A man who can’t always remember the name of the record he’s just played has been sacked by the BBC for being unable to demonstrate total recall of an event that occurred forty-five years ago. The moral of the Tony Blackburn debacle is not to grow old nor lose your whatsitsname.

As usual, the last to be considered by the BBC is the listener, the licence payer who has enjoyed listening to Mr Blackburn present Pick of the Pops every Saturday for the last five years. That’s 2.1 million of us.

Do we care whether he can remember a meeting almost half a century ago? No, we don’t. Do we want to continue to derive pleasure from hearing him on Radio 2? Yes, we do. BBC director-general Tony Hall’s cavalier attitude, towards listeners as well as Mr Blackburn, now means we can’t.

I’ve signed my last petition and written my last letter in support of the BBC. The Corporation couldn’t care less about me and at least 2,099,999 other listeners. Maybe it is time it was taken down a peg or two.

Listen to the last few Pick of the Pops Tony Blackburn presented, here, while you can.