Britain and "Free" Television

Disclaimer: 

We are by no means experts in intricate details of anything said in the below blog post. What we tell in detail is conveyed through American eyes with information drawn from other Americans living in England and bits of research we have conducted through the interwebz. Do not treat this post as your one-stop-shop for details on British television fees.

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Some of you may not know this about the charming country of England. In this land, there is no such thing as free television. In fact, there is no such thing as free anything. I am surprised they don't charge you for listening to the radio (oh wait, they used to do that, too).

Since our arrival, my coworkers have emphasized how you must make sure you pay your TV license if you watch or think about watching broadcast television or the TV license boogey man will get you and eat your TV, steal your firstborn and fine you one thousand pounds which is actually one thousand times 1.6 because the Dollar is so weak to the almighty Pound Sterling.

...ok, I had to rant about that one a little bit because lately I've been thinking they enjoy telling me things like this just to scare me. I will probably do the same thing to other new people when they arrive.

I digress.

In England, everyone must pay the TV license fee of £145 per annum (yearly) if you watch or record broadcast programming on any sort of device that has the capability to do so. If you do not pay this fee you will be fined big time. We actually weren't kidding about the £1,000 above. It might actually be more than that. 

You might be thinking, "how does the Queen know you are watching TV without a license?" The Queen is very clever, that's how! Here, they have vehicles that drive up and down every street to check out who is pulling airwaves into the house and if the household have/not paid their yearly license fee.

The Dittmers have decided to not take any chances on this and the other day we set up a nice monthly payment to cover this little British Fact of Life.

Moving on to "free"...

In the UK there are several options for TV programming.  

There is: 

Freeview (much like Antenna TV), FreeSat, SkyTV, and FreeSat with Sky.

Freeview gives you like 7 channels. [We think it's funny how they call it Freeview when us Americans can see right through their little marketing scheme. We know what the real free feels like and that ain't it.]

FreeSat technically isn't free either [of course not]; it costs £175 to install the dish, get an access card and a receiver. But after that, there is no charge for programming. 

SkyTV is just like DirecTV or Dish Network. You pay monthly for a 24-month contract for way more channels than anyone could ever appreciate. Oh yeah, make sure you pay your TV license or the fine will hit your mailbox much quicker than if the radarmobiles catch you.

FreeSat with Sky uses a SkyTV satellite dish and receiver, only with no SkyTV contract--and WAY more channels than plain old FreeSat. These are the channels we get** with FreeSat with Sky.  

OK... so, no TV is free in the UK. But the Dittmers have probably gotten the best deal out of this crazy system: We were given a SkyHD receiver [FREE] from a coworker who was moving out. Also, we have come to find out that our house has a SkyTV satellite dish already installed on the chimney [FREE]. The house is professionally wired to reach every bedroom, the kitchen and living room with satellite TV. Oh, have we mentioned that our landlord kept her little TV/DVD player combo installed under the cupboard in the kitchen? We think it's already installed for FreeSat or something because we've been watching Judge Judy and Top Gear long before our TV arrived.

The only thing we had to do to get FreeSat with Sky was call SkyTV and order an access card for £25 which will last 3-5 years. For £25 + £145/year for the national TV License we get 240 channels. Not too shabby, but definitely not free!

**Just noticed Wedding Channel--Asia, thirty-some shopping channels, seventeen adult channels and thirty international channels. Hey, we said 240 channels, not 240 totally awesome channels. I think we only get five HD channels, too. So... which one has HouseHunters? :)

A taste of what's to come...

To our faithful readers who have been awaiting the big announcement regarding our new home: we finally found one!

We're so sorry we haven't blogged about it yet, but we have been terribly busy and we want to put the necessary effort into such a lovely topic as this one. We moved in on 18 November and the office has a system to lend out temporary furniture while we wait for our household goods to arrive. We were fortunate to have our first Thanksgiving Dinner in our new home and we were even able to have guests over to share it with.

Because tomorrow is the big day that all of our HHGs arrive, I want to mark today by giving you all a small taste of what we have been living in sans permanent furnishings.

The dining room with our temporary furniture.

Our favorite aspects of the house that we are so excited to tell you all about are:
- the roof
- the AGA
- the floors
- the lane it's on / our neighbors
- our posh landlord
- how charming it will be at Christmas

The living room fireplace

What's the green thing hiding behind the island? Our new friend, the AGA

London!

First of all -- Happy Veteran's Day to all who are serving or have served in the US Military. We are proud to call the United States of America "Home" because of your service! Thank you!

