I have told this story before I think. It dates back to the mid 1970s when a friend had a summer job collecting "peppercorn rents." The law was - and maybe still is - that if you had an overhanging sign and did not rent the ground that it overhung, you could after a time claim certain rights to the land itself. So my friend was employed by the council to ring up companies, drag the Chief Finance Officer away from whatever he or she was doing and insist they pay a few pence to the council. (It had to be the CFO as it needed to be someone authorised to act for the company.)

They were rarely convinced it was a good use of their time, but were happy to spend for more time explaining precisely why to my unfortunate friend.