FLOUNCE off upstairs, pop-pickers. Slam your bedroom doors and weep over your Dansettes, because Top Of The Pops will soon be no more.

Yes, the show that was once the lynchpin of our week is to be relegated to the badlands of BBC2, marooned somewhere between the nature programmes and eternal repeats of The Good Life.

And to add insult to injury, the rescheduled show will become a sort of hybrid with TOTP2, creating a bastard child that nobody is likely to love.

Do you realise what this means? It means the load of old rubbish - sorry, classic pop - that we used to love watching will be interspersed with the talentless trash the kids of today are so desperate to see, irrespective of the fact that you can't tell what modern bands are singing and that there are no decent tunes any more.

Now, I remember when Top Of The Pops used to be provocative and offensive. The opening credits alone were enough to herald an enormous row, as wheedling kids and bristling parents fought for control of the volume and channel dials in those innocent days before remote controls and five tellies to every house.

In fairness, I should say that my father at first took an indulgent line when I started to tune in to Top Of The Pops.

He liked to think he was fostering my early interest in music, and it was only when it became apparent I was more motivated by Donny and David's looks than by their singing ability that his patience started to wear thin.

It was around about that time that Dad hit on the hilarious notion of turning the contrast right down until all you could see were my heroes' teeth as they started belting out The Twelfth of Never or How Can I Be Sure.

After that, it was war.

Excitement would mount in our home every Thursday as we kids dreamed up new and inventive ways to hoodwink our parents, so they would be out of the room when the countdown began and Jimmy Savile/Dave Lee Travis/Noel Edmonds took to the microphone.

Our theory was that once Top Of The Pops was safely under way, our parents would be too polite to insist on watching The Money Programme or World In Action instead.

Curiously, this subterfuge usually seemed to work unless:

a) Slade launched into a particularly raucous number; or

b) David Bowie outraged my father by wearing an especially androgynous outfit.

If either of these disasters struck, no amount of pleading that 10cc or Steely Dan were sure to be on next would save us from missing the rest of the show, and leading a hollow and joyless existence until hope re-emerged blinking like a newborn babe the following Thursday evening.

What can the new-look BBC2 show offer by comparison, pale shadow that it is of its former glorious self?

Parent and child will probably sit down together quite happily, each filled with hope that their favourite band will feature on the latest show.

Sacrilege.

And yet, how long will it really take before cracks appear in the harmony of the family unit? How long will each generation have to be subjected to the other's abysmal taste before a decent row erupts?

Maybe all is not lost for this proud British institution.

Updated: 09:14 Wednesday, December 01, 2004