Letters

[J.R.]

I can't recall a television ANYWHERE in CH during my days there !

[Jude]

I can't recall a television ANYWHERE in CH during my days there !

At Hertford there was one in matrons office for the juniors, one in the 6th form study and i presume Matron had one in her flat - ergo by todays rules only Matron would have had to pay her own tv license as the other two would be covered together -

Moving back to hospitals - My daughter who is fairly knowledgeable about her own body went to her GP in Leeds and said her arm hurt could she have some Diclofenac-sodium (Voltarol) to reduce the swelling as she was certain it was tenosinovitis - (inflamation of her ligaments/tendons) he looked at her arm and told her to go away and take paracetamol (I duly sent her the Voltarol by post) 2 weeks later she returned (as asked by the GP) - he looked at her arm pressed it here there and basically made her cry (nasty man) and then sent to to Leeds Infirmary A&E as he now thought it might be broken!!!!!! 4 hours later in A&E she was seen by a doctor who was SO rude she was very close to getting a broken arm by thumping him, as he turned around told her she was wasting NHS time when all she had was ............... yep Tenosinovitis....... by then I had sent the 2nd lot of voltarol and some co-codamol.....

I am an acting GP for my family and my friends - I am in fact thinking of making it a reality - only having done 2 years to get my chemistry A level, and 4 years doing medicine -- and GP work Will there be a job waiting for me to go and pay off my student loan? Especially when I know of one qualified doctor who is working in a cafe........... as she can't get a medical job!

Just think - if all the doctors who wanted to stay in hospital medicine were kept there, and all those who wanted to be GP's were given GP work - and we got rid of the "Management committee" not only would they all have a pay rise, the hospitals could be run as they used to be by Startchy Matrons and Proffessors and Medical peeps, and the general public would get seen by their GP within a 10 minute window, and within an hour window as a non life threatening A&E person.

Gosh....... where did that fantastic idea come from?

Days when I was a nurse - ok we only earned £3,000, but at least it was worth £3,000 - whereas footballers get paid 10's of thousands per week - this country is going to hell in a bucket..........

phwe that feel better

[englishangel]

I recently received a rather menacing letter from the TV License people, that had been forwarded to me from my previous address Here it is below:

Dear Mr Seligmann.

As the Regional Manager of the North Wales TV Licensing Enforcement Division, I have received authorisation from our National Division to visit your property. See copy above. [There was no 'copy' or anything of the sort]

Our records show you have previously been given opportunities to purchase a TV Licence, but have neglected to do so.

It is now my duty to make you aware of the following:

-My Enforcement Officers may visit [my address] without warning, at any time of the day, in the evenings or at weekends.
-They will assess whether there is evidence of your watching or recording television services without a valid TV License.
-They could caution you, take your statement and file a report on their findings.
-Further, they may use detection equipment to obtain proof that a TV signal is being received on this property.

Such a visit will constitute the last step before legal proceedings may commence. Should you be found guilty in your local court of using a TV without a valid license, you may face the maximum fine of £1,000.

Richard Goodbody
Regional Manager
North Wales Enforcement Division

Here was my reply:

Dear Mr. Goodbody,

I recently received an aggresively worded letter from you, threatening to come and search my property because of the suspicion of me not having a valid television license.

You are correct: I have no license for that property. The reason is that I no longer live at that property. If you had checked your records properly, you would have found that six months ago, I purchased a new television license for my current address. Does it not occur to you and your "Enforcement Officers" that people move house? Do you send such letters to everybody who has not renewed their license after a year?

In your letter to me, you failed to leave any kind of contact address, telephone number or email, so I have sent this in your name to the national office. It is usually companies or individuals with something to hide who leave no form of contact details in their correspondences, to avoid being found and hassled by thousands of unsatisfied customers. As you left no contact details, I shall also leave no contact details, however if you wish to reply to me, I suggest you look more carefully in your records than you did last time, and you will find my name, address and details of my valid television license.

Yours sincerely,

Thomas Seligmann.

my daughter got one of these as did all the students in the Leeds Uni self catering accomidation - she just laughed and said she couldn't wait for them to come and break down the doors! As no one in her flat has a tv! (the law now states that there has to be a separate license for every room behind a locked door - in her case that would be 5 licenses for 5 students in 5 rooms - racking up the money eh?) - so guys - all of you who have now put locks on your teens or children's or even YOUR door - remember - if there is a tv there it has to be licensed!

