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A LICENCE TO KILL March 2003. For the past few months the esteemed Sunday Times columnist Jonathan Miller has been running a campaign with the laudable aim of abolishing the TV Licence. To this end he has publicly refused to buy a licence and challenged the BBC to take him to court over the issue. He has already made one appearance in court, when the magistrates adjourned the case sine die. Mr Miller's refusal to pay the licence fee is based on his rights under the Human Rights Act of 1988, Article 10, and in particular the part of it which reads: 'Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include the freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers'. Jonathan has invited others to join his crusade and a website www.bbcresistance.com has been set up to this effect.     This is all fine and dandy of course but it does seem to me that Jonathan is taking the proverbial sledgehammer to crack a nut. I mean if he doesn't want to pay his TV Licence why doesn't he just stop paying it, no need to make such a song and dance about it. I haven't paid mine for years.      I can't remember exactly what it was that decided me against contributing further to the BBC's coffers, although I had been disenchanted with their ouput for some time - but it was probably when Gary Lineker was taken on and One Man and his Dog taken off (I was not particularly fond of One Man and his Dog but anything rather than Gary Lineker). About a couple of months after I had failed to renew my licence I received a letter from the TV licence collection agency pointing this out to me and that if I still had a television set I was breaking the law. I ignored it. About a month later I received another letter from them. This missive was couched in much sterner terms, tantamount to demanding money with menaces. I ignored it. A month later I received another letter. By now they were angry. I can't remember exactly what they threatened if I failed to come up with the money but I'm pretty sure pestilence and frogs raining down on me were mentioned, if not Armageddon itself. I replied to this letter, but in French. A month later another letter arrived, an exact replica of their previous letter. I again replied to it in French. A month later they sent me another letter, an exact replica of their previous letter, but in French. I replied to it in German. They never bothered writing to me again after that.     About eighteen months later a knock came on my front door. It was the TV detector people. They said they had reason to believe that I had a TV set for which I did not hold a current licence. I'd been expecting such a call for some time and had in the meantime taken the precaution of obtaining a tape recording of a very large dog barking, snapping, snarling, and a bit of what is known as baying I believe. I politely excused myself from the TV detector people, claiming that I had left the chip pan on. I then went into the living room and switched on my dog recording, full volume. Then I returned to the front door, told the detector people that I didn't have a TV set, but that if they didn't believe me they were welcome to come in and have a look round. They asked me to put the dog in the back garden. I told them that my dog didn't care for it out of doors and that he spent all his time indoors sitting where we used to have a television set, and that furthermore he doesn't like to be disturbed. They went.      About twelve months later they came back again, two different people this time, but with the same mean features. By then I had added a scream and a shout of 'It bit me in the bollocks!' to the sound track of the dog tape, but whether this was over-egging the pudding a bit I will never know. At any rate on hearing the dog tape the detector people departed even quicker than their predecessors. They haven't been back since and I don't suppose they ever will.     There is more than one way to skin a cat and I'm pretty sure that mine is a much easier way of doing it than Jonathan Miller's way. Readers should feel free to try my method.