Josh Homme, Bill Paxton and me

So, today is my birthday, well it has been for the last 17 minutes. I know I wasn't born bang on midnight but the rules of birthdays are that you celebrate from the first second of the day in question. It's quite odd.

Anyway, I thought I would reflect on the good/bad birthday experiences of my life. So here are the five most memorable birthdays for me:

5 years old (I think)
Birthday party at 8 St Margarets Close, Torquay. As with most people at that age there were about 4,324 people there (you make a lot of friends when you are 5) and my best present was a brand new tent. It was my camping phase (no laughing at the back). Anyway, why can I remember this so much? Because Louise Godfrey fell over a guide rope into the tent and broke it. I'm sure Bear Grylls never had to put up with this.

12 years old
1987, my birthday was on a Saturday. I got a Spectrum 128 computer (brilliant) and Coventry won the FA Cup. My birthday treat though was saved for the next day - a trip to Torquay's English Riviera Centre, freshly opened. For the first time in 20 years Torquay had a new swimming pool and this one had a water slide. And a wave machine. Brilliant. Except it was so popular we had to queue for an hour and it was so busy the wave machine was just a mechanism to be smashed into other people. We only got half an hour too, stupid coloured wristband system...

13 years old
What do you give a boy obsessed with his Spectrum 128 computer (told you it was brilliant) - you give into his demands to see some 'Medieval Jousting' the other side of Paignton. I imagined speedy men on steeds, Ivanhoe style spearing and perhaps a few severed limbs. Instead it was a second rate circus with one man on a horse and a couple of blokes who clearly wanted to be shakespearean actors but might have been on The Bill once hitting each other with wood.

27 years old
I went to see The Mummy Returns at Halifax's only cinema, on my own. There were four people there, and three of them worked in the cinema. Not the best

29 years old
Woke up in Wolverhampton after massive boozing and curry session. Drove to Halifax where I got changed and drove to Ilkely for a job interview (highlight was the girl interviewing me saying - "It's great working here - there's no pension, but every Friday you get free fruit". Drove to work to find out the flight I had booked to Edinburgh was for 7am, not pm. Had flight rescheduled and got to Manchester airport far too early. Sat in 1st class lounge with unlimited booze for an hour. Got on plane where I told them it was my birthday, got more free booze, landed in Edinburgh and got to hotel. Had more booze. Met up with film crew I was filming with. Had a drink.

Up to now this just sounds like the story of a man getting utterly trollied. But all that drinking gave me the courage to chat to the girl I had been thinking about for the many years since I had met her one day in Edinburgh. Gave me the the courage to tell her how beautiful she was. Gave me the courage to kiss her.

And that was the girl who this very moment is telling me that I can't go in the kitchen and peek at my presents. Yep, I kissed my wife for the first time on my birthday. And no matter what is sitting in the kitchen at the moment (no, I'm not peeking) it can't ever be as good as that.

Unless it's Buckaroo of course.