Growing up - but I still need dad for DIY help

In the cult sci-fi film (by cult I mean watched only by me and a few men in beards and T-shirts with ironic slogans) people get to live a life of consequence-free hedonism in spandex outfits.

The catch is that to keep the population under control they all get executed at the age of 30.

According to one of those many surveys that fill the odd column of a national newspaper, 32 is what most people under 25 consider to be the age at which youth ends. Then there's the issue of when you're officially old. Apparently it's 59 which I simply cannot accept to be true.

If you look at old episodes of Doctor Who, William Hartnell constantly seemed like he was about to keel over and regenerate.

Fluffing his lines and holding onto his lapels for dear life he was about as doddery as a Dalek being pushed down an escalator.

But the new Doctor, Peter Capaldi is 55 – the same age Hartnell was when the show started in 1963 – and to see him in action as the violent- tempered, foul-mouthed Malcolm Tucker in the Thick of It you'd think he was at least 30 years Hartnell's junior, relatively speaking.

Youth is sometimes defined as the period of transition from childhood dependence to adult independence.

If that's the case I'm still young at heart. I turn 32 in a few weeks and the fact that I'm still willing to broadcast that to the world either makes me young or old.

Kids like to tell you constantly how old they are while I find most people over 80 want to say what age they'll be on their next birthday. "I'm coming 87 next August", they'll say, mere days after turning 86.

I am qualified to apply this theory to nearly every single pensioner having reported on vast numbers of diamond wedding celebrations over the years (tip: the secret to a happy marriage is always 'give and take').

Of course what makes me still feel young is not confined solely to my desire to celebrate having survived a whole 12 months more.

And it's not that I still slavishly follow science fiction shows, collect comics or enjoy skidding across the dance floor on my knees at every wedding I attend.

Although I still do all of those things, my perception of my own youth is down to the utter and complete dependency I still have upon my parents.

Light fittings, wiring, decorating and routine maintenance continue to elude me.

Hand me a hammer or a spirit level with some DIY task and you might as well have given a monkey a type-writer and asked him to write the complete works of Shakespeare for all the good it would do.

I am starting to feel my aches and pains though.

Any more than two drinks and I feel like that same monkey is using my brain to carve the works of Shakespeare onto the inside of my skull.

And a night out now officially ends at midnight.

For all the surveys you can do about youth and what it means to be young, I'm just going to take it at my own pace. I'll be some weird mix of old and young where I'm still playing computer games while wearing slippers, sipping a quality whisky while watching old episodes of Knightmare on YouTube and arguing about government support for childcare in an indie nightclub at 2am.

But if you want me to put up some shelves, I'll go and get my dad.

Keith Harrison is away