I WAS given a licence to drool at the weekend. My wife was with me and she had to put up with it. I could ogle to my heart's content, all in the line of duty.

I was forced to sit there for hours, sizing up 20 gorgeous girls parading up and down in front of me in glorious, living technicolor.

No, it was not a dream and I didn't wake up in front of a television re-run of Charlie's Angels. I was a judge in a beauty competition.

Honest. I could never have dreamed that, for one thing, the old-fashioned beauty competition would ever make a comeback in dear old York; or that I would be asked to judge one.

And as I said to a fellow judge, the delectable Miss England sitting there in diamante tiara, sash and full-length red satin gown: "It's a hard life."

Trouble is, I have daughters older than most of those contestants and I wonder what I'd think if I saw them strutting around in front of people such as me.

Which brings me to why I was there in the first place. Some of my more progressive female colleagues had advised me against it. Not politically correct, they warned. Beauty pageants are demeaning to women, they huffed.

Well, I've never claimed to be an obsessive observer of the PC code. I've seen the extreme lengths it's been taken to and how it's eroding great British traditions and even our way of life.

There is nothing wrong with a woman being rewarded for her beauty, any more than for her brain, business prowess or performance in the London Marathon.

To say it is not fair on the less attractive is like banning school sports because some kids cannot run as fast as the others and the competition is demeaning to them.

Beauty competitions such as MS York have moved on from the Eric Morley days of Miss World, full of scantily-clad bimbos with empty skulls.

There was not a bikini in sight in the MS York competition; the girls looked glamorous in evening and day wear; and not one of them in interview said they wanted to devote their lives to world peace or working with underprivileged children. The contest also raised money for a multiple sclerosis charity.

Emmeline Pankhurst and her sisterhood may have chained themselves to railings around York Racecourse in protest, but then they would not have approved of a girlie night out on the Micklegate Run either.

Are bonnie baby competitions demeaning to ugly children? Is Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? demeaning to congenital buffoons?

The biggest problem with MS York was finding a winner among those extremely beautiful girls. And it wasn't a matter of a bunch of ageing lechers such as me salivating over the marking sheets. Most of the judges were women, judging other women on their looks, confidence, poise and intelligence.

So if you are still not convinced, tell me in what area of life your looks are unimportant. You dress up for interviews, you use your looks to attract the man or woman of your choice and, if you are not out to impress someone else, there is still plain old pride in your own appearance.

Life is a competition and everyone uses whatever advantages they have to nudge out in front in the human race. If you've got it flaunt it. If not, sorry. Try something else.

Anyway, got to dash. There's a stretch limousine waiting to drive me to Royal Ascot with a bevy of lap dancing beauties on board.

Updated: 08:57 Tuesday, May 24, 2005