Drunkenness, licentiousness and violence. All recent unwelcome guests in our society, if you listen to and believe power-hungry politicians. Nobody ever binge-drank, had casual sex or knifed anybody before 1993 when Tony Blair declared Britain to be in a state of moral chaos, did they?

And it’s the same with television, isn’t it? Nobody ever bamboozled the viewing public before the age of interactive cat-naming and premium rate gullibility contests, did they?

Or did they? This is Tony Blackburn speaking to the Observer Music Monthly this month about his years as a Radio 1 DJ:

I found Arnold on a sound-effects record. I thought to have a radio dog would be quite fun, but then the dog became more popular than I did. You know, woof woof. But he was never actually a real dog. I don’t know why I called him Arnold. I was doing Butlin’s a few weeks ago and someone came up and said: ‘Where’s Arnold?’ and I said: ‘He’s dead now, and I had him stuffed, and he’s in the back of my car.’

Readers of a certain age will, no doubt, join me in sweeping up the pieces of our hearts as our childhoods are rent in twain. The bastard was maintaining the fiction as recently as yesterday.

I want Biased BBC screeching about this now. I want my licence fee back now. I want Blackburn reinstated at Radio 1 and then fired now. I’m marching on the BBC this morning. Who’s with me?