BBC announcers clueless about marathon

Steve Cram is not neutral and condescending, he should stick with the middle distance events. I prefer Hutchings.

this is what the op referring to

The Scot said: You have to 'prove' you are not using a tv reception device (which includes computers, phones etc)

I'm afraid that isn't true either.

the basic principle of English law is that a person is considered innocent until proven guilty. the onus in this instance is on TV Licencing to prove that an address without a licence has one or more persons watching TV programs. this is precisely why they invented television detector vans, to gather the evidence they need to prove their case.

I do not have and never have had a television licence. I have never been required to prove anything to anybody.

when television started being broadcast digitally and the vans became obsolete, Television Licensing started claiming (falsely, in my opinion) that they have hand-held devices that can intercept the signal from your television. now that it is possible to watch television programs on devices that are not televisions they have literally no way of collecting any evidence whatsoever. and this is the real reason that the licence is being abolished. technology has rendered the television licensing authority toothless.

in my opinion, there is no longer a sustainable argument for a publicly funded television broadcaster, so not only should they abolish the licence, they should not be asking the public to stump up for what should be a commercial organisation.

cheers.

Fed Up Brit said: A government agency makes the assumption in law that a person owns and watches a tv receptor unless they provide proof that they do not.

as I have already said, this just is not true.

I do not have, and never have had a television licence, but I have never had to provide proof of anything to anybody. you are the one making false assumptions.

And then they have to keep provide big proof.

it is a principle of fundamental logic that you cannot prove a negative. there is no way for an individual to prove that they do not watch television. fortunately, the authorities are aware of this. the onus for proof rests with the television licensing authority.

cheers.

Listening these announcers is like they are clueless with providing 5km split times. I don't care about minutes per mile; I would rather hear minutes per kilometer pace. Look, all distance races are in kilometer, i.e 1500, 3000, 5k, 15k, 20k, 21.1k, 25k, 30k, 42.2k. Yeah, 50 years ago, we were running 1mile, 2mi., 3mi, 6mi, 10mi, 13.1mi, and 26mi, 385 yards. Announcers need to be educated in providing split times; don't just ramble on with meaningless information and clichés.

It's a little bit lame to criticize TV commentators on this website. Commentators have to fill in the holes, somewhat. A written review of the race allows the author to actually edit and clarify, to correct or remove the gibberish. Yet somehow we see commentary like the following almost routinely on LRC:

Even allowing for the fact that the [sic] there is an almost 100-foot drop at the end of the third mile ...

Allowing for the error of "that the there" ... how exactly do the athletes negotiate this 100-foot drop? Rappel?

wtf, your attempt as trying to come across as clever isn't working.

Not trying to be clever. That's simply awful writing. To criticize BBC TV commentators on this site, if all places, is simply foolishness.

wtfunny wrote:

Not trying to be clever. That's simply awful writing. To criticize BBC TV commentators on this site, if all places, is simply foolishness.

"Not trying to be clever." - You're not.

"if all places" - That's simply awful writing.

The fascist propaganda arm of the stinky, smelly, yellow toothed English is called BBC.

You're not. wrote:

"Not trying to be clever." - You're not.

Excellent.

"if all places" - That's simply awful writing.

No. That's simply a typo/autocorrect. Not unlike the extra "the" in the original passage I quoted.

I'm just posting on a forum. The quoted passage is from a published, edited article on a site that represents itself as journalism.

You prolly know that.

Run along.

"no one is forced to pay for the BBC."

You are in a sense. If you own a TV and watch anything on it you have to pay the license fee even if you never watch any BBC programmes or listen to any BBC radio station. I choose not to watch Sky, Eurosport, BT Sport etc. so I do not pay for them. That option is not there with the BBC.

Cottonshirt wrote:

it's also the law that if you go on a train, you have to pay. but no one has ever argued that railway companies are arrogant bullies forcing people to pay for their services. if you want the service, you pay for it. if you don't want the service, then you don't have to pay.

that is actually how capitalism works.

cheers.

The trains in the UK are not at all an example of capitalism. You don't have a choice of railway companies to choose from as you have with air travel. Instead you are forced to choose whatever company is providing the trains for the area of the railroad network that you are using to travel.

milermb wrote:

"no one is forced to pay for the BBC."

You are in a sense. If you own a TV and watch anything on it you have to pay the license fee even if you never watch any BBC programmes or listen to any BBC radio station. I choose not to watch Sky, Eurosport, BT Sport etc. so I do not pay for them. That option is not there with the BBC.

And the BBC (despite being a Corporation ) is exclusively permitted by Government to bring Criminal charges that can lead to prison time. Of course, in a fair capitalist democracy, companies can only seek damages through Civil Courts. If you move house, and even if you have paid your license fee in full, the BBC debt collectors may even then, send you a threatening letter warning you of an impending investigation. This has happened to me twice, and it was due to errors in their system. I choose not to watch state-endorsed BBC programming, but I still pay so that they stay away from me.

