The great thing about pre-digital telly was that a) if it broke down, you got a bloke in to fix it, taking off the back and filling the front room with that sweet smell of burnt dust, and b) it provided a selection of knobs and little twisty things that needed a screwdriver at the back which dad could reach round and fiddle about with when it went tits-up and pretend he knew what the hell he was doing. Hence the horizontal and vertical hold buttons, which might stop the picture bouncing up and down like Su Pollard after she’s just secured a gig as the shark in a Maplin’s poolside comedy spectacular. Then again, they might not, in which case, time to scratch the head, exhale noisily through the teeth, and get on the blower to Radio Rentals. Nowadays all that oddly satisfying pseudo-technical dalliance is denied us. You can’t even thump a flat screen convincingly.

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