Stuff bustin' - do you find it goes in batches?

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

In the last few weeks, we've had a spate of things going bust:

TV

External hard drive

Kitchen scales

Microwave oven

Turntable

Video cassette recorder (today)

and my laptop is now taking 20-25 minutes to start up in the mornings, so that'll have to go for repair, when I can get round to it.

It's not the money for repairs/replacements; it's the sodding pain-in-the-arseness of it all.

Do you find that you have a run of things going bust?

MG

[mikelz777]

I hope not. Our microwave just went bust as well but it was probably overdue. I've had that thing for about 25 years. The plastic bumper on my wife's car has a nice dent in it from hitting a rock-hard snowbank. She'd like it fixed but I'd just as soon leave it as is. It's not going to rust and I hate to think of what they'd charge to pop it out if not replace it altogether. Stuff like this seems to happen when you think you're about to get ahead of things.

[Niko]

It's not the money for repairs/replacements; it's the sodding pain-in-the-arseness of it all.

OMG! hope my laptop battery yesterday will not develop into a series like this... what i do have right now is a bunch of crappy bills for stuff that does not give you anything in return (the remainders of last year's heating, laptop battery... and worst of all 200 Euro for less than a year of public television, will take me months until i can watch their crappy program without a bitter taste) ; and i can't say it's not the money :-)

[A Lark Ascending]

The solution involves boiling neckbones, mixing them with mandrake root and the umbilical chord of a new born lamb and then sprinkling the mixture all over the house.

I'd have thought you'd know this, MG!

Edited January 26, 2010 by Bev Stapleton

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

The solution involves boiling neckbones, mixing them with mandrake root and the umbilical chord of a new born lamb and then sprinkling the mixture all over the house.

I'd have thought you'd know this, MG!

My Missus takes care of all that sort of stuff, Bev. I didn't get where I am today by knowing anything useful - CJ

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

and worst of all 200 Euro for less than a year of public television, will take me months until i can watch their crappy program without a bitter taste) ;

Is that for a whole year, or just the part of the year you've been on?

I thought the BBC was expensive, but my licence fee will be paid next week - £142.50 or 163.42 Euro, for the whole year. MUCH cheaper than commercial television

MG

[BERIGAN]

and worst of all 200 Euro for less than a year of public television, will take me months until i can watch their crappy program without a bitter taste) ;

Is that for a whole year, or just the part of the year you've been on?

I thought the BBC was expensive, but my licence fee will be paid next week - £142.50 or 163.42 Euro, for the whole year. MUCH cheaper than commercial television

MG

Ok guys...explain something to a foreigner. In the U.S. we have "public" tv. Usually one channel, though I am sure other cities have 2 available as we do here in Atlanta. Government, businesses and donations from the people keep it alive and kicking.

How many channels do you get in each country, for this princely some??? And MG, how is it much cheaper than commercial TV??? Or are you talking about a monthly fee for Cable/satellite service????

[Niko]

here, there are two types of fees. one is some sort of tax for public tv and radio. this you have to pay if you own a tv, a radio, or (in the internet age) a computer (because they put content on their websites) - it's more like some sort of tax, but strangely it's not collected by the tax people but by some other semi-independent organization. They have about 15 tv channels, some of them regional... but how many you receive is your problem - once you own the machine you have to pay, for a tv is a bit over 50 euro for three months... (radio and computer are cheaper); if they would at least make the wdr and ndr jazz archives available from that money - but they don't, just read 600 million euro a year go into their websites...

and then independently from that there is the question of cable tv... if you sign up with one of those cable companies, you'll have to pay again, don't know how many channels you get then (40? depends), but what they bring to you is a mix of private and public tv (something like 12 public and the rest private, including some foreign channels)

i have one of those digital antennas so i don't have to pay a fee in addition to that tax thing, i get like 22 channels, 10 of which are public and 12 private...

(the 10 public ones are:

the two big ones (left from those days when there were only two stations in all of germany)

our regional one (WDR) and three more regional ones from other regions (NDR...)

Arte and 3Sat (the "high-brow" tv stations, the first one a french/german cooperations)

and two more recent inventions

one channel for children which at night sends a steady stream of 25 minute documentaries

one strange channel which also has lots of concerts, old tv series... but basically repeats one day of program all week - this is the channel with the best jazz content so i'm not complaining...

)

Edited January 27, 2010 by Niko

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

and worst of all 200 Euro for less than a year of public television, will take me months until i can watch their crappy program without a bitter taste) ;

Is that for a whole year, or just the part of the year you've been on?

I thought the BBC was expensive, but my licence fee will be paid next week - £142.50 or 163.42 Euro, for the whole year. MUCH cheaper than commercial television

MG

Ok guys...explain something to a foreigner. In the U.S. we have "public" tv. Usually one channel, though I am sure other cities have 2 available as we do here in Atlanta. Government, businesses and donations from the people keep it alive and kicking.

How many channels do you get in each country, for this princely some??? And MG, how is it much cheaper than commercial TV??? Or are you talking about a monthly fee for Cable/satellite service????

The position in the UK is similar to what Niko has described for Germany. We have two widely available BBC channels here. When we go digital - in our area that's in March - we'll have 4 plus a couple of Parliamentary channels so we can watch politicians debate stuff (I think - I don't watch TV).

TV has to be paid for and the people who pay for it are us, whether we watch it or not. If my wife didn't want TV, we wouldn't need to have one and wouldn't have to pay the license fee. BUT WE'D STILL BE PAYING FOR ALL THE PROGRAMMING ON ALL THE COMMERCIAL CHANNELS, because that programming is paid for by advertising which increases the cost of all the goods and services we buy. And on top of that basic advertising cost, which is about the same as the public channels' cost, plus network profits, the distribution chain loads on its profit margin at every stage of the distribution process.

In addition, you're right about subscriptions to cable and/or satellite channels. This is one of the things that going digital is going to bring us in March (such delight, analogue will cease, so this is compulsory) and my wife and I are trying to work out what to do about it now. Subscribing to SKY TV (Murdoch, your favourite) would cost 18 pounds a month, and would give my wife the basic recipe of about 40 channels, most of which she doesn't want, but not the one she does want, National Geographic - so she'd have to pay extra for that. So we're taking about £240 a year - about $385. And we're still paying for all the adverts in our shopping baskets.

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

here, there are two types of fees. one is some sort of tax for public tv and radio. this you have to pay if you own a tv, a radio, or (in the internet age) a computer (because they put content on their websites) - it's more like some sort of tax, but strangely it's not collected by the tax people but by some other semi-independent organization. They have about 15 tv channels, some of them regional... but how many you receive is your problem - once you own the machine you have to pay, for a tv is a bit over 50 euro for three months... (radio and computer are cheaper); if they would at least make the wdr and ndr jazz archives available from that money - but they don't, just read 600 million euro a year go into their websites...

Similar to the UK, Niko, and it's not really a tax. The money collected, minus collection costs, goes to the BBC, or your regional broadcasters. The fee is underpinned by legislation, so you can be prosecuted if you don't pay. But it's not like renewing your car licence every year. That's a tax because the cash goes to government, which is responsible (at different geographical levels) for maintaining roads and building new ones.

BBC World Service is funded by tax - paid for by the Foreign office, as the Voice of America is, I believe, funded by the State Department.

MG