The BBC also proposed to monitor all internet activity of non-payers just in case they might use the BBC iPlayer without having paid the license fee.

I'm afraid this isn't true either. Jeez, you guys really are clueless.

Television Licencing cannot "bring charges," and you cannot go to jail for not having a tv licence.

if you do not have a tv licence, Television Licencing can present any evidence they have to a court, and if the court finds the evidence sufficiently compelling, it can issue a warrant. it is worth bearing in mind that their evidence has to be that you were watching television programs as they were broadcast, at a time when you did not have a licence. they can't just tell the court that you don't have a licence, because no law is broken by simply not having a licence. you don't break the law until you actually watch a tv program.

the court warrant requires you to attend the court and present your defence. if the court finds you guilty, you will be fined, and required to purchase a tv licence. if you defy the court in this matter, the court can jail you for contempt of court. but no one in the UK has ever been sent to jail for not having a tv licence. plenty of folk go to jail for contempt of court.

I get one of these every month, and have done for approximately twenty years. so far their "investigation" has progressed to the point where they are not yet able to put my name on the letter but they do at least have the post code correct. if you consider these letters to be threatening then you probably need basic reading comprehension classes, and you are also probably breaking the law.

this is fictitious gibberish.

neither the BBC nor anybody else can monitor the internet activity of people who do not have a television licence for the very simple reason that the licence is issued to an address, not a person. TV Licencing do not have names on their database, all they have is addresses. which is why, after twenty years of writing to me, their letters are still addressed to "The Legal Occupier." they have no idea who lives here and they don't care. all they care about is whether the address has a licence.

cheers.

So what is this article saying to you?

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/705864/BBC-iPlayer-monitor-internet-use-TV-licence-rules

And this???

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/599049/TV-Licence-jailed-England-BBC-fee-Scotland-fines

to understand this article you need to know a thing about tv detector vans.

television detector vans were publicised as being able to detect the signal from a person's tv so they could, supposedly, tell which program you were watching. the logic was, this would give them the proof they needed to take licence evaders to court.

but the truth of the matter is that the vans were empty. there was no functioning detector equipment in them, they were just a dummy that scared people into buying a licence in case they got caught. did you know, for example, that there were only ever 18 television detector vans registered at a time. 18 vans to cover the whole country? they were quite obviously nothing more than a publicity stunt.

here's a useful fact to know: not one single person has ever been taken to court by Television Licencing using evidence collected by a television detector van. not one person. ever. when asked about this, Television Licencing said that in order to present evidence in court they would have to reveal how the technology worked, and they were not willing to do that.

now read the Daily Express article.

they do not have any technology to detect who is watching what. they never have had and they never will.

through the BBC iplayer website they can determine the IP address of the device you use to connect to the web. any person with a blog or website can do that. but there is no register of IP addresses and they have no way of connecting an IP address to a specific person or location. they might be able to tell which country you are in, but they have no way of knowing whether or not you have a television licence.

a second important point is that in his post, Fascism in the UK said that the BBC could "monitor all internet activity of non-payers" which is quite clearly not possible. on their database they have an address without a licence. but they do not have the name of any person living at that address, they do not have the IP address of any device owned or used by any person living at that address, they have literally no way of knowing what devices are owned or used by persons living at that address, so the idea that they can monitor anyone living at that address is fatuous nonsense.

the police, or the government spy agencies such as GCHQ or MI5 or whatever, they have the ability to track your identity across the web because they are able to collect lots of data from lots of different sources and join up the IP addresses of persons posting bomb making instructions on one website with their phone records and their IS provider and so forth so that they can come and knock on your door at four o'clock in the morning and prevent terrorism, but the idea that the BBC or Television Licencing can do this is a complete non-starter. the only people who believe that nonsense are nine-year-old girls.

referring now to the article about Scots not going to jail, it says: "The punishment for evading the licence fee is a fine of up to £1,000, but those who refuse to pay up can be hauled back before the courts and sent to jail."

which is exactly what I said. the court will fine you for not having a licence. if you do not pay the court fine you can be sent to jail for contempt of court. no one, ever, has been sent to jail for not having a licence. hundreds of folk have been sent to jail for contempt of court. both the BBC and Television Licencing encourage the "sent to jail for not having a licence," narrative because it makes evasion look like a scary thing to do, but the truth is written in the legislation, which is available on the web (link below). you might start with the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1967. but there's lots more, including section 363 of the Communications Act 2003, The Communications (Television Licensing) Regulations 2004(1), Communications (Television Licensing) (Amendment) Regulations 2016, and so on. you might also want to read the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000), which clearly defines what Television Licencing can and cannot do with regard to investigation and interviewing under caution and arresting folk and so forth (tldr: they have no authority to do any of those things). if you don't want them to walk up your garden path all you have to do is write to them and say so. after that, if they knock on your door they are tresspassing. the truth is out there.

cheers.

Never mind the friggin licence, I think you need to get a life.