More significantly, at midnight my TV licence is due for renewal.
I cancelled the Direct Debit 6 months ago, as I was not sure that I wanted to renew the TV licence this year. Now I've got to take the final decision one way or the other. Do I renew my TV Licence for another year, and pay Brucie's wages, or do I take what feels like the very big step of getting rid of of the TV...?
Because I live on my own, I've got the option of doing so. It is a question that is worth thinking about.
Many readers, no doubt, will think that I'm crazy. How can anybody possibly live without a TV I hear you all thinking. That Worzel's a Looney...!
Well you may be right, but I've observed that over the last few months I've hardly watched any TV. And I haven't really missed it. Nothing really interests me that much. I can get all the news that I need by listening to the radio and reading the interweb, possibly buying a newspaper if something significant has happened.
I tend to watch maybe 15 minutes of TV news whilst I'm scoffing my evening meal, then I turn off the TV and it stays off for the rest of the evening, a monument to the 20th century these days rather than an integral part of my life.
Breakfast TV is dreadful.
Daytime TV isn't much better.
If I want to watch Andrew Neil in the Politics Show, I can always use Iplayer.
The One Show never challenges me intellectually...
Bloody Eastenders doesn't interest me in the slightest. Neither do any of the other TV soap opera's. They seem to drive societies decline rather than reflect it, so I won't give them houseroom...
TV documentaries seem to be very drawn out these days, filling two hours of airtime with 15 minutes of vaguely interesting new material...
Formula One is going to Sky and I'm certainly not going to pay Murdock to watch his channels if I've also got to buy a TV licence to keep Auntie's show on the road....
Dr Who completely lost me earlier this year, with some ridiculous plots. I watched the Christmas special which was OK, very Xmassy, but generally speaking Dr Who is no longer worth the expensive electricity that I have to burn in order to watch it...
Christmas TV in general was useless this year. Mind numbingly boring...
Top Gear has gone a bit silly, I'll miss the daft buggers, but they're not worth £145 a year..
I doubt I'll watch much of the Olympics, even if I had a TV. Athletics etc doesn't interest me. There are no events that burn petrol in the Olympics....!
News 24 and Channel 4 News will definitely be missed, but I think I can adapt to live without them.
The analogue signal is due to be switched off in the Meridian region in a couple of months time and I've been told that my old ITV Digital set-top box will no longer work, so I'll have to invest in some new equipment in the near future...
So not having a TV is not such a crazy idea, if I look at it rationally.
Trouble is, I've grown up with the TV. It has been part of my life for the best part of 50 years. Can I really do without it? It is a big decision, a life changing decision...!
One has got to question these things though, rather than carry on regardless because that's what everybody else does and what I'm expected to do.
Whatever I decide over the next few hours, I'll be playing it completely straight.
If I haven't got a TV licence, I won't have any TV receiving equipment installed in my house.
Anybody and everybody is welcome to come in at random and take a butchers.
My TV will be disconnected and stuffed in the cupboard under the stairs, stored carefully for somebody to take to the Antiques Roadshow in a hundred years time...
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