Being trusting types, we were always very happy to believe what we saw with our own eyes, and heard with our own ears, on television. We did this even when what we saw was the MP George Galloway sheathed in a red body stocking pretending to be a cat on Celebrity Big Brother, and when what we heard was Bill Clinton minting a novel definition of “sexual relations” - when less trusting folk would have reacted by immediately booking check-ups with an ophthalmologist and a hearing specialist.

But after discovering within the space of one week that Cliff Richard was robbed of victory in the televised Eurovision Song Contest 40 years ago when his song Congratulations was trumped by the Spanish entry, La La La, after the vote was rigged, and then that the comedian Catherine Tate was deprived of her People's Choice award at the 2005 ITV Comedy Awards - which was handed instead to Ant and Dec, also as a result of a rigged vote - the scales have fallen from our eyes. With our confidence shattered, though still hoping for the best, we are bracing ourselves for the headlines that may be heading our way.

We will take it on the chin when it is confirmed that Geoff Hurst's last two goals in the 1966 World Cup were not all they seemed on TV, and that the cup should have gone to West Germany; or that the man on the Moon in 1969 was not Neil Armstrong, but an out-take from Star Trek; and that JFK is still alive and serving ice-cream sodas in Peoria. But how will we cope when we learn that Heather Mills is, in truth, a shrinking violet; that Harriet Harman occasionally saunters through Peckham without a stab vest; that, away from the dispatch box, Alistair Darling is so beguiling a raconteur that he is known as Westminster's Peter Ustinov; that Amy Winehouse runs a Brownie pack on Monday nights; and that the Rev Jeremiah Wright is doing all he can to win Barack Obama the White House.

And when they tell us that Gordon Brown could beat David Cameron tomorrow, we will believe that, too. Provided they mean in a fist fight.