Today, I am halfway to getting my birthday card from Her Majesty The Queen (yes, this very day).

But is it a milestone? Not really.

Like hundreds of millions of other people, I’m just lucky enough to have lived 50 years, and milestones I think should be a tad more monumental than checking to see if your eyes have turned rheumy.

Not that milestones need be major – the school prom, driving test, or first vodka shot eye–balled are all worthy of notches on the bed post of a life, but for me, the truly watershed moments aren’t simply memories to be recalled at will, but the foundation from which our future selves are carved.

Which means... moments instead of milestones, measured by their poignancy rather than their pertinence.

So in the spirit then of this half century truly lived, here are my most momentous catalysts...

Aged 4 – electrocution by mum’s hairdryer Aged 5 – watching first true ‘friend’ Fred The Frog jump into kitchen sink and die Aged 6 – hospital (adenoids and tonsils removed) Aged 7 – first sex education lesson Aged 8 – being frightened of stairs with gaps between them (still am) Aged 8 – first sip of beer mixed with sherry, whisky and lager (my friend’s mum was left to clean up) Aged 9 – giving my first school ‘crush’, Melanie, a square of Galaxy chocolate in playground Aged 12 – drill slipping on upper tooth during dental appointment Aged 13 – shot at point blank range with air rifle (hard to forget really) Aged 15 – first ‘true’ girlfriend Aged 15 –‘Dear Jer’ note four weeks later (she said her horse came first) Aged 18 – afternoon after the morning I’d told my parents I’d failed my A–levels Aged 21 – first tax officer at Revenue and Customs demoted in 25 years Aged 23 – first day at a newspaper (no qualifications, no experience, no idea) Aged 25 – first job in London (Menswear magazine) Aged 25 – first weekly expenses claim (editor refused to sign, saying it wasn’t enough) Aged 31 – first flight interrupted by ‘technical difficulties’ (and it never gets easier) Aged 36 – first fake tan (breathtaking) Aged 44 – first pub brawl in Oxford over the true father of modern communism (only in Jericho eh?) Aged 49 – first signs of getting ‘jowly’ Yeah, I’ve lived...