THE idea of Lancashire Constabulary facing a threat of legal action because of the alleged playing of recorded music in various police buildings without a licence was one of the brighter spots of the past week's local news.

I wouldn't of course presume to make any comment on whether it did or didn't happen as alleged by the Performing Rights Society whose role is to look for infringements and effectively 'police' the area of copyright in music, plays and other artistic work.

But there are certain questions that have to be asked.

This writer surely cannot be alone in hating the awful noise masquerading as music which assaults our ears in so many stores, shopping malls, public buildings, trains and planes.

It is notably worse in some other parts of Europe, Asia and the US.

Many of those responsible in this country seem to have woken up in the past few years to the fact that many people find it offensive rather than pleasantly melodious and soothing.

The notion is as crazy as the idea that we are calmed by having to listen to the same two or three bar snippet of an electronic jingle being played over and over again as we wait for someone to answer a telephone.

Especially when we are ringing to give a company business or pay a bill.

What I would like to know is whether police have been broadcasting these so-called tunes in police stations to persuade more bobbies to get out from behind desks and go out on the streets to get away from it.

Or was it being played to prisoners in their cells?

If it was the latter then presumably it's a subtle move to force confessions from suspected wrongdoers.

However, it has to be said that subjecting people who have yet to be convicted to hours of canned music is not too far removed from 'waterboarding' and other methods allegedly used by the Americans against suspected terrorists in Guantanamo and elsewhere and categorised by some as torture.

The watchword should be Silence is Golden, to quote a truly diabolical sixties chart topper which I'm sure I've heard coming through speakers in one East Lancashire shopping centre.

Let's be allowed to listen to whatever music we choose without inflicting it on others, oh, and now summer's here that should also include all those people whose cars have been converted into multi-megawatt, drive-by discos.

Not that they'll listen mind, they must surely have long ago been rendered deaf by their own throbbing speakers.