Forty facts to honour reaching forty.

1. I’m an only child. I nearly killed my Mum clawing my way out 40 years ago. I made such a mess no brothers or sisters were possible. I went home from hospital a full month before Mum. Dad didn’t know what hit him. Mum still has the staples they used to seal her up.

2. When I was two I fell down a flight of stairs at home and smashed through a glass door.

3. When I was five I was knocked down while crossing a busy road carrying my pet Spaniel. The dog was killed and I suffered broken ribs and a punctured lung.

4. Early career signals pointed to ‘stunt man’.

5. I was operated on at ten years for an undescended testicle.

6. I was in the last stream of ‘11-plus’ students in Northumberland. I passed so got to go to a grammar school. Parents were pleased initially then hysterical when they saw the cost of the uniform and assorted PE kit needed.

7. I was addicted to swimming for a few pre-teenage years. Monday to Friday after school I would go the local baths for a few hours then race home starving and ask for beans on toast and a glass of milk. Today the smell of chlorine still brings back warm, fuzzy and comforting memories.

8. I loved Saturday afternoons. A lunchtime matinee (usually a Doctor Who movie or something insipid from the Childrens Film Foundation) followed by a trip to Rumbelows to listen to chart singles in the listening booths. First record bought with my own money – Dance With The Devil by Cozy Powell.

9. I was always tapping my fingers or my desk with a pen so I was given a second-hand drumkit for Christmas when I was thirteen. There followed a succession of rhythm duties for crappy after-school bands playing Buzzcocks and Clash covers. I took such good care of those drums that Mum made a profit when they were sold three years later.

10. I left school at sixteen with 5 ‘O’ level passes. I collected another (art history) two years later.

11. I finished my final paper-round on a Saturday night and started work full-time down a coal mine two days later. I was offered an electrical engineering apprenticeship by the NCB (National Coal Board) because my Dad was a miner. He didn’t want me to take it but it was the choice of two more years at school versus £100 a week so it wasn’t really a hard decision to make. I wish I’d stayed at school.

12. I only lasted three years because of the miners strike in 1984. I hated the work and I hated the men I worked with so the strike was a blessing for me. I liked the communal showers. I liked the money.

13. I moved South when the miners strike started. I never returned.

14. It was the best decision I ever made.

15. I waited till I was legal (twenty one) before starting a sex life. I don’t regret this.

16. Sex was a revelation and was my raison d’etre for a while. Then I got bored.

17. I’ve been in love three times. And I’m still in love with the third.

18. I can handle my drink and know when to stop (usually).

19. I’m intolerant of drunks and alcoholics (long story and this is not the place for it).

20. I’ve been asked to join the Freemasons twice. I refused twice.

21. I’ve seen the burning bush (it wasn’t burning).

22. I smoke approximately twenty cigarettes a week.

23. I like cities more than the country.

24. I like brash Northern seaside towns more than Southern ‘faux riviera’ fakery.

25. My cynicism was the qualification that got me the job I have now. I deal with some dreadful people from dreadful countries who do dreadful things to win business. My cynicism and distrust protects and defends those I assist.

26. From January next year I shall be responsible for one highly corrupt nation instead of the eleven I look after now.

27. I look best in blue.

28. I don’t always wash my hands after peeing.

29. My favourite food is chocolate (I chose this because it is the item that I would find hardest to give up forever). This is also my favourite bed linen colour.

30. I have a high pain threshold.

31. These things make me laugh: people falling over and stepping in dog poop, coats and seat belts hanging out of car doors, old people on icy pavements, really fat people puffing for breath in the pie aisle at the supermarket, overly confident and camp gay men (especially with a handbag and scarf set), grey haired and penny-spectacle wearing elderly lesbians, talking dogs, goats and monkeys bums.

32. I would do anything for love but I won’t do that.

33. I am uber-observant.

34. I don’t spread gossip but I do listen to it (I like to stay informed).

35. I’m a neat freak. Tidy tidy tidy.

36. I prefer a night in to a night out.

37. Steel Magnolias, Never Been Kissed and The Return Of The King all made me cry.

38. I am forty.

39. I’m crap at counting.