The nation's favourite

Veteran DJ Tony Blackburn has been sacked by the BBC with immediate effect following the devastating revelation that he worked at Radio 1 in the early 1970s. "We were shocked and appalled when evidence emerged recently that Blackburn hadn't, as he claimed, worked on the World Service at the time, but had actually been plying his trade at Radio 1," said BBC spokesman Toby Tool in a statement released earlier today.

"Not only was he a colleague of Jimmy Savile, it's believed he may also have at times played records by Gary Glitter and Jonathan King, and he probably mentioned It's A Knockout at some point too. Faced with such overwhelming evidence it quickly became clear to us that Mr Blackburn's position at the corporation had become untenable."

Blackburn, 73, had hosted the popular Pick of the Pops on Radio 2 since 2010. Early favourites to take over the role include Olly Murs, Jeremy Clarkson and Bashar al-Assad. Arnold the dog was today unavailable for comment.

Easton promise

Just stumbled upon this fantastic clip of a pre-fame Sheena Easton on BBC series The Big Time, back when she was still Scottish, and when she was desperately trying to crack the UK charts for the first time.

It's amazing to think now just how much power Radio 1 DJs clearly wielded at the time, as evidenced by Sheena's undisguised joy at finding out that Simon "Master" Bates has made Modern Girl his record of the week (while Paul Burnett plumps for Another Nail In My Heart by Squeeze, Peter Powell UB40's Food For Thought, DLT Volcano by Jimmy Buffet(?) and Kid Jensen 9 O'Clock by Snips(??)). She'd actually got up that morning seemingly especially to listen to The Hairy Cornflake playing her record at 6.10am. Bless.

Also, my jaw dropped a bit when learning that, despite peaking at number 56 on its original release (although it subsequently hit the top 10 months later), Modern Girl still managed to shift 20,000 copies first time round. Christ, that would be enough to guarantee you the number 1 spot for about a month nowadays. Probably.

Anyway, this is fantastic. Listen out for the Round Table producer's reaction to hearing Modern Girl for the first time. He's really not impressed!