Thanks for this go to Nick Hornby, writing in the Guardian here.

Who was the first person to use the word fuck on British TV? Many of you will know that it was Kenneth Tynan, well known theatrical impresario and bottom spanker, on November 13 1965. He used it in verbal quotation marks in a programme on censorship. His actual words were I doubt if there are any rational people to whom the word 'fuck' would be particularly diabolical, revolting or totally forbidden.

His optimism proved misplaced, and it was years before he was allowed back on the BBC again. These days, of course, their policy is a little subtler.

Mary Whitehouse wrote a letter of complaint to the Queen, suggesting that Tynan should have his bottom spanked. She wasn't at the time aware of his interest in such things, and intended it as a punishment rather than a reward, but it's still hard to see why it might be the Queen's job to organise it. Now that she's dead and can't blight the life of the nation any more, it's almost possible to feel nostalgic for such an innocent age. You could imagine casting her as a bit part in a re-enactment of scenes from British history, laid on at Warwick Castle for the tourists.

Almost nostalgic, but of course not quite. I still remember the blasphemy trial of 1976, and when I imagine her desiccated remains descending into the grave it could only ever be with pleasure. We get to bury all the old tryrants in the end - Thatcher must be soon now.

And the second TV fuck? Now you're struggling. It was Peregrine Worsthorne, in 1973. Yes, I was surprised. It's hard now to understand the fuss, but the owner of the Daily Telegraph was so offended, he decided not to make Worsthorne editor.

You'll all remember the third. Glenn Matlock on the Bill Grundy show in 1977, talking about what the Sex Pistols had done with their money - "We've fucking spent it, haven't we?" It was an important first - the first time anyone said fuck on British TV without having an Oxbridge degree. Turbulent times, of blessed memory in this sanitised age.