NOT BUYING IT! 2015 - A consumer holiday

VJsmum

We, as a family, do have TVs but I don't watch them. I have been alone for the past three days and it hasn't been on once. I haven't been at work either - I have been walking, cooking, painting furniture, out with friends, reading and listening to the radio. I can't say I don't like soaps as I listen to the archers , I also listen to the news and the odd comedy show.

I remarked last week to someone that I was too busy baking to watch bake off.:D

Some programmes just put me in mind of the Victorian style freak shows that I can't bear it - my SIL was watcng the 65 stone man or some such but I found it unbearable.

I also watch things on catch up or the odd box set series occasionally, but live TV rarely happens with me.

Our recycling bin does get filled but our regular black bin is usually barely half full a fortnight - for a family of 3 /4 (DD is at uni). We have now been told to put food waste in our general waste rather than green waste - ostensibly because it is burned for energy but more likely cos it was costing too much to process.

(Black bin is a little fuller at the moment because of the Konmarie process, but hopefully this will slowdown at some point, not least because we are still NBI)

Lynplatinum

Hiya

I really admire those who dont bother with the TV - there was a life before then. Neither of my sons have one. They watch loads of stuff on the internet - and get their news from more sources than the BBC - so they very often have different interpretations of events!

However, I do worry about not supporting the BBC. As I see it they were instrumental in innovating things like serious drama (e.g. The Accused) documentaries (Horizon, David Attenbrough, Brian Cox etc) and investigative reporting. Then there is the radio - everything from Radio 4 extra (literary culture and discussion); through radio 3 (classical music) to ground breaking new music (John Peel on Radio 1). Developing services such as the i-player. That's history - who knows what ideas there are in the pipeline? where the future of entertainment will be. Although I dont watch much TV I like to pay my tv licence because I worry that in the future without the BBC with its commitment to education and information we will end up with soaps and sensationalism (Sink holes one today is a documentary but sensational more than informative for example - some soaps are really well done!)

But a bit like full time Sunday trading - I do think the hours could/should be restricted (hummm but then there is the issue of shift/night workers??? Difficult! )

Also my sons say that the BBC view of the world is what the gov want us to think. I cant say on that!

however, am NBI in that I wont pay for one of the big cable companies.

Thanks GQ for clarification of WHY recycling is so different around the country I hadnt thought of that!

NBI today - resisted temptation to buy a sani and walked home via local shop and bought pack of ham which will do me for 4 sanis :rotfl:

Also I got bought a coffee today! Does that count as NBI?
Nite all

nursemaggie

Lynplatinum I don't not buy a TV licence because I chose to I cannot afford a TV licence. I would have to miss two or three meals a week to pay for one and I don't think what TV is offering these day is worth missing one meal for.

GreyQueen

pm2326 wrote: »

Have you ever had a telly GreyQueen?

I'm considering doing without if mine ever decides to fail. I've come to realise that although it's on, I hardly ever sit and watch anything. I have a intense dislike of soaps, reality TV, talent shows, home/garden/person makeover shows....that means I've just ruled out 90% of the shows available to watch on TV!

I have one programme that I like to watch, but I missed the last season and ended up buying the dvd's, nothing stopping me doing that in future, can watch it on my laptop

When I was a student in the 1980s I had a cheap black & white portable. At that time, we students were covered when living away from home by the parental TV license. I think a lot of people don't remember that and that the BBC is getting a lot of extra money in from students that it used to do without.

I've never been terribly interested in passive entertainment and could only abide watching TV whilst doing something else, such as knitting, sewing, rugmaking, reading (yes, have been known to read and watch TV at the same time).

The few times I am exposed to the option of TV, I can't find much which interests me. I loathe all sports, soaps, voyeristic programmes, talent shows, lottery carp, make-overs etc. There is the odd thing I would be able to stomach but this habit of recapping the first 15 mins of a programme after an ad break, as if you'd forgotten, drives me nuts. Plus the level which most programmes are aimed at seems to be well below the level I naturally operate at, so they're unchallenging.

The person who lived in my flat before me didn't have a TV either, according to friend and neighbour SuperGran. So there's been no license at this address for about 20 years. I constantly get letters addressed To The Legal Occupier from TV Licensing. I've had 6 letters and 2 visits from TVL in the past 5.5 months. The first 4 letters I returned unopened with a note that there was still no TV here. The last two I've posted into the shredder. Both visits were during office hours on weekdays and I was in an office at the time.

I get very cross about the presumption of TV usage by TVL. About 20 years ago, they were harrassing me in my capacity as The Legal Occupier of another address, so I rang them. From memory, the convo went like this with a female advisor.

GQ; You keep sending me TV Licensing letters but I don't have a TV.

Her: Can I take your name and address, please?

GQ; I live at

---

. You don't need to have my name because I don't have a TV and am not one of your customers. Why don't your believe me? Is it compulsory to have a TV?

Her: (Earnestly) No, it's not compulsory to have a TV, but we've found that two in five people who say they don't have a TV actually do have one.

GQ: So, you'll assume that I'm lying to you? I really don't have a TV. I haven't had a TV since 1987.

Her: We can mark you down as not having a TV but that will only last for two years.

GQ: And then this starts all over again?

