Today I packed our lounge’s LCD TV and all the AV equipment into the car ready to deliver tonight to my sister in Bristol. This will mean we have zero ability to receive a terrestrial television signal so we can cancel the TV licence.

We’re getting rid of the telly for a number of reasons the main ones being:

• We don’t use it. We’re mostly reading, talking or listening to the radio if we’ve the time to be hanging out in the lounge;
• There’s no temptation to allow the kids to watch it. Our boy has a bit of an addiction and can get really cranky after even half an hour of usage so this way he knows there’s no possibility of getting a fix;
• What it represents. It’s a symbol of mass consumption and, frankly, we’re embarrassed to own it;
• Space. It’s huge (40″) and we’re likely to be living in a small house soon;
• Power. It is power hungry;
• Asset value. Whilst it is still worth something we thought release that cash back into our pockets;

It might take a few days to get used to not having it anymore but I can’t see it being a big deal. Should there be something that we really want to watch there’s always the laptop and iPlayer.

Ackers bought me a Current Cost Cc128 for my birthday and I’m absolutely stunned to see that we’re using ~ 900 Watts ambient. Obscene.

Shutting my home desktop down, something I never do (!), reduces it down a bit but I’m sure we should be < 300 Watts as a default. Switching the electric oven on spikes it to over 3 KWatts.

Methinks a massive audit on our electricity usage is needed, urgently.

*all optional items switched off.