Trying to assess time is a difficult science. Trying to put time into some kind of perspective is even more difficult. As I get older I become more and more interested in the past and how it affected my family and helped to make me the person I am.
It seems difficult to realise that I was born just seven years after the end of the Second World War. That's less time than from the London Olympic Games of 2012 and now. So when I was born the war was very much within living memory.
Of course as a baby I was totally unaware of this, as I was as I grew up. On my first day at school I would have been five-years-of-age and so the war would still have been just 12 years away. Probably the husbands of my teachers would have been on active service.
We weren't taught about the war, although I guess the main aim with five year olds is to teach them to tie their shoelaces and begin to read and write. We must have been on the back end of rationing as well.
Many of those I came into contact with may well have lost loved ones in the war and Norwich must have still resembled a bomb site in many aspects. I was unaware of none of this and nobody tried to explain things.
At the moment I'm reading Martin Gilbert's history of the second word war and, more than most books, it brings to light the absolute carnage and horror of what was going on. I still find it hard to comprehend how a power-mad megalomaniac lunatic could have been followed by the masses without any justifications for his actions. How he could have been the source of annihilation of a huge number of his own people and what for - power.
To me there are a number of evils in this world and these evils when you think about it are responsible for the majority of conflicts and war. They are primarily money, land, race, power and religion. You think of all the wars and the reasons behind them will usually fall into one or more of these categories.
Conversely of course all five categories can be a source of good. And that's the interesting point. Those that have the power, the land, the money and the religious faith can use them either for the common good or for evil purposes.
Race is a different subject, however. I remember going to the USA back in the 1970s for my first visit to that country and being astonished by the level of racism and the fear of communism. They really did see Reds under the bed at that time.
The American Declaration of Independence states quite plainly in black and white that all men are created equal. Unfortunately the country has spent the past 200 plus years proving this not to be true. Of course the same goes for the UK.
The fact that there is still opposition to equality amongst various races and the fact that some ethnic minorities are still treated as inferior citizens doesn't show us in a very good light. Thankfully the great majority of human beings aren't racist. They do not judge a person by the colour of their skin because they realise quite rightly that this is a nonsense.
It was hugely disappointing to see the reaction of the Hungarian crowd at this week's football match when the England players took the knee to show their solidarity against racism. Those Hungarian "supporters" (and I deliberately put that word in speech marks) were racist, know they are racist and make no apologies for being racist. And that's from a country that lost 300,000 soldiers and 600,000 civilians during the Second World War through supporting racist regimes. Sometimes I think that humanity never learns from the past or its mistakes.
There are certain countries in the world that I find fascinating. Some featured in my A level studies but others fascinate me for other reasons.
Germany fascinates me for much of the above and the way it has rebuilt itself since the war and the way that it doesn't try to ignore the evils of its past. Berlin is my favourite city. So bright and modern but so aware of its past and in many ways humble and apologetic.
Russia fascinates me because of the evils within its borders, because of the cult of personality surrounding the like of Stalin and Lenin and the Tzars.
The USA fascinates me because of the richness of its short history and the customs we share with it.
Ireland fascinates me because of the violent conflicts that have moulded it.
China fascinates me because it's a country often beyond our comprehension.
Egypt fascinates me because it is a truly unfathomable country.
And there are many more as well. I have just downloaded a book on the modern history of Romania which is a country I visited back in 1975 (a year after going to Russia). At that time the evil Ceausescu regime was still very much in place. The impression I had of Romania on that visit was one of sadness. The capital Bucharest for me was a place of concrete monoliths and no soul and something just felt wrong about the place with the almost hero worship of Ceausescu and posters and statues to that fact around every corner.
I have only ever had that feeling about one other country and that was Yugoslavia where we visited just before it broke asunder. I didn't even have the feeling that strongly about the USSR which I visited in 1974 when numerous states were preparing to breakaways including Estonia which we also visited.
Returning to that racism in football angle. I always feel that the way to fight evil words is with good actions. The way for black English footballers to fight racism is to let their feet do the talking and that's exactly what happened with England winning 4-0 and Hungary being left with no points and probably a full investigation into the behaviour of their so called supporters.
And this is the point at where these musings do run out of steam.