News has reached us from the Norwich Evening News that former Celtic FC goalkeeper, David Marshall has been fined £800 for not having a TV licence. This is on top of an existing £90 fine for driving whilst using a mobile phone – which is now overdue and, as yet unpaid. We are told that he also had to pay costs and a £15 victim surcharge – though I’m not quite clear to whom that may be. Is TV licence dodging the ultimate victimless crime?

A spokesman for TV Licensing in East Anglia is quoted as saying: “This demonstrates just how effective our detection methods are. .. We have also introduced high-tech handheld devices which we use alongside the fleet of detector vans.”
And I had always thought that the detector vans were a myth to get TV viewers to behave themselves …