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.

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.

Last night, it returned 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. It also had that staple of many a 1990s show, a gunge tank.

Pat Sharp, its mullet-toting presenter, will join 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.

SOMETIMES, the best stories land on your desk.

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

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

Rather than usher it back through the window, I screamed and pushed myself away from the desk, traumatising the bird. I had to wait for a colleague to calmly gather it up 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; I’ll stay on the ground, and never the twain shall meet.