JUST over two months to go before I hit 40 and, to be frank, I'm already feeling past it and surplus to requirements. "Could you move out of the way?" my wife asked the other day as I stood, minding my own business, in the kitchen.

"Why?" I asked.

"You're interfering with Terry Wogan," she said.

Apart from being an appalling thought, it's probably an indictable offence, so I moved a couple of paces sideways and Radio 2 was immediately a little less crackly.

There was a time my wife wanted me anywhere - everywhere. Now, I'm getting in the way of her blossoming relationship with Terry Wogan.

That's the 'surplus to requirements' bit. The 'past it' part comes down to lots of things - not least the emergence of hair on my back and shoulders.

"Daddy, you're turning into a werewolf," said my youngest as I brushed my teeth, shirtless, one morning.

He's right - I am. Hair is being transferred from my head - where I need it - to parts of my body where I don't.

I've become so concerned about hurtling towards 40 that I launched into a man-to-man talk with Jack, aged eight, on the way back from trampolining lessons the other day.

"How do you feel about your Dad being 40, Jack?" I asked.

"Oh, it's OK," he replied. "You've probably got another 15 years left to live. Anyway, you'll just start drinking more tea."

"Why's that?" I inquired.

"That's what old people do. The older they get, the more tea they drink. Kids don't drink any tea, do they?"

My God, he was right. Only eight and he knows so much.

But it was the game of squash with my wife which brought the week to such a depressing end. She was beating me, but I was about to make my big comeback when my back went.

I tried manfully to play on, but it was no use. We packed in, arranged to meet for a cup of tea (or several in view of our age) in the sports centre caf, and headed for the changing rooms.

I stripped off, ready for a shower, and only had my socks left to go. But when I bent down to take them off, I couldn't reach. My back wouldn't let me. I was stuck.

So there I was: stark naked except for my sports socks, unable to do anything. It was at that precise moment that the man with the snake tattoos came in, sucking an orange.

There followed one of those moments when your eyes catch a stranger's momentarily. For a second, I was going to say something like: "Scuse me, you couldn't help me get my socks off could you?"

But I didn't... I couldn't. Inexplicably, he turned on his heels and walked out.

I suspected he might have gone to warn a member of staff that there was a naked, hairy-backed man, wearing only a pair of sports socks, bent double and eyeing up blokes in the men's changing rooms.

The thought of an imminent arrest forced me through the pain barrier: socks off and in and out of the shower as fast as my injury would allow.

"Where've you been?" my wife asked, impatiently, when I got to the caf. Come to think of it, the reception was almost as bad as when I'm standing in Terry Wogan's way in my own kitchen.

THE THINGS THEY SAY

HEARD a little while back at Delves Lane Men's Forum in County Durham...

Stephen, aged five, was going on a ferry to the Isle of Man and was told by his fare-dodging dad: "If anyone asks how old you are while you're on this boat, tell them you're four-and-a-half."

Sure enough, an official-looking chap came up to him during the crossing and asked: "And how old are you, son?"

Stephen hadn't quite been trained well enough: "I'm four-and-a-half while I'm on this boat, but when I get off I'll be five-and-three-quarters again."

* Don't forget the new Dad At Large book (£5) is available at Ottakar's in Darlington and through Northern Echo offices.