23 October 2024

Another week, another encounter with the long arm of the law

Despite my best efforts, it seems my council tax bill has come a-knocking.

Photo by Marcus Bastel /Millennium Images

Ping! A text from the bailiffs.

At this point I am tempted to just fill the rest of this column with a long string of capital-As ending with the letters “RRGH” but I have a duty to my readers and I don’t think my editor would be happy, so here goes.

For some reason the words “Your case is now live and open for Enforcement Action”, and “Please call XXX to prevent Enforcement Visit” (sic) grab my attention and this time I call XXX and decide to hang on for as long as it takes to grovel, I mean speak, to someone. I am number 11 in the queue. I plug my phone in to the charger, put it on to speaker and settle down for the wait. Smooth jazz starts playing. At one point the automated system asks me if I would prefer to hear ambient bird noises rather than jazz. I think about this for a bit. I have plenty of time, after all.

In the end I decide to stick with the jazz. I am on the whole unfond of jazz as a musical genre, but I am very fond of ambient bird noises, but as the only time I ever listen to jazz is when I am in a queue to speak to bailiffs I might as well add unpleasant associations to the firm foundations of my dislike of jazz, rather than be made to think of my council tax arrears every time I hear birdsong. It is also not the worst jazz I have ever heard, so it’s not actually aural torture to listen to. And besides, I have other things to worry about than having jazz inflicted on me.

I move up the queue slightly quicker than I expected and get to a man who sounds as if he’s working in a boring office somewhere in the north of England. He doesn’t sound like he’s about to take a panicked call from someone who doesn’t have a clue how he’s going to get out of this one.

He takes down my particulars and explains the situation. It turns out I owe X thousand pounds in all and that, as I have been negligent in my payments since February, they want X hundred pounds today and the balance by the end of the month or they’re going to send the boys round. He doesn’t use the phrase “send the boys round” but that’s essentially the gist. I don’t think they break legs any more but as the only item of any value here is the second-hand laptop I am writing these words on, which cost £187 and change, they might have to take a kidney at least. If they could do brain transplants they might have a go at taking mine, but from what you have been able to gather so far my brain would not fetch a great deal on the open market.

I recall my most recent involvement with enforcement officers: a few days ago, and they were a pair of uniformed police. For reasons I would rather not go into, I had to call 999 and make a report in person at Brighton nick, and this visit was a follow-up to see if I was OK. I went downstairs to answer the front door rather than buzz them in because I wanted to check they actually were police officers. That’s how sketchy things have been around here lately.

As I showed them up the stairs, one of them, PC T—, asked me what I was up to today.

“Just trying to get on with some work,” I said. (As a matter of fact, it was last week’s column.)

“Do you work from home then?” I said yes. He asked me what I did and I told him I was a writer.

“Wow! Really? A writer?” he said with very engaging enthusiasm.

“Yes, and this,” I said as I showed them into the Hove-l, “is why I live in such splendour. But I do have a lovely view.”

PC L—, though, did not want to dwell on my job or the view, presumably because Plod has more important matters to deal with, so got straight down to business. This I was inclined to do, for while PC T— was a young man with artfully arranged scruffy brown hair, if you see what I mean, PC L— was a strikingly beautiful woman with a firmly tied-back blonde coiffure. I sat down while they stood, because the only other chair is a deckchair with a stain on the fabric, and PC L— loomed over me like a stern but efficient Nordic goddess. Although it’s not really my thing, I couldn’t help coming over a bit funny when my gaze strayed to her handcuffs.

As I went over my predicament with Mr Bailiff, I couldn’t help thinking how much I’d rather be in PC L—’s hands than his. Come to think of it, even PC T—’s hands would have been preferable. Not that Mr Bailiff was in any way unpleasant or threatening: he didn’t need to be. All he had to do was explain. It would seem that, what with one thing and another, he, and I, had little room for manoeuvre.

In the end I think I have managed to worm my way out of immediate trouble. I would rather not go into details, but suffice it to say that I now owe my brother £600 and in 15 working days will effectively have no pension worth speaking of. But as I will not be making old bones, that is the least of my worries.

And how has your week been?