Where is Lord Reith when we need him?

Married bliss is … Wife on Facebook on a Friday night at 11.30, husband next door slouched on the sofa flicking between The Outlaw Josey Wales on ITV3 and (ahem, during the adverts, and purely for research purposes) Sexcetera on Virgin, careful to turn the volume down so his wife won’t hear the sounds of fake orgasms.

If only the father of British broadcasting Lord Reith could rise from his grave to see the legacy of his work. In his day the Radio announcers wore dinner jackets and were fired if they got divorced. Even words like ‘blast’ were off limits.

Today, if the old First World War veteran Reith came into our living room of an evening he’d be likely to see a naked fat lady spanking a naked man as he takes another naked woman from behind. I’m not sure he’d even register what it was he was looking at for a minute. Then he would take out his great service revolver and blast a hole in the television, and then turn it on the fat husband slouched with his remote control and shoot him through the heart, before turning it on himself for ever seeing such an abomination.

Those of you who have lived in the Gulf for some years may well feel the same when you head home to see the degeneracy in this once green and pleasant land. Today at lunchtime, for instance, a drunk young woman on Trowbridge High Street actually flashed her full naked arse at everyone standing outside the estate agent, hooting with laughter and falling over her equally drunk friend. Hardly anyone blinked an eye.

We need Lord Reith to come back and sort this country out. We should all be listening to the Halle Orchestra in the evening by candlelight. If we find that boring we can always take up a smart leather bound collection of poetry and read that to our children before they go to bed at 6.30.

That’s how we became the greatest nation on earth – by wearing a tie at breakfast and a smoking jacket in the evening. I’m toying with the idea of taking up a pipe.

Now, where that remote control gone?