Whatever happened to that young man in the photograph below, getting ready to read the news on BBC Radio in 1981 when I was a mere 25? Gulp. That's 41 years ago! A change of career, five books, one wife, two children, a number of budgies, getting ill and getting better, a few cars...that's what happened to him.
Oh, and don't forget the thinning hair, the aches and pains, the diminishing energy, the...okay, my hearing's still good enough to make out the violins you're all suddenly playing.
How the world has changed in that time. In the days of that photo the studio equipment of turntables, reel-to-reel tape recorders and faders, was absolutely state-of-the-art. But it's probably languishing in some broadcasting museum at the moment, as all programmes are driven by computer now.
Talking of computers, I first started using one in 1989; was almost reduced to tears of frustration when I was unable to control the first mouse to be introduced to my work station in 1992; and felt on top of the world when I invested in my first home computer in 1997. A great monstrosity of a thing it was, all £1,000 worth of it, with its mere 16MB of RAM.
OK, reminiscing over. Nostalgia back in the drawer.
Seriously, though, there are compensations. With age comes wisdom. No, stop laughing. I know now that when I thought I knew it all in those lazy, hazy, crazy days of long ago, I actually knew nothing. So knowing now that I knew nothing then, makes me wiser. Right?