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From: nigel.allen@f438.n250.z1.fidonet.org
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Boston Gas "Specially-equipped Gas Meter"
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Date: 31 May 90 06:59:00 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 403, Message 10 of 11


roy@phri.nyu.edu quotes Monty Python's Flying Circus:

>Sounds like the Cat Detector Van from the Ministry of Housing!

In Britain, at least at the time the Cat Detector Van sketch was
written, the operations of the British Broadcasting Corporation were
supported, at least in part, by a license fee imposed on television
sets and possibly on radios as well.  Any broadcasting receiver is
also a crude transmitter, and a mobile detection device (in a van)
could locate television or radio receivers, and get very nasty if a
tax officials found a television set for which no license fee had been
paid.

I've never seen a television or radio detector van, but I think they
must have existed at one point.  The cat detector van that could
pinpoint a purr at fifty yards was purely a creation of the Monty
Python troupe's fertile imagination, but you can see that a British
audience would have recognized the allusions to collecting television
license fees.

A long time ago, there were annual license fees on radios in Canada,
and perhaps even on television sets in the early days, but they were
abolished years and years ago. Now, grants to the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation come out of the federal government's general
revenues.


Nigel Allen                   Telephone (416) 535-8916
52 Manchester Avenue          Fax (416) 978-7552
Toronto, Ontario M6G 1V3      nigel.allen@f438.n250.z1.fidonet.org
Canada

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