Well, they found me. The knock on the door came barely a month after having moved. I actually thought it was the landlord come to fix a light and so I bounded to the door, only to find an extremely sorry-looking man with droopy eyelids who began to inform me in resigned Swedish that maybe I was not paying for a TV license. I let him talk for a while, then feigned ignorance of Swedish and let him start again in English. He spoke rather excellent English, I must say. In fact, I suspect he was British. He reminded me of Hitler, but without the mustache or charisma.
My TV was turned off and around the corner, and so I could have lied to him, but he looked so sad and dishevelled and obviously much verbally abused and routinely lied to, and probably bullied in the playground growing up, that I just couldn’t bring myself to contribute further to his evident self-loathing. In fact, I had all the body language of a liar even when I admitted that yes, I have a TV the landlord lent me, and how much would it be, oh that much a month, and if I get rid of the TV do I just call… what is your service called, Radiotjänst? Emboldened by my less than hostile reception, Radiotjänst guy even made a brave attempt at explaining his purpose in life, pointing out that they guarantee the existence of public broadcasting free of advertising and political meddling.
What annoyed me most is that since I was pretending never to have heard about Radiotjänst, I couldn’t retort with evident knowledge that while there is nothing wrong with publicly funded broadcasting, there is everything wrong with poll tax collectors for televisionsA paradox… Here are three facts: 1) I have yet to meet a a Swede who approves of Radiotjänst. 2) Sweden is a democracy. 3) Radiotjänst continues to exist. How can these three things all exist simultaneously?.
Now that I think about it, I bet his look was a foil. Radiotjänst jobs are probably some of the most coveted ones around for actors, who see this as the ultimate test of their method-acting skills. Become Radiotjänst guy, the teacher intones to his charges as he sends them off to collect licenses. And whoever comes back with the fewest gets booted from the course. My guy is probably already back at central casting, where they are removing the make-up along with the artificial bags under his eyes. Soon, he’ll be at home sipping a claret as he learns his lines for an upcoming starring role in Death of a Salesman. No wonder he spoke such good English. I really think I have seen him on TV — now wouldn’t that be ironic?
*LOL* Can’t believe you managed to keep a straight face. Well, if those guys are actors we may just as well continue to play sports. Really, coming up with plausible stories each time they ring the bell is a sport! 🙂
I live in Stockholm and Radiotjänst guy visited me the other month. His name was British and he was British. It was probably the same guy you met. He said he could make a living from his job, which was only half-time. He said this without shame, rather with some pride of the sort a man feels when boasting about his salary, a pride originating from being worth a lot to society.
During the cold war, that Radio service guy probably worked as a spy. Don’t be fooled by his puppish eyes. 😉
I approve of Radiotjänst. Or rather, I approve of the fact that we do have to pay for Swedish television. I’d hate to see it become yet another commercial-ridden junk channel, filled with endless reruns of old american sitcoms. (Not to mention the fact that quite a few of my friends get their paycheck from SVT.)
But the system in itself is screwed up – it might have worked earlier, but not today when practically every household has a tv set. Just finance it out of tax money – that way *I* don’t have to pay extra because thousands lie about owning a tv.
Hehe a friend of mine had a similar experience except he did have his TV ON and just a few meter away from the door tuned in to MTV(e).
So the Radiotjänst guy starts askin him all these questions and why he didn’t pay even though they sent him a bounch of reminders.
A few minutes later the Rånartjänst guy got tired and points at the TV and ask: “Well, what’s that then if you say you have no TV”
“It’s my fishtank”, my friend replied and shut the door.
Since then nobody has bother him further 🙂