Complaining recently about the ever increasing costs of internet and cable TV providers, a friend helpfully suggested an alternative. “Get a firestick,” they said. “It’s just a one-off payment and you get access to all the channels and the sports, including the pay per view (PPV) events.” And it’s true: acquiring a firestick, or a “dodgy box”, can save the pay TV viewer a small fortune. More than that, I seem to be one of the few people who, perhaps foolishly, continues to be willingly ripped off by, in my case, Virgin. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, right?
There’s no doubt that if you want the full gamut of channels, particularly the sports channels, you will not have a lot of your salary left. You need Sky, TNT, Premier Sports, DAZN and numerous other providers if you want to watch the lot. The thing is, though, in my case, I long decided against signing up for everything and still sign up for the things that I rarely use.
I want to watch La Liga and the Netherland’s Eredivisie but I’d have to part with even more dosh in order to do so. La Liga is available through Amazon Prime, but with an extra cost, and the Eredivisie is available through Triller TV for another £8 a month. It just goes on and on. Sod it: let’s get a firestick or a dodgy box, then.
But I won’t do either because it just isn’t me. if I acquire something through dodgy means, I am immediately engulfed by guilt. Once, as a 16 year old ‘Saturday boy’ working for Boots The Chemist in Broadmead, Bristol, I stole a copy of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band By The Beatles and felt awful as soon as I rounded the corner on my way home. I still have that album and I cannot look at it without feeling like the common criminal I was. Everyone else working in the warehouse seemed to nick stuff as a matter of course and I often wondered how the company kept going. Some stuff was stolen to order, with people waiting round the back to collect their illicit goods. I did it once and 50 years on I still cringe.
Given that my mum and me didn’t have a pot to piss in, you’d have thought I might have a reason to not feel quite so guilt-ridden. She struggled to put bread on the table, which was the main reason I took a Saturday job and then took the first full time job that came my way, but something told me that nicking stuff was wrong. I never did it again. If I couldn’t afford to pay for something, then I didn’t have it. I’m thinking that’s how my mum lived her life and both sets of grandparents, too. Indeed, my paternal grandparents had an outside toilet and literally no bathroom at all, but they were as honest as the day is long and clearly preferred to live in near poverty. No one talked about it, but maybe I acquired some of my better values from them. (At this point, it is important to say that I am very flawed in too many areas to mention right now. I was far from an angel.) Which brings me back to firesticks and dodgy boxes.
The possibility of being caught having a firestick or dodgy box is not my biggest concern. As I mentioned, it’s the guilt – and there’s something else, too. Sellers of these items are criminals. That’s a simple fact. Who knows what else these people get up to crimewise? How do I know for sure they are not people traffickers or paedophiles? And what are they going to do with my bank details?
The best thing for me to do is to accept that I can’t have all the available pay TV channels because of the cost and because there is so much more to life than lounging about on the couch watching sport, movies and all the rest of it. If I live long enough, I will have plenty of time to do that when I am in a care home pissing my pants and being fed food that’s been through a blender.
Good luck to you if you have a firestick or a dodgy box. I know these TV and internet companies are out there solely to squeeze as much money as they can from you and it’s your way of saying, “Fuck you” to them. For the reasons I’ve explained, I just can’t bring myself to do it. And actually, I’m quite pleased with myself for at least having some scruples. That’s not always been the case.
