‘How much did you say the TV licence cost?’ asks my American friend.
‘£145.50,’ I reply.
‘One hundred and forty-five pounds,’ she repeats, with astonishment. ‘And everyone has to pay it?’
‘Yep. Every home with a TV.’
‘That’s a lot of money.’
My friend is an economist, with the ability to be as precise about the US’s federal budget as I am about what I’ve just spent at the supermarket.

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