You wanna be where everybody knows your name

Ah, memories of Ted Danson. I can almost feel myself wondering into that little bar in Boston… Cheers!

I’m old. It’s funny how you only ever feel old when it’s your birthday. Or when you use a yo-yo in public. Or try a skateboard. I mean, here I am sitting with my feet on a coffee table, with a documentary on China on back-lighting the glow of the laptop screen showing these words. All I need is a glass of Baileys (at which point, coincidentally, Sarah offers a glass of wine!).

Actually, I shouldn’t see this as my being old, more my last chance to prove I’m young before reaching one of those milestone birthdays. I fully expect the next 365 days to involve buying lots of itunes tracks from my teens, and at least one attempt at doing some ridiculous sport-type things intended for people half my age inevitably leading to the breaking of minor limbs or appendages.

I already regressed 20 years or so on my birthday by going into Hamleys. I clearly remember Hamleys from my early childhood, and was disappointed to find that everything nowadays is smaller. The tables didn;t tower over me, and I wouldn’t have needed full-on climbing intruction and at least one base-camp stopover to reach the toys placed on higher shelves.

Also, whilst I remember clearly the fire-engine and remote control car I was bought on my last visit, I didn’t remember all the people employed purely to play with the toys. I certainly didn’t remember them trying so hard to look excited by the jumping puppy-toy they have to turn up and play with 9-5 seven days a week. I also don’t remember questioning the Health and Safety implications as I ducked the flying helicopter toys with all the worry of Mr and Mrs Doodlebug after first hearing the expression ‘you’ll be fine so long as the bomb doesn’t your name on it’.

Innocent times, eh? When all your worldly worth was measured in your Ninja Turtle sticker swapsies pile, and you wanted the full array of colours of those little rubber sucker things that pinged up from the floor threatening to blind you in one eye on the way up, and the other as it returned to Earth with all the precision of a Moldovan space mission.

And, just like the middle-management who insist on buying special number plates for their grey saloons, everything had your name on it.

I was in Starbucks the other day, and after ordering my vanilla latte, I was asked for my name. I assumed that this was induction into some kind of Starbucks hall of fame. Some secret club which would see me being given the red cups all year round, and would whisk me straight through airport security at any UK terminal. But no, 2 minutes later received a paper cup with ‘van, l’ on it, and in big crayola-type letters ‘Durry’.

Then something stranger happened – I found myself walking through Bath’s Georgian streets holding my cup in a near-claw-like manner trying to hide my name. Was this through fear of some cup-snatch identity thief who would later be seen on Crimewatch carrying a bag with ‘Swag id’s’ written on it? Was it the worry that somebody may walk passed me saying, ‘ooh, I must try the new Starbucks Durry beverage’? Or was I just a little shy of my own name?

Perhaps I’m not all that old. I mean, I’ve had the same name for 29 years or so now and yet, every now and again, I get a little self-conscious of my name in exactly the same way I did the day I realised nobody else had my name…