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.<\/p>\n
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, Radiotj\u00e4nst? Emboldened by my less than hostile reception, Radiotj\u00e4nst 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.<\/p>\n
What annoyed me most is that since I was pretending never to have heard about Radiotj\u00e4nst, I couldn’t retort with evident knowledge<\/a> 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 Radiotj\u00e4nst. 2) Sweden is a democracy. 3) Radiotj\u00e4nst continues to exist. How can these three things all exist simultaneously?<\/span>.<\/p>\n Now that I think about it, I bet his look was a foil. Radiotj\u00e4nst 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 Radiotj\u00e4nst guy<\/em>, 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<\/em>. No wonder he spoke such good English. I really think I have seen him on TV — now wouldn’t that be ironic?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 … Continue reading