UNDER INVESTIGATION

I don't have a TV.

Most people are indifferent about this when it comes to a discussion. I explain carefully that I think that most of television is garbage cascading through a plastic window. I tell them about my constant attempts to watch more than 45 seconds of The One Show when I'm round at the Intrepids' and they sort of get it.

They tell me about all the great stuff I'm missing and the numerous ways I could escape my dull old life - by pretending I'm a gritty London detective, or suspending my disbelief for just long enough to imagine I live in a world where the Nazis have won, or where you soothe a dragon and try not to get massacred by feisty Vikings. I politely remind them about the ancient power of storytelling and imagination and the whole thing works itself into a nice symbiosis: I'm content with books and films, they're content with shows about cooking, decorating, antiques and singing. We're all okay with that equilibrium. You like a bit of telly? Knock yourself out. I think television is time-consuming mind-rot. You're not going to judge me and I'm not going to preach to you. We're all happy with the status quo.

Not the TV Licensing People. They're not happy with it in the slightest.

I'm now 'under investigation' for not having a TV Licence. Yes, they know. Yes, they're still sending me threatening letters telling me it's a criminal offence to watch television without a licence and that the 'Enforcement Division' will 'schedule a visit'.

Enforcement. You will watch, you will conform, you will fit in. Or we'll be round.

Well, the heavies are welcome. They can flick through my books and tickle the piano if they like. They can look at me pitifully and ask me what I do do in the evenings and I can tell them about writing and recording and poetry and music and stories and friends and food and prose and imagination and group and walking and laughter and trees and woods and the park and beauty and time and thought and wonder. All things for which no licence is required at all.

Anyway, I've told them again. I've registered again as a NoTV house and if Horace and Jasper want to pop round for some enforcement, I have all the proof I need that life is bigger, bolder and braver than anything I can be 'enforced' to absorb from a flashing sewage pipe in the corner of the room.