my mind goes back to the time the beeb got rid of its golden boy Simon Dee...
there are so many of these golden boys these days.

there was a feeling at the time that Dee's big sin was that he had come up by the pirate stations and was guilty of some sort of hubris before the right wing creeps at the top.

it was really symptomatic of a whole disengagement of the beeb with society. Folk music programmes that totally missed out on the acts that filled folk clubs. Country Music programmes that would never dream of playing any of the acts that played the miners welfares and wmc's up and down the land.

to make your mark nationally - you had to somehow ingratiate yourself with the edifice that was the beeb. the possible rewards were staggering - you became a Wogan, a Parkinson, A John Peel, a Noel Edmonds. Ubiquitous, influential, and splendidly isolated from life as lived by millions of British people...

and the pay off is gasps of surprise when the Brexit vote gets counted.