Exactly, and you don't even have to watch TV, just have the apparatus.

http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/informatio ... .jsp#link2

[Wuppertal]

I seem to receive these amusingly ridiculous spam emails on a weekly (and more often) basis from scammers trying to tell you you've won the lottery (usually either the British one of the Spanish one). Also the chldren of west African presidents who have recently died and left a fortune which you can "unlock" by paying £100,000 or something.

I became so exasperated with these "you've won the lottery" emails that I replied to one of these boneheads!

I even created a new email account just for this because I know you're not meant to open these messages as apparently it tells the senders that your email address exists - also I went to a public computer point in case of the exceedingly unlikely event that they would try and locate me and retaliate for directing words like "scam" and "fraud" at them - after all, that's what they are.

So here was my reply to the kind gentleman who informed me of my UK lottery win:

Dear Dr. Cole,

I recently received one of your many fraudulent emails informing me that I have won the UK National Lottery. I thought I would take the time to reply to the seemingly fantastic and life-changing news that you have sent me.

Unfortunately, believe that you are a scammer, and I have several reasons to back up my belief that your email was a complete and utter fraud:

(i) When the UK National Lottery (hereafter referred to as UKNL) contacts you to inform you that you have won a prize, they do NOT tell you the amount you have won. They do not, in fact, even tell you that you have won anything at all. The UKNL sends a simple message with words to the effect of "you have important news concerning your account". The customer is then prompted to click on a link and log in securely using his/her username and password. Contrary to this practise carried out by the UKNL, you (a) told me I had won; and (b) told me the exact amount I had won.

(ii) Your message goes on to claim that I need to send you my bank details and that my account must be debited 1,500 euros in order to "release" my winnings of 852,749.84 euros. There are two flaws in your system here. Firstly, winners of any amount from the UNKL do NOT have to pay any sort of "release" in order to get their winnings. They have already paid for their lottery ticket, and that is the only fee payable to the UKNL by the customer. Secondly, the currency of the UKNL is the United Kingdom pound (GBP), not the euro. This is hardly surprising seeing as the participants of the UKNL are UK residents and/or must have a British bank account.

(iii) The UKNL expressly states on its website that it sends all communication from one specified email address only, in order to guarantee its authenticity. It is also not personally signed by a representative, rather from the UNKL as a whole. Contrary to this conduct, your email address is not the one used by the UKNL to send messages to its customers, and your email was personally signed by yourself, proving the scam.

(iv) From the general writing style of your message, as well as some individual words and phrases which were used in an unusual and grammatically inaccurate context, I gather that English is not your native language. The UKNL expressly states that all of its staff work within the UK and its crown dependencies and are fluent in English. It is obvious from your email that you are not in the UK or one of its crown dependencies, as it clearly says "GMT +3" on the time when you sent me this email with the intention of stealing my money.

I have therefore come to the conclusion that you are a complete and utter fraud and you deserve to face justice. I hope no-one who has received one of your disgracefully-intentioned emails will believe the hoax and will hand you their life's savings because of it. You can be sure that in the event of that occurring, you will be found and dealt with in the appropriate manner. There have already been cases like this in the UK and computer users are well aware of the dangers that scammers such as yourself pose. Naturally I shall report your email as a phishing scam, as my internet service provider allows me to do. The ISP may then choose to investigate and track you down.

Yours sincerely,
Thomas Seligmann.

[Tim_MaA_MidB]

I don't suppose the "Dear Laura" letter ever got a reply?

[sejintenej]

Moving back to hospitals - My daughter who is fairly knowledgeable about her own body went to her GP in Leeds and said her arm hurt could she have some Diclofenac-sodium (Voltarol) to reduce the swelling as she was certain it was tenosinovitis - (inflamation of her ligaments/tendons) he looked at her arm and told her to go away and take paracetamol (I duly sent her the Voltarol by post) 2 weeks later she returned (as asked by the GP) - he looked at her arm pressed it here there and basically made her cry (nasty man) and then sent to to Leeds Infirmary A&E as he now thought it might be broken!!!!!! 4 hours later in A&E she was seen by a doctor who was SO rude she was very close to getting a broken arm by thumping him, as he turned around told her she was wasting NHS time when all she had was ............... yep Tenosinovitis....... by then I had sent the 2nd lot of voltarol and some co-codamol.....

