ust a few moments ago I received a very welcome 'phone call from an old friend and colleague who lives and works in Sacramento. He called to wish me a happy birthday. He never forgets, but nearly always gets the wrong date. Mine is the 16th. of April. I've had a lot of birthdays and they are all appreciated and I truly think that their number is more and more surprising to me. When my dad, the heavy smoker, died at 59 he seemed so old. Times change in a generation.

How do I know I'm old?

When last I went to the Getty Museum in West Los Angeles and took the tramway to the art center at the hilltop, a pregnant young woman offered me her seat.

When I took one of the five grandchildren to a dance class, she looked at me and asked the simple, revealing question, "papa, you aren't going to live as long as my daddy, are you?" I told her "I hope not" and that was the end of her concern.

And there is, of course, the reflection in the mirror! I still have a great face for radio, but a growing amount of interest appears to be for me to return to television. It seems very likely that this will occur in the foreseeable future. I can't, at this stage, divulge the details, but if and when the contract is signed, sealed and delivered, would you mind sitting with your back to the screen. Or perhaps I should sit with my back to the camera.pr> For many years, in our crazily obsessed with youth ,culture, I would try and make sure that publicity gave out the date as April 16, but never the year of birth. I've met with producers and writers who are having enormous problems seeking and finding employment ,because they have reached their mid-forties. I know of advertisers who have been mesmerized by their advertising agencies into believing that "the market" is simply from the mid-twenties to the early fifties. As if children have more buying power than parents.

I've met people who were old in their thirties. I've enjoyed the company of many of mature age (euphemism for "old"), who are far more interesting and original in their thinking than most others.

On the flat screen TV facing me they are showing a recap of the career of the golfing great, Gary Player. He looks so young, to me, and hardly changed from the days in Johannesburg, South Africa, when we went to school together; King Edwards School. He was the drum major in the school band. I was the bugle major. He was far better with a golf club than a drumstick. I was far better with a microphone than a bugle; I was loud and unskilled. The band was O.K.

We also played rugby for the same team at KES; he played center, I was the winger. We were very young. So many decades have passed and I have never, ever, had the good fortune to meet up with him.

He is retiring or retired according to the reporters, I don't believe it. I'd wager that he'll not be able to keep away from the Masters a year from now.
No, I too am not retired and there is no one I envy.

There are so many more significant things to think and write about.

Tomorrow,