STRANGE things used to happen to small boys like me when Pans People appeared on Top Of The Pops.

For a start, my Dad would stop banging on about how difficult it was to tell the boys from the girls in the bands of the day and taking the mickey out of the words to the songs.

While my argument about the hidden lyrical depth of ‘Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep’ would fall on stony ground, he would go strangely quiet when the girls took to the stage.

None of us who grew up with Top Of The Pops mourned its demise because that stage of our life has, rather poignantly I feel, moved on.

Now we have turned into our own Dads, moaning about the rampant sexism of rappers on MTV, while becoming strangely quiet ourselves at the antics of the backing singers and dancers.

It is hard to believe that Top Of The Pops was the only music show on TV back then.

Which is why that accidental flick through the channels can instantly transport you back to a year like 1976 and a Top 30 that suggested – apart from the presence of Elvis, Rod Stewart and The Wurzels – that it was the year that music forgot.

But it was 30 minutes that changed everyone’s lives– in however small a way – every single week.

Whereas today you can hear a future release up to three months before it’s in the shops or available as a download, Top of the Pops was the starting gun for sales of singles, back when having a hit single actually meant you had sold some records.

These days, it appears that a family whip-round can have you positioned just outside the top ten.

It didn’t actually matter to me that the bands were miming. I’d never been to a concert, so I couldn’t possibly possess the kind of po-faced cynicism of adults who trashed the show for its lack of realism.

But believe me, I’d take any mimed performance by Slade, Sweet or T Rex over some grinning buffoon performing live in front of millions of people.

Which brings me, rather neatly to Johnny Harrison, surely the worst of a fairly ropey bunch currently haemorrhaging viewers on The X Factor (ITV, Saturday and Sunday).

But like millions of supposedly normal and right-minded human beings, I am still utterly transfixed by the show.

Only the other day, I found myself in serious conversation with another 50-something male, discussing Craig’s strange I’m-still-chewing-a-toffee smile, or why they keep dressing the cherubic girl-next-door in The Rhythmix in her pyjamas or when Simon Cowell will let Gary Barlow have his personality back.

For those who like a bet, I have predicted the winner of the last three X Factors from the first week and have put my imaginary money on The Risk being the first group to take the title.

But from the ridiculous to the sublime and the return of David Attenborough to our screens with Frozen Planet (BBC1, Wednesday 9pm).

Remember those people on Points Of View who used to say one programme was worth the licence fee alone and you’d sneer at them?

This is that programme. Utterly captivating, brilliantly shot and a sheer joy, from the life-and-death battles between sea lions and penguins, then killer whales and seals, to the majestic ice caves below an active volcano.

How wonderful to see people who make television that gladdens the heart. You have much to learn Mr Cowell…