SPECTATOR could never condone law breaking, but he was given food for thought by a colleague who possesses only terrestrial televsion channels following a report on the quality of programmes shoved out by the BBC.

Having endured a particularly dire evening on both BBC channels, with little better on others, this colleague admitted with tongue in cheek that he had long harboured the dream of refusing to pay the licence fee (currently £121), being duly hauled before the beak and saying he refused to cough up because, with a few honourable exceptions, he considered that BBC output was, well ... you think of a description suitable for publication in a local family newspaper.

It will never happen, of course, because Spectator's colleague has always been a diligent if reluctant payer upper and the ultimate democratic defiance he envisages would probably cost more than the licence fee that he protests about so vociferously in private.

Don't go breaking the law, but we can all dream about principles, can't we? Perhaps someone somewhere will get the message by legal means.

A use for Leylandii

THE fast-growing Leylandii cypress tree is the bane of dedicated gardeners and the stuff of neighbours' rows but the team on one of Darlington's recycling collection wagons found a handy cypress neatly solved a problem.

They usually wedge the blue bags used for paper salvage through gate or fence bars after they've emptied them, especially on windy days. Last Friday had a good breeze blowing and, at one house without gate or fence, they'd stuffed the blue bag quite securely among the close-growing branches of a lone golden cypress standing guard by the driveway.

Market town style

READERS of the Sunday Times business section may have spotted a familiar-looking market place scene in last week's issue. A rather fine picture of the Saturday market in Richmond was used to illustrate a story about the retailer Debenhams opening a number of "mini-stores" in market towns across Britain.

"Bringing style to Britain's small market towns" the caption read. Sadly, the story didn't say that Richmond would be at the top of the Debenhams store shopping list. It's a nice idea though.

Mobile madness

THE Government has, quite rightly, cracked down on people who think they can drive a car or van with one hand while talking into a mobile phone, but Spectator wondered if the new law applied to cyclists too after seeing one man wobbling up busy Bondgate in Darlington, one hand on the handlebars, one - with mobile - clamped to his ear.