AS A teenager, I always looked forward to TFI Friday, the evening magazine show presented by Chris Evans. It defined a generation of Britpop, lad culture, football and comedy.

But that generation has passed. We’ve all got older, settled down, had families, and while I appreciate the whole nostalgia of TFI Friday, it’s in the past for a reason.

On Friday night, it returns for a one-off episode. I’ve felt uneasy about it, to be honest. Why resurrect it? Why not just have a night of its best bits, archive footage, perhaps a documentary?

The same thing has happened on a smaller scale with another two TV shows that were staples in the Mason house growing up – Fun House and The Crystal Maze.

It was reported last week that Fun House – the kid’s assault course game show- was to return in a one-off format 22 years after the last series was filmed.

It was the highlight of my week watching Fun House, with its high-octane theme tune and a go-kart track in the studio, along with the staple of many a 1990s show, a gunge tank.

Pat Sharp, its mullet-toting presenter, will join up with “the twins” Melanie and Martina for, and I quote an “extremely exciting” experience, where parents and children team up to take part in a revamped version of the game which will take place in a pub car park in Lichfield.

It all happens today, so if you wanted to take part, you’re too late. I honestly don’t know who would have been up for it. It sounds awful.

Meanwhile, the Crystal Maze, the game of puzzles set across a sprawling studio presented by Rocky Horror Picture Show star Richard O’Brien, returns soon in a new guise as a “live, immersive experience”. Make it stop.

There are some things that are in the past for a reason. We’ll always have the repeats, which are beamed out all day every day on satellite TV, after all.

GETTING IN A FLAP IN THE OFFICE

SOMETIMES, the best stories land on your desk.

That’s what they say, anyway. For me, it was a harrowing experience.

My desk is posited next to a window, through which a tiny bird flew and promptly plonked itself upon my pile of newspapers, this week.

 

Rather than usher it back through the window, I screamed and pushed myself away from the desk, traumatising the bird, before I waited for a colleague to calmly gather it and show it the way out.

I hate birds. They know it as well. They make a beeline for me, choosing to fly straight over my head, clearly just to see me scramble away, screaming.

My aversion to birds began when a seagull emptied its load upon my tray of chips when I was at the funfair in South Shields sometime in the late 1980s. Incidentally, it also put me off mayonnaise for a few years as well.

It is said that it is good luck for a bird to relieve itself on you. That’s rubbish. It’s what people say to make you feel better because you’ve got bird poo on your best jacket.

It’s not a phobia as such, just a deep-seated hatred. They ought to stick to the sky, and I’ll stay on the ground, and never the twain shall meet.

MY WEEK IN A TWEET