Yeah
—— nothing like a bit of passive aggressive whining.

Some prefer it over your style of in-your-face aggresive whining.

—— Just, you know, out of interest, do you think the TV licensing people
—— are psychic, or something?

No. That would be silly. But I can't think of any other debt collection service that goes on fishing expeditions like this. Of course most people have TVs, but so what? Most people have jobs and pay tax too, but do HMRC send a tax return to every address in the country just in case someone wants to make a declaration, along with a threat of a jail sentence if you don't respond appropriately? No, it's up to you and me to indicate to them that you've got something to declare, if you have. Most people drive too, but do the DVLA don't send round circulars saying, "Are you driving without a licence? If so, you could go to prison."

It's just kind of assumed that people know they're supposed to pay.

And in any case, as I said above, if it really were just a query every year or two, I wouldn't mind; it's the threatening tone that annoys me.

—— Or do you think that maybe they should just trust you to be honest and
—— own up if that happens?

Well, yeah, that'd be good. It works well enough for every other kind of licence I can think of.
(Sir Reginald Slapknackers last slapped his knackers at, Mon 6 Sep 2010, 17:09, Reply)