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The Dittmers have officially made a trip to The Smoke! Last weekend our friend Cassie joined us on our adventure and we had a blast! Today we went again and we already have another new friend who came with named Steve! There is so much to do and see there, I know that over the next three years it will still be a treat to go into town.

So far, the top five highlights of our two trips are:

1. The Underground (the "Tube" as the locals call it here). 

Ok, ok, it's just public transportation... but it really is fun! Today when we got on a train on the Central Line around 6:30PM we were packed in there like sardines. We love getting off the tube one stop over, walking around the area for a long time and then realizing you walked all the way back to the original stop you had just left. This happens most frequently around Picadilly Square. Mind the Gap!!

2. Seeing the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.

Nice digs, Your Majesty!

This happened by pure accident, guys! We were just walking along toward the palace and then we saw it (yay, exciting, how cool!). We saw a couple guys with tall bearskin hats walking around and we thought they were just on patrol or whatever... turns out they were doing the rigmarole called "the changing of the guard" or at least, I think that's what they were doing. You be the judge:

3. Enjoying a really nice Autumn day in Westminster:

'Nuff said.

The only sad bit is that it's always so damp so none of the leaves crunch when you walk on them.

4. Portobello Market!

I don't have any photos of this place, but I am in love with it. It's a 2-mile stretch of vendors and adorable shops that I wish I could bring every girlfriend with me to see. I am sure I will be finding sweet additions to our home decor at this marketplace.

5. We were the very first customers at a late-serving dim sum diner called Dim Sum Diner...

So much food!

Our Asian friends, Steve & Cassie, showing us the joys of dim sum.

This was a cute little asian restaurant which apparently is an American-style restaurant. Could have fooled us! Dim Sum is like bite-sized asian food (or, finger food...?). The Spanish version would be Tapas, and these are very popular in England as well. Anyway, I guess it's pretty rare to have a Dim Sum restaurant open in the evening so the owner decided to do something different and open one for people like us! (On another note--the English eat dinner really late. Many times they serve early-bird menu deals for customers who dine before 7pm. WIN!)

Other fun sights:

Pay Toilets -- £.50, please

The London Eye (we will go ON it soon!)

 BIG BEN

Others are growing a mustache during the month of Movember!

 Sherlock Holmes' home! 221b Baker Street

IN OTHER NEWS

We found a house! Stay tuned for a special blog post introducing our new home to you (it will be in stages because our household goods are still on a boat). However, our move-in date is 21 November if all goes well. Keep praying!!

Trying to find a rhythm

While we have picked up a sort of routine with our day since coming to England, neither of us have really been very happy with how it looks. On a week day, we get up, eat breakfast, Hannah goes to work, Bryant looks for a job & gets important stuff done while out and about, Hannah comes home from work, we sit in the executive lounge at the hotel and eat hors d'ouvres until dinner time late evening and then we go to bed. It's not that we necessarily have things we have to get completed in our off-time, like homework or anything, but it's just sad that we don't really have time to sit and blog, exercise, relax, tour little villages or other fun exploring things after work.

We changed our clocks back an hour in Europe on Saturday night and now it gets dark around 5 PM. It is sad to say, but it looks like we are going to have to do most of our England exploring over the weekends and almost none of it after the work day. This past weekend we had to drive up north a couple hours to help a friend take care of some business with her rental car. While we were up there we thought it might be a good idea to skip on over to Cambridge for the day.

We had a really great time! We parked at a Park & Ride and took the bus into the city centre on Sunday afternoon. They had a little market going on in the center and we had fun roaming around looking at all the vendors and crafty things they were selling. We saw a street performer do some stunts on the street with flaming juggling batons and a unicycle:

And we got to tour King's College! It was so beautiful in there! Because it was Sunday they had a service inside the chapel at 3:30 so we were able to hear the world famous King's College Choir. Unfortunately our camera battery died while we were touring the college grounds and I didn't get many photos of other things we saw, but King's is gorgeous--King Henry VIII made sure of that!

We got a short video of the interior of the chapel without getting caught. Sorry there isn't any music playing from the organ... we promise it's absolutely beautiful.

The closer we get to Winter and with each visit to a new charming English town, we find ourselves picking out cute little gift ideas for Christmas...England is chock-full of cute stuff!!

We know that the more we buy before we find a house, the more we have to keep in limbo at our hotel. Needless to say, we are really getting antsy to find a place, but we have yet to find one. Please be praying for us while we search. We don't don't want to settle but we are getting a little weary of tours and phone calls to letting agents.

Hopefully we can pick up a good rhythm soon before the Holidays are upon us! We want a house to decorate!!

The grounds at King's College on a crisp Fall day. See the cows across the river? :)