A DJ in a cage with five snarling lions. Now that’s entertainment!

Telly reached its apogee, the high point of small screen razzle-dazzle, almost exactly 45 years ago on August 16, 1975. Don’t argue with me, it’s true.

That’s the night Abba appeared on BBC1’s Saturday night variety show Seaside Special, perfoming S.O.S. — with Anni-Frid and Agnetha wearing miniskirts in the blue and yellow of the Swedish flag. That same edition featured lulu, Roy Hudd and ‘Mr Penny Whistle’, Des lane. But most of all it starred Radio 1 DJ Tony Blackburn singing Tie A yellow Ribbon in a lion’s cage, with five snarling big cats close enough to snap off his head.

Now that’s entertainment. There’s nothing to match it today. Do you think today’s presenters, say Stacey Dooley or Rylan ClarkNeal, would waterski through shoals of piranha while belting out a medley of ed Sheeran hits for us? like heck they would.

Tone’s courageous performance was replayed on What We Were Watching (BBC4), a compilation of summer TV from decades gone by, selected by leftie journalist Grace Dent. Grace introduced the clips while sitting on a picnic blanket in front of a tent, an ironic nod to the British holidays of the past.

But her sneers were wasted, because all she managed to prove was how much more fun we used to have in this country, before the Joy Police put a stop to it all.

For a start we had beauty contests (Grace called them ‘human cattle markets’). Diddy David Hamilton couldn’t stop grinning as he introduced the ‘lovely girls’ in their swimsuits, but chatshow host Russell Harty was having even more giggles at Butlins in Brighton, where he was asked to pick the lass with the best pins. ‘Absolutely lovely,’ he praised the winner. ‘Are they both your own legs?’

Meanwhile, adventurous souls who didn’t want a chalet break could hire a motorhome. Cliff Michelmore’s Holiday programme inspected one that boasted its own toilet and shower: you sat on the loo and held the shower nozzle over your head. Such luxury.

By the eighties, Holiday’s Frank Bough was costing up package deals in Magaluf and Benidorm. Grace was scandalised that the 7pm show featured topless sunbathers — what she called ‘the amount of flesh it was willing to beam into your front room . . . something you would never get away with on TV today’. yes, but Grace, you’re forgetting that back then, stripping off at the beach was just a bit of fun, not a sex crime. On the other hand, viewers didn’t have to listen to endless foul language.

And if they didn’t fancy the Costas, there was always Blackpool. As one old feller with his trousers rolled up told the camera, some time in the Heathand-Wilson era: ‘No need to go abroad! yer don’t get it as clean in Spain as yer do here.’

Michael Portillo was risking the Spanish muck, to embark on a new series of his Great Continental Railway Adventures (BBC2).

His opening episode took him from Salamanca to the Pyrenees and began with a personal pilgrimage, to the records office where files were stored on three million political opponents of the country’s 20th century dictator, General Franco.

luis Portillo, Michael’s father, was one of those ‘enemies of the state’ — a socialist academic, whose outspoken views almost cost him his life. His son discovered an identity card, with a photograph showing an unmistakeable family likeness.

The solemn moment didn’t last long. Michael was soon gazing at Goyas, touring cathedrals and learning the steps of folk dances in his red suede moccasins.

He needs no lessons in how to have fun.