prevalence these days of interwebness, I have discovered the following, which may interest your assortment of eccentric and contrarian readers.
1) There is no longer a “TV Licensing Authority”. The licensing authority is now the BBC itself, who employ Capita as bagmen. TV Licensing is a subsidiary of Capita and has no more legal authority than Sainsbury’s; rather less, as a matter of fact, for their business model depends on the lies and black propaganda helpfully disseminated by the licensing authority itself.
2) TV Licensing is essentially a sales operation, and the pondlife it employs work on a commission basis: e.g. £18 for every licence they can pressure a householder into buying.
3) The detector vans are a myth. Even if they weren’t, the “equipment” they are alleged to use can only detect an old-fashioned cathode ray tube telly and are powerless in the presence of a plasma or LCD screen. Evidence from electronic detection has never been adduced in court, which says it all, really.
4) There are two means by which TV Licensing can bring a refusenik to book. The commonest is by confession; the other, extremely rare, is by search warrant. Thus one should have no contact with TVL whatever, and certainly say nothing on the doorstep. Best of all, just don’t answer the door to a greasy-looking spiv with a clipboard. He is unlikely to be from Camelot.
5) To get a search warrant, TVL must convince a magistrate that evasion is going on. This requires three pieces of evidence (presence of TV aerial, telly seen through the window, ratfink neighbour, etc.) and also costs money to acquire, which Capita are loath to spend. Mind you, the average magistrate has the IQ of a lobotomized goldfish and is easily hoodwinked by our spivs.
6) TVL’s main weapon is LASSY, its hilariously flaky database of addresses, which of course it uses to discover households where no licence has been bought. Such households were bombarded in 2008 with 23 million threatograms, all of which, when shredded, make handy compost; the paper is too shiny for the obvious purpose. Retailers must report to TVL the purchase of “receiving equipment”, so flagging you as interest if you are unlicensed.
7) Now get this. Under Common Law you can withdraw the implied right of access to your property. If TVL set foot on your ground thereafter they are trespassing. Not a serious offence, but you can then get an injunction against them to cease and desist, and if they disobey that all hell breaks loose. Because the vans don’t work, if you deny them access they have no means of busting you except the search warrant.
You can even get them to stop sending you their unpleasant letters by using the anti-harassment legislation. This gets up their nose even more than withdrawal of implied right of access, and is great sport.
I have so far saved about £600, which I have spent on a nice new Bosch washing machine (no licence need, as Paxo observed) and lots of lovely booze and chocs for Mrs F and me.
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10
February 2, 2010 at 18:29 -
Saul
Pro-Crastination.
Thread of 2010 to date.xx
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11
February 2, 2010 at 20:26 -
T. P. Fuller
Only last week I received a nice letter from TV licensing informing me that there was a one in four chance that I was lying when I said I didn’t have a telly, and that therefore I could expect a visit “shortly”.
This, they went on to explain, is to “ensure that those who, like you, legitimately need no contact from TV licensing are not troubled unnecessarily in the future.”
Thereby contradicting themselves.
A similar letter a couple of years back has resulted in no visit so far so I shan’t hold my breath. -
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February 2, 2010 at 20:59 -
@Fabian. Google “implied right of access” if ever you need to defend yourself. It is not unknown for them to falsify evidence. On one occasion a householder was even assaulted (on video — the perp got busted). Good luck and happy taunting!
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