r, i mean ah, or possibly Ah. Goddit.

I'm fairly certain the law is that the mere possession of a telly doesn't by itself require a licence. The BBC itself accepts that (although it had to be dragged out of them by an FOI request  ). The most recent set of Regulations says:



It's whether or not is used for that purpose that counts. (And the legal interpretation of 'or' in that sentence means that the 'installed' goes with 'for the purpose of ...' just as much as the 'used ' does.) Simply having one in a cupboard or used for playing DVDs or indeed any other exotic use other than that of "receiving ... a television programme service" doesn't require a licence.

[I assume it is the, er, prisoner in the dock's own telly and not one that came with the house. If the latter then, cough, I suppose it could just be argued by a hostile counsel that 'it' was installed for the purpose of ... ]

A friend of mine had her television disemboweled of all fiddly bits that enable us to watch moving pictures as broadcast by Auntie and others. She used it only for watching videos. It baffled the Licensing boffins for a while but in the end they gave up and stopped pestering her to pay up.

I suppose the crucial thing would be the definition of a "television programme service" - if that was circumscribed to refer only to live broadcasts that would cover it I imagine (iPlayer doesn't actually broadcast TV live, does it?).

<memory kicks in> Hold on, I think I saw something about this in the Times the other day (and didn't actually read it at the time); oh yes, here it is.

On my return to my flat I've noticed that the noise when someone else in the tenement flushes their toilet seems to have been AMPLIFIED considerably. It has gone from sounding like a rat is running down the wall to sounding like someone is emptying a bucket into my bath. How annoying yet fundamentally trivial.

I'm feeling quite seriously grumpy this morning.  I should be just getting off a bus in London about now, ready to meet some friends for lunch and, afterwards, make my way to the day queue for Sudbin's Rachmaninov 1.  Instead I'm at my desk 200 miles away, largely because of the incompetence of National Express.  I went through the process of booking my day return (out 0630 back 2330) yesterday evening and got right through to putting in my card details and clicking 'pay' only to get the message 'this coach is full'.  I can cope with bad luck, but this is clearly incompetence/ignorance on the company's part.  The online booking system was still inviting people to book this bus for hours afterwards - so how long the bus had been full when I 'booked' is anyone's guess.  The worst thing of all, though, is that it doesn't seem to have been a glitch.  I was told by their customer support people that the online booking system is designed that way; and if taking people's details when there is no ticket available isn't illegal, it should be.  

To cap it all, in order to have the day free I'd promised to complete any work due today before I left - so I still had to work until after midnight in case people were counting on getting the work early.  Grrrr.....

When will they invent reliable teleportation devices? Then our woes with the public transit systems of the world will be once and for all behind us.

Thought experiment: someone does indeed come up with a teleportation system that is unexpectedly cheap and simple to introduce, and could do away with the automobile entirely. There's just one small problem: it will kill between 750,000 and 1,000,000 people a year worldwide. Think anyone would be up for it?

Well, that's what cars do...

http://www.factbook.net/EGRF_Exec_Summary.htm

Of course Radio 3 will 'teleport' me there, so all is not lost.  And it's not as if I'd paid for tickets in advance or anything.  I just though that, having been favourably impressed by Mr Sudbin when he played for our concert society, it was worth the effort and expense to attend this Prom in person.  The coach is the only public transport that could have got me back at my desk for a Friday morning (night trains having been discontinued many years ago) and, at £25 day return, is quite reasonably priced.  I suppose I could have come down by train and got the night bus back (assuming that isn't also full) but the cost of such mix 'n' match transport, especially at short notice, is prohibitive.

I've just had a reply from the OFT (I copied them on my complaint to National Express) giving details of bodies I can write to whose intervention might make NE take this customer's complaint seriously.  They also assured me that details of my experience are stored on a database in case they do decide to investigate the company.  It's not much, but it's more than I've had from NE who, so far, haven't even acknowledged my complaint.