Some time ago I had a sports caused back injury and exactly one year later my daughter had exactly the same injury, same place, same way. In both cases the local A & E refused to even examine us because they didn't treat sports injuries; go away and take an "aspirin" (could have been another equivalent drug). This despite the fact that my daughter had lost the use of her legs.

OK - so we got over that - temporarily but I sent an enquiry to the Dept of Health asking whether the NHS has changed its policy and whether we now qualify for treatment of sports related injuries.
Guess what; for a yes/no answer I had to wait well over the statutory 20 days and got back 3 pages of gibberish. Not normal gibberish but real gibberish gibberish starting
PGRpdj4NCiAgICA8cCBjbGFzcz0iTXNvTm9ybWFsIiBzdHlsZT0iTUFSR0lOOiAwY20gMGNtIDBw
dCI+DQogICAgICAgIDxzcGFuIHN0eWxlPSJGT05ULUZBTUlMWTogQXJpYWwiPg0KICAgICAgICAg
ICAgPGZvbnQgc2l6ZT0iMyI+REUwMDAwMDI4OTA3Nzw/eG1sOm5hbWVzcGFjZSAgIHByZWZpeCA9
IG8gbnMgPSAidXJuOnNjaGVtYXMtbWljcm9zb2Z0LWNvbTpvZmZpY2U6b2ZmaWNlIiAvPz8+PG86

How they can translate the word "yes" or "no" into 3 pages of gibberish beats me but that seems to be the NHS that all these {swearword censored] have reduced it to. Just realised - take an infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of PCs and one of them will produce the Bible; obviously this was one of the other infinite number of monkeys.

I have asked them for a translation into any major West European language except German which they have ignored or are simply incapable of providing.
I have even sent a formal complaint under their complaints procedure which I expect to be ignored; I wonder if they can translate English.

[cj]

I can't recall a television ANYWHERE in CH during my days there !

Had they been invented then?

[jhopgood]

I can't recall a television ANYWHERE in CH during my days there !

Our Housemaster, C J Miller, had one in his study which the favoured few were allowed to watch. Can't remember what year he got it and I must have watched the footie on there once.
Never liked the man, which he recorded on one of my school reports. He smoked a pipe and I was highly amused when once he scratched his head and some ash fell out, which he didn't notice, until it burnt through to his scalp.
The other time he put his pipe in his pocket when he came in for evening prayers and again, the live ash did its damage.
Both times the smoke and smell were clues as to what was happening.
He replaced Cherniavsky and then left to be Headmaster at some school in North India, to be replaced by Bwana Goodall.
Can't remember him having a tv

[J.R.]

I can't recall a television ANYWHERE in CH during my days there !

Had they been invented then?

OY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[sejintenej]

I can't recall a television ANYWHERE in CH during my days there !

Had they been invented then?

Probably not - ISTR the first broadcast was in the mid 1930's

(where's the smiley for a suit of armour?)

[J.R.]

I can't recall a television ANYWHERE in CH during my days there !

Had they been invented then?

Probably not - ISTR the first broadcast was in the mid 1930's

(where's the smiley for a suit of armour?)

I'm on yer case now !

[gma]

Have grave concerns that I have been jinxed by Wuppertal and this thread - received a letter this morning from TV Licensing, with half my name missing (have double barrelled) accusing me of buying TV signal receiving aparatus from Argos whilst simultaneously failing to purchase a valid license.

Here's the thing, the aforementioned apparatus was a video/dvd player for my Mum, I did not provide Argos with my name or address when purchasing nor did I havethe goods delivered, nor am I an Argos account holder; the only ID was the debit card that I used to pay for the item. So when did a dvd/video player become a TV receiving apparatus? How and when did they get the right to invade my bank account to obtain my details? To add insult to injury, having done all that, why can the grubby-ill-educated-smalldi**ed-jobsworth-godIhopetheydon'tbreed-nobodies not even have the common courtesy to address the envelope correctly? Nor, apparantly, do they have the ability to check this address where there is a valid TV license!

So I shall be taking great personal pleasure from returning the envelope as Not Known at this Address and when they sort themselves out and get their distasteful little jobs in order shall take great pleasure in showing them no locked doors (after of course the suitably notarised Id and authority etc etc previously advised) and then tell them that the offending article is actually in Bedforshire not Berkshire and wish them well on the M25. Especially as, if they ever haul their gollumesque little carcasses over there, they'll find out my Mum's over 75 and doesn't have to pay for it anyway.

