Well, I have to say, it was nice to receive so many Facebook messages yesterday wishing me a happy birthday.

If you were one of the 54 who did so, thank you, birthdays and cards become less relevant as the years pass by so, to be reminded that I am now almost twenty years past my physical peak is obviously a nice thing.

Also, which one has to say, is a great thing about Facebook, many of these warm hearted posts that featured the words old, bald and fart on regular occasions, came from people I have not seen for over 20 years (Jenny Syrad, Darren Hall and John Devern for example). Facebook has its critics but these piss takers were once an integral part of my life, so to be in contact with them from varying parts of the world is great.

Actually, taking it up another level at least four of my well wishers, including Virginia Ciuffetelli, Mack (Soulclub) Karen Embury and Jane Bulbeck are people who I have never actually met; we have just stumbled across each other or been recommended to each other by mutual friends or relatives.

However, whether we like it to admit it or not, the narcissist in us likes to be wished a happy birthday and actually, as we get older, it is nice to reminded that it is actually our big day as it may otherwise pass by unnoticed. I even forgot one birthday when I was around 43-44 and I was quite delighted today when I discovered I am 47 not 48.

For some reason I have been quoting my age as 47 for several months, perhaps so when it did arrive yesterday, it didn’t feel too depressing? However, I am not certain whether I can still claim mid-forties or whether I now have to succumb to being in my late forties, an age where elasticated nylon slacks in the Sunday Express supplement become of chilling interest whilst nervously waiting for a finger up the bottom at the local doctors surgery.

As I get older time seems to race by, meaning I lose count of birthdays but I do not, mentally at least, feel that much older. I am perpetually deluding myself that I still have the physical capacity of my youth, despite saying things such as “Ayup” and “Eeeeh ye bugger” whilst undertaking the once simple task of bending down to pick something up.

Why I turn into a Yorkshireman when I bend down or pull myself from my car I really don’t know?  Just like I don’t really know why words such as sod, bugger and berk have entered my vocabulary in an attempt to moderate my foul language by replacing it with something more acceptable.

However, bugger means to sodomise, so it is arguably more offensive than fuck for instance (I would rather be fucked than buggered). I am not sure if sod means ‘sod of turf’ or is an abbreviation of sodomise, which, if you look it up, would not appear a pleasant experience. Berk, I have just learnt from a dear old friend, as inoffensive as it may sound, apparently derived from the Cockney rhyming slang, Berkeley Hunt.

How many guesses do you require to work that one out? My assumption is one.

So, by divorcing myself from the foulest of language, I have inadvertently drifted down  the route of associating people with buggering and worse still sodomy, a law that defines certain sexual acts of depravity as crimes. I might as well call someone a ‘silly felcher’, an act of romance that involves sucking the sperm out of the anus of one’s partner.

How these felchers meet I just don’t know? Can you imagine the scene in a little country pub?

“Have you ever read Middlemarch by George Elliot?

“Yes…Yes, it’s my favourite novel. Did you know that Middlemarch didn’t actually exist, it was actually thought to be based on the city of Coventry!”

“Really, I didn’t know that…God, I just love a good book on a Sunday morning with some classical music…I am currently listening to Mozart’s Die Entfuhrung aud dem Serail.”

“Oh I love that piece, though I have to say I do prefer his collaboration with Lorenzo Da Ponte.”

“Isn’t it marvellous we have so much in common…by the way, do you like felching?

“WHAT……….?

Moving on…thank you one and all for congratulating me on passing another landmark on what now seems an inexorable charge towards meeting my maker, as well as the odds stacking up in favour of my 50th year being notched up well before 50 runs come off my bat in a cricket match.

If someone had told me 20 years ago that I would be receiving over fifty birthday messages on a computer when I was 47, I would have not believed it…that said, if someone had said that I would also be saying “Eeeeeeh ye bugger” when I do my shoelaces up, I would have been equally perplexed.

I would like to say “Here’s  to the next 47 years” but the realist in me accepts that would be a ludicrously ambitious statement.

So here’s to the next year and I will take it from there.