THE New Britain first fingered me on May 5, 1997. I can pinpoint the day. The jet-lag from election night had worn off. The monumental hangover was gone, just. I had even managed an hour on the Saturday evening at a Tory bop to celebrate Eighteen Glorious Years, making a discreet exit as the disco started - since I am not what you would call a disco person.
Come the Monday morning, an envelope arrived through my letterbox which, being opened, revealed the injunction: you must act now! Unused to finding myself addressed in such a peremptory fashion, I would have thrown the thing away without a second glance, but a columnist can never let an opportunity slip, so I read on to see why somebody I did not know from Adam was so strongly of the opinion that I must act now.
The reason was his conviction that I did not have a licence for a television. His method of dealing with such a, to him, bizarre situation was a mixture of carrot and stick. Kindly but sternly I was reminded of my duties as a citizen, and assured that a licence could be acquired with ease. Then the mask dropped, and terrible warnings followed about the consequences should I persist in my delinquency.
My suspicious mind at once perceived the coincidence with the formation of a new Government. I was in the twentieth year of residence at my present address. I can put my hand on my heart and say I have lived there at peace with the world. So why on earth should a complete stranger suddenly order me to act now? My explanation was that they had my name in the big computer at Millbank as an Enemy of the People, which indeed I am in New Labour's terms. The purge of anti-social elements would start by exposing skeletons in their cupboards. My lack of a licence was the chink in my moral armour.
What evidently had not occurred and could never occur to the men of Millbank was that there might be good reason for lacking a licence. I suppose in their vision of the New Britain it is not allowed not to have a television. If we let people get away with that sort of thing the spin doctors may spin in vain.
Under the circumstances it seemed best to lie low and avoid drawing attention to myself. Oh idle, oh foolish thought! Clearly concerned at my failure to respond to well-meant advice, the authorities more recently sent round what in Nazi Germany would have been called the Blockleiter, the man charged with seeing to the ideological purity of a particular neighbourhood.
His equivalent nowadays no doubt bears the more honourable title of Licensing Counsellor. I suspected such a person would have received professional training in how to hug me, so I kept him at entryphone's length. Just as well, because after some shillyshallying he confessed to facing a problem he wanted to share with me, and he would really value my contribution to how we could solve it together. This house had four names but he knew of only three licence-holders. Did I have any thoughts on how this could have come about?
''For the others I cannot speak, but for me the answer is simple. I have no licence because I have no television.''
His multiple options obviously did not include this one, for my words met a stunned silence. ''Are you sure about that?'' was all he could manage.
''Without undue immodesty I may claim to be something of an expert on my own household and, yes, I am sure about it. I have no television, I never have had a television, and I never will have a television. I think televisions are for idiots. I am not an idiot. Do I make myself clear?''
I could have gone on about the joys of life without the least inkling of what is being seen, read about, talked about, thought about in the rest of Cool Britannia. Even its Commissar for Culture, Chris Smith, seems to inhabit a different universe from me, to judge from the slim volume of
drivel he has just published,
Creative Britain.
He unburdens himself there of the sentiment, for example, that ''George Benjamin and Noel Gallagher are both musicians of the first order''. Of Benjamin I again cannot speak, never having heard of him, and on Gallagher I can only comment insofar as he has attained literary status, that is, has had stories written about him in the newspapers - where indeed he appears a deeply unpleasant young man worth paying money to avoid.
Has Commissar Smith heard of Alfred Brendel? If he has, then either he is a buffoon to employ his description of the other pair. Or else he is insufferably patronising to their public, whose taste he desperately wants to commend as good while knowing it to be awful.
Still, I kept all subversive thoughts to myself while the conversation with my Licensing Counsellor continued. The word idiot seemed to have rung some bell in his programming,
and he tried to humour me by spinning things out. ''Another problem
I'd like to share with you: you've
got five floors in your house but seven bells.''
''Look, my man, I have many avocations and I have now given you all the information you need to fulfil your duties. I consider our discussion at an end.''
''There's a pleasant way to do these things, you know . . .'' But by the time he squawked his protest, I had cut off the entryphone. He did not give up, though. Now I have a second letter marked in red capitals: Final Warning. I could reply that the adjective is logically redundant, since I have received no previous warning. But I shall just keep my powder dry, for it will surely be needed in this land of all but compulsory Philistinism.
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