Griff Rhys Jones: When exactly was that, then? Where did that time go? How did it slip away? Where are my braces, mother? What was I doing then? These are, of course, all emotions that the producers hope will swell in your bosom. The invention of the CD? The making of that film 2001? Football hooliganism? What happened to that stuff? Is it really history? The programme even has a round on the "Second Summer of Love." Note that. The second. I wore a cardigan and slippers to the first. Did you know that hippy stuff all happened some time before the invention of hay? I must have been doing the weeding. Big gatherings in old airfields to have sex and take drugs, I now find out, are almost antique. I was still looking for the courage to go to one. Marcus Brigstocke, it transpired, was a lithe teenage pole dancer at these events. Hence the permanent happy face. And raves are as passé as the Albigensians. Well, well. We even look at the career of Boris Johnson. Boris! Boris is not history; at least, not after his recent slender victory. He didn't even begin his political career until after I stopped voting. But, no, Boris has been around since "yonks" meant "a long time." Yonks and yonks to some of the ingénues we'll have behind the cardboard desk during A Short History. And what about video nasties? The dernier cri was 30 years ago. Who'd have thought it? Betamax? Ahh. A flood of nostalgia for forgotten marketing opportunities comes welling up. The major revelation is that we all fall for the same old nonsense, time after time: scandals, emergencies, impending disasters, crazes and crazies roll up the beach with such impressive regularity we can barely remember the panic before last. Mind you, 30 years is a very long time ago if you are the target audience for Channel 4. You've majored on embarrassing body hair, pondered terrifically dirty kitchens and admired naked fat people. You have got out of bed to watch Countdown and you will suddenly cry out: "OMG! Look at this freaky stuff about old-fashioned things! (And that is me. The most old-fashioned thing of all.) Aye, laddie. I have become the Robert Robinson of the internet age - sage, world weary, one huge age-spot, glowering at these young careerists. I'm definitely enjoying it. In the middle of recording one episode, I looked up at a monitor. That's the spare television set we have in the studio for showing the clips. I glimpsed a wizened crock who looked like that grandfather with the fierce spectacles in Up, the Disney cartoon. And, yes, it was me. That grey-haired oldie, that clapped-out Methuselah on the flat screen, that wattle-necked, pasty-faced old git, was your host. Sigh. I am so old that the Second World War was light entertainment when I was little. We never called it "history" like that History Channel does. It was too close and too fun. In fact, it was our duty to get our history teacher, Mr Rance, off the Norman Conquest (real history) and on to the war (not history). Sir, sir... was King William's invasion a bit like when you had that Messerschmitt on your tail, sir? Ah, you're not getting me that way, Jones. And anyway he wasn't on my tail... there was a lot of cloud cover... cannons blazing... donner und blitzen, et cetera. I remain unmoved. They are free to call it "history." I shall call it "a short recap of some things that took place relatively recently." You will join me in this I hope, because, after all, you take the Telegraph and you probably robbed the younger generation of their birthright and are living in it, and, like me, you don't care about young people at all. This programme is All Our Yesterdays with bolt-on swearing. And if you can remember All Our Yesterdays, then adjust your lounger and join me. A Short History of Everything Else begins on Channel 4 on Wednesday 13 June at 9pm Follow Telegraph TV on Twitter: @telegraph_tv