Her; (embarrassed, I think) Yes.

***********

Several things annoy me about TV Licensing. The presumption that TV usage is universal, so you can't opt out. The presumption of dishonesty. The shocking waste of resources in harrassing non-TV owners like myself.

What annoys me about the BBC in general is that they want to operate like a commercial company when it suits them, by selling programmes and other media all over the world. And then they also want to wear this public service hat and claim that they are special and must thus be supported by a hefty tax on each and every household, even if that household is one student in one room in halls.

Then they take the money extracted by the force of criminal law and spend it on high living for themselves, wasteful practices and rock star paychecques for the favoured few. Oh, and the odd note-worthy drama or documentary.

:mad: We live in a country where people can beat someone so badly that they die of their injuries and not see even one day inside a jail, but we're prepared to set things up so that people (nearly always improverished women on benefits with children) get jailed for non-payment of TV license.

And breathe.

DawnW

Couldn't agree more GQ, especially on the imprisonment of impoverished women.

We do have a small TV here, as OH likes to watch it, and so we have a TV licence. He is away this week, and the s0ddin thing will be unplugged! I can't understand the hysteria around certain programmes such as the dancing competition and Bake off - I really, really don't get it :huh: Why not just join a dance class if that appeals to you, or just make a cake (the latter option for me every time, particularly since I have two left feet :rotfl:)

vulpix

I realised that I had be come massively disenchanted with TV on 9/11 I just could not bear it all,I began to use the radio who give you news in 2 minutes without all the hype and conjecture.Added to the fact that I have no interest in all the above programmes mentioned and my children becoming teenagers and disappearing into their bedrooms I got rid of it.Loadsa hastle like GQ.

Then I got married to a TV addict,we now have a mahoosive telly and millions of channels.I must say I barely watch the telly,the occasional Morse as I cannot work it!

When I was at work the talk of the staffroom was strictly ???????????

I think a lot of popular TV is aspirational,you wish you could bake,dance,loose loads of weight etc but it's effort.The rest like you say is freak show ,bear baiting type of stuff.With a few gems hidden in the mire.

My kids still watch stuff on their laptops but I never even did that.The money we spent on the TV I used for us to get broadband and who needs a telly when you have the internet!

GreyQueen

Yeah, busily watching people bake, dance, decorate, exercise, diet, declutter, row with their spouses etc etc, rather than doing those things for yourself. Really don't find that at all entertaining.

If staying at my parents' place (they are very light TV users) I tend to go upstairs and read/ play on the web if they're watching one of their occasional regular programmes. When I glance down the BBC's schedules, I'm astonished at how many things are repeats. I once took a highlighter pen to one of these pages and about 75% of it was repeats!

So you get to pay TVL to watch stuff which you paid to have made in other years. Rinse and repeat. Seems a brilliant wheeze for the BBC but not so good for the telly-watcher. You wouldn't put up with it in a shop, would you.

Picture this;

GQ enters a clothing shop and starts browsing the racks. Something familiar catches her eye. It's shirt she bought from this same shop a few years ago and still has at home. Only, somehow, the shop has it back.

GQ : Excuse me, you appear to have stolen my shirt and are selling it again.

Shopkeeper: Oh, no, you misunderstood. We didn't sell you that shirt, it was an open-ended loan. We can take it back and re-sell it to you whenever we like. Pay up, please, or we'll be summonsing you to the magistrate's court. You can get fined or jailed for not buying your shirt back, don't you know?

GQ, But I paid good money to have that shirt in 2012. No way should I have to pay for it again.

Shopkeeper: Ha, ha, very funny, modom, this is BBC Bootiques, we don't work like that. If you want to wear your shirt again, you'll have to pay again. By the way, we're so busy spending the receipts on fine dining, taxi rides and foriegn trips that we will be taking your shirt back again in 2016, 2017 and 2020. So you'll need to buy it back again each and every time.

Modom? MODOM?! Please put that heavy object down, Modom, there's no need to get violent! We can discuss this like civilised people...........!

VJsmum

LOL, GQ, You crack me up :rotfl:

I am / was like you - as a youngster I always had to be doing something else, knitting, jigsaws, crochet and, yes, reading. I still have a bit of knitting on the go if I do end up watching something. My latest sweater has taken over 18 months to make so it shows how little TV i have been watching.

My OH used to be a magistrate and he hated doing TV licences court and was as lenient as the law allowed. He also dislikes the assumption that everyone has a TV and the fact that you can't even save on a weekly stamp until you already have a licence.

My OH watches things like Motorway cops, Eddie stobart, ice road truckers, helicopter heroes - they are just variations on a theme. My inlaws commented that we have more disposable income than them - well one reason is that we don't pay nearly £100 a month for S7y TV......

pm2326

I seem to use the TV as background noise, as I'm always doing something else at the same time. But then it gets on my nerves if I'm doing something else and I end up switching it off again.

I'm slowly changing my ways, I like to have 30 minutes in the morning to sit and drink a cuppa before getting ready for work, in the past I used to always switch on the TV and watch the news....for the last year I've chosen to sit at the kitchen table and listen to the radio instead, feels so much better as the music wakes me up.

nursemaggie

GQ I love that. If I did not watch the ten o'clock news I would probably listen it on radio.