ANOTHER week, another crackdown by TV licensing.

This time it's Lancaster's turn to face the snoopers from the detector vans, who now claim they can detect a TV the size of an acorn from the other side of the planet.

Nobody is safe, they tell us, even if you live in a cave on the Mull of Kintyre they are coming to get you.

All very clever and, as they constantly tell us 'there is no valid excuse for not having a TV license' (apart, presumably, from not having a TV).

But perhaps they could explain what the excuse is for having a TV licence?

We're the only country in the world to have a TV licence. This is for much the same reason that morris dancing is a uniquely British tradition -- it's a waste of space.

Other countries succeed in funding their national television stations by fair taxation rather than the licensing fee scam.

Like the poll tax it hits the poor and the rich equally hard -- you have to pay it whether you can afford to or not -- unless you want to spend your evenings smoking Woodbines and listening to the wireless.

But there is a way of beating the detector vans without handing over money to the beeb.

The Government's decision to give a free TV licence to everyone over 75 received much publicity, but what most people don't realise is that the pensioner doesn't actually have to live alone to qualify.

Each household needs only one licence, so by grabbing a granny you can avoid handing over a monkey every year for the privilege of watching the telly.

In fact, perhaps this is a cunning Government plot. By giving the OAPs a free licence, they hope to see queues of telly addicts hanging around outside the old folks' homes eager and ready to take on the burden of looking after their passport to free telly.

But, if the Government really wants to do us all a favour, they should get rid of the licence altogether.