While reading a news article from a Scottish paper on line, I found a web site on TV Licensing. Evidently, you have to pay a large sum (£126.50) per year for each TV. What I found most amusing, however, was their excuses page. Some of my favorites:
- An Enforcement Officer knocked on the door of a suspected evader and asked if he had a TV, to which, the owner said he did not.
The observant officer then asked “Well why have you got a satellite dish on the outside of your house then?”
The man looked down and said with a grin “I have 2 pints of milk on my doorstep Son, but I don’t have a cow in the garden!”
- “God told me to buy a television to watch the news as he has a very important message for me”
- The woman claimed that the reason for her not having a licence was because her cat had got sick down the back of the set and blew it up.
- While visiting a property that was listed as not having a TV Licence a woman answered the door together with some young children. The woman apologised for being in such a fluster and explained that she had just moved in and was just on her way out to collect the other children from school.
The Enforcement Officer asked if she had managed to get a TV Licence sorted. She said she had and she knew exactly where it was – in a shoebox on top of the wardrobe in the upstairs front bedroom. She asked if the he could call back later.
When he returned, the woman’s husband answered the door. The Enforcement Officer asked if he could see the TV Licence. The man explained that they were in a bit of a state as they had just moved in and he didn’t know where the licence was, his wife normally looked after that sort of thing.
At the exact moment that the officer explained that the licence was in a shoebox on top of the wardrobe in the upstairs front bedroom – a detector van drove past. “Flippin’ heck,” the man said, “I knew your detector vans were good but I didn’t know they were that good.”