[Wuppertal]

Have grave concerns that I have been jinxed by Wuppertal and this thread - received a letter this morning from TV Licensing, with half my name missing (have double barrelled) accusing me of buying TV signal receiving aparatus from Argos whilst simultaneously failing to purchase a valid license.

Here's the thing, the aforementioned apparatus was a video/dvd player for my Mum, I did not provide Argos with my name or address when purchasing nor did I havethe goods delivered, nor am I an Argos account holder; the only ID was the debit card that I used to pay for the item. So when did a dvd/video player become a TV receiving apparatus? How and when did they get the right to invade my bank account to obtain my details? To add insult to injury, having done all that, why can the grubby-ill-educated-smalldi**ed-jobsworth-godIhopetheydon'tbreed-nobodies not even have the common courtesy to address the envelope correctly? Nor, apparantly, do they have the ability to check this address where there is a valid TV license!

So I shall be taking great personal pleasure from returning the envelope as Not Known at this Address and when they sort themselves out and get their distasteful little jobs in order shall take great pleasure in showing them no locked doors (after of course the suitably notarised Id and authority etc etc previously advised) and then tell them that the offending article is actually in Bedforshire not Berkshire and wish them well on the M25. Especially as, if they ever haul their gollumesque little carcasses over there, they'll find out my Mum's over 75 and doesn't have to pay for it anyway.

Oh dear, I'm sorry for jinxing you!

Having lived around a university where people receive these letters on a weekly basis, in this experience. 99.9% of them were cowardly, empty threats that were not followed up. However, as you are completely innocent, cross fingers there is absolutely nothing to worry about. The only disturbing thing, as you say, is how they managed to get your details. It almost looks like Argos commicated with them, which I don't understand seeing as what you bought didn't need a licence! Also, I believe (correct me if I'm wrong!) that the "locked doors" rule applies only to student houses - not to normal private residential family properties. I pretty sure you can have as many TVs as you like in your family home, in as many rooms, locked or unlocked, and you only need one licence. (Though as I've been out of the country for a year and a half, the rules might have changed for the worse, so I thoroughly apologise if all this is useless!) The only exception I think applies to things like B&Bs and guesthouses.

[Ajarn Philip]

I confess that, although amused by the general tone, I'm shocked and concerned by gma's post. Is that really what things have come to now?

About 20 years ago I was in Pakistan (on my own, Katharine!) on 'Her Majesty's Service' (can't say too much, you understand; a nod's as good as a wink - oh, alright, I was doing really boring immigration work in Islamabad), and my wife forgot about the tv licence and had a visit from the authorities, who told her she'd be summonsed. I wrote a polite letter explaining that this was something I normally dealt with, but that I was rather a long way away at the time, and everything was dealt with in a very civilised manner.

I'm not all that surprised that central records don't keep up with changes of address, but I'm genuinely horrified at the thought of someone buying a tv (and that's not even what Gerrie bought) and that information being fed straight to the licencing authority.

Of course, Thailand has no tv licence. But I'm not one to gloat. How much is it in the UK now, by the way...?

More seriously, although I've been away for a few years now, I do try to keep up with what's going on at home, and I'm well aware that there are police surveillance cameras all over the place. In most respects I think that's a positive development, if it doesn't directly take coppers off the beat. I'm generally in favour of ID cards and have never quite understood the knee-jerk 'we're British, we don't need ID cards' reaction, especially as it usually comes from the right wing of politics. But surely there's a limit. If you can't go shopping without the government knowing what you've bought (the mind boggles), you might as well be living in a police state.

Gerrie, unless I'm talking through my hat and this is commonly acknowledged legislation, I'd be asking some questions.

Mind you, I wouldn't be holding my breath for an answer.

[hillary]

We bought a new TV in December which I paid for, but we have a TV licence in John's name. Sure enough, I got a letter to say I hadn't got a licence and there's be someone round to check. I called the automated line to register that we had a licence, but of course there's no option for 'we have a licence at this address but not in my name, why not just look up the postcode/house number and see that we pay by direct debit'.

I gave up after a random amount of button-pressing, and we've had no visitations yet.

It reminds me of many years ago when you could have a portable without a licence, and I used a company discount to buy a friend a TV. I had letters for about 6 months, and I replied counltess times sying that I did not have the TV, then had someone on my doorstep trying to get in. I managed to send them away without letting them across the doorstep, saying that the TV was happy in Luton with a licence, thank-you. Not a pleasant experience.

(I really do have to finish an article for a magazine deadline, so you can see why I'm joining in ...)