FIFTY is apparently the new 40. Joanna Lumley, Helen Mirren and Debbie Harry regularly appear in top tens of sexiness, gorgeousness and downright phwoarability, and everywhere you look there are older sisters doing it for themselves with gay abandon (or at the very least getting a younger man in to do it for them).

But if 50 is indeed the new 40, does that mean that 40 is the new 30? And what does that make 30? As I lift my mug of Bournvita tomorrow evening, am I celebrating my 34th or 24th birthday?

If the equal measures of confusion and lethargy I feel are anything to go by, I suspect I am closer to 34 than 24. On a bad day, it could even be 54. But then again that's only 44 isn't it?

No, I don't know either. My elderly brain is too enfeebled to work it out. I have enough trouble remembering my telephone number without worrying about my age as well.

All I do know is that I've reached the age where you start to reminisce (usually after a few pints of Chardonnay). Put me in a room full of other thirty-somethings and I can guarantee that before an hour has passed I will be starting every sentence with the dreaded words "do you remember?" closely followed by any or all of the following:

u Chorlton and the Wheelies. This conversation usually starts with someone singing the theme tune from the Pink Panther cartoon. Mere seconds after you have all finished yodelling "he's a gentleman; a scholar; he's an acrobat", one among your merry band of drunkards will always mention Chorlton and the Wheelies.

For those of you not in the know when it comes to children's televisual history, this was a very odd animated series in which a strange, multi-coloured sort-of-a-bear-but-not-quite creature called Chorlton fought daily, bloodless battles with a cackling, claw-faced witch called Fenella on behalf on the Wheelies, who were about as much use as a Plasticine unicycle on the field of conflict.

This might seem like a harmless topic of conversation, but be warned: Chorlton and the Wheelies soon leads to The Tomorrow People, and from there you are only a few short steps from Captain Pugwash and a punch-up over the veracity of Roger the cabin boy.

u Spangles. Mention of Spangles - those square, glassy sweets of varying flavours and colours much beloved of small girls in the 70s with limited pocket money - usually occurs when someone offers round a tray of some newfangled delicacy involving humous and an unpronounceable mush made of marinated starfish eyelids.

Once Spangles are on the conversational table, Sherbet Dib Dabs and liquorice torpedoes will follow as sure as quails' eggs in a rich raspberry jus are quails' eggs in a rich raspberry jus.

u Tiswas versus Swap Shop. This conversation is interchangeable with the ever-popular Blue Peter versus Magpie debate. The basic premise is this: if you watched Tiswas and Magpie you were a cool, happening little dude; if you watched Swap Shop and Blue Peter, you should have been clubbed at birth.

It will probably come as no surprise to you that I watched Swap Shop and Blue Peter. Tiswas was too gungy for my delicate constitution and I found the nipple count on Magpie too alarming.

u The Queen's silver jubilee. This starts as a bit of harmless reminiscing and ends up like the Monty Python "we wuz poor but we wuz happy" sketch. Those of us who vividly remember Her Maj's first jubilee are proud to say we didn't have a fly past by Concorde and the Red Arrows, and we certainly didn't have a concert of grand proportions in the grounds of Buck House.

We had a plate of corned beef sandwiches on a trestle table in the middle of the street. We wuz poor, but at least we didn't have to listen to Elton John singing with Blue.

And finally, a last word of warning: if, like me, you are of somewhat advanced years, please do not show this column to your equally aged chums. I can guarantee that within seconds someone will say the dreaded words "I remember when columns were columns. You got 900 words for a shilling..."

Updated: 11:51 Monday, December 01, 2003