The first of August 2022 marked the second anniversary of the day I kicked the TV habit, and binned the Telly Tax. I wasn’t that surprised at how easy it was to give up watching ‘live’ TV, as I hadn’t had a TV for most of the 70s, until an Auntie gave me her old set, which enabled me to watch live cricket again. So I knew I could happily live without it.
Admittedly my first day without TV back in 2020 was a little ‘difficult’, because my football team just happened to be playing in the FA Cup Final that day, and the match was being shown live on TV. I was tempted to turn on the box, but held firm, did the right thing, and watched the game on the radio instead.
I would have liked to have watched the Euro final ‘live’ last July, but chose not to go to a sports pub, and enjoyed the match on GP instead. So I didn’t get to see the bit where our three English ‘Heroes’ and ‘Kings’ missed their penalties, blowing what was easily our best chance to win a major international football trophy for years, until later that evening. Fortunately, our homogeneous, all-white team of ladies did the job properly a year later.
Over the last 2 years I have accidentally glimpsed the odd few seconds of live TV when turning on the smart telly, but only because its operating system has a habit of reverting to default settings, and dumping me onto BBC 1 when I turn it on, whether I like it or not.
Also it’s quite easy to land on a live stream from somewhere when using YouTube, or other online video services, but if you look carefully, you can find a live TV icon or caption somewhere on the page, and quickly leave the page.
Now if that’s an admission that I DO watch live TV, then I’m fully prepared to pay the fine and do the time, Your Honour.
I’ve hardly had the TV on at all in 24 months, and can’t remember the last time I switched it on. It’s permanently unplugged now. On the rare occasion I do cast my eyes at the Telescreen, there is enough stuff available on-demand (excluding BBC I-player) to keep anybody entertained for months.
You can get news off the internet of course, and there are plenty of excellent new independent media outlets available online that really do deserve support. Many of these new players are run on a shoestring, and genuinely question the narrative and the official government line pumped out incessantly by the MSM.
Why did I give up live TV? Quite simply because of the preaching, the politicisation of ALL content and events, and the constant propaganda, which just got to be too much. When you feel like you’re being programmed what to think, you probably are.
Covid ‘coverage’ was the last straw, especially when it became clear very early on that the reality of the pandemic was very different to the way it was being portrayed, and that the virus, which the government had downgraded from an HCID to a normal health problem well before the lockdowns began, was almost exclusively a threat to those who were already in God’s waiting room.
Remember the news footage of people literally falling down dead on the streets of China, their bodies whisked away by men in Hazmat suits? All theatre. All fake.
Or the mad panic to get Heath Robinson on the job to make ventilators by the score, using bits of string, washing up liquid bottles, and anything else that came to hand, because the NHS didn’t have one for everybody?
When the telly began to tell people to clap and bang pots and pans on their doorstep while the NHS was sending Covid patients into care homes full of vulnerable people, and killing thousands of them, I knew it was time to bale out.
It’s unbelievable, and quite simply not on, that in the modern age, with its multiplicity of content providers, you have to pay the BBC for the legal right to watch live programmes from other broadcasters, or from any live online service. Will the Tories do anything about this anachronism? They’ve had 12 years already, so I won’t hold my breath.
And to any who still pay the tax, it’s your right to do so if you want to, but believe me, it’s not that difficult to give up the box. Turning on the TV may well be a conditioned habit – but you DO have free will. So when you press that switch, you are willingly submitting to being brainwashed.
© text & images NeverUpToTheJob 2022
