A man goes into a pub. On the bar is a collecting box for Myton Hospice. The man steals the box and walks out. The pub’s staff notice it’s gone, and call the police and their local paper. It couldn’t be simpler.
 
You’d then expect Myton Hospice to appeal for the return of the money - about £20. You’d expect the police to appeal for witnesses, and to do their best to find the thief. And we in the newsroom would expect to have written a story about it within minutes of hearing about it.

But a series of baffling phone calls left us questioning these common-sense expectations. First we were told the police would do no more to catch the culprit, other than visit the pub (taking no fingerprints) and check CCTV footage - because they had received no official complaint from Myton Hospice. This confused us: if a policeman found a dead body on the ground, would he just look at it and walk away unless someone complained?

It also called into question the actions of the hospice. Why had it not complained? Well, it transpires that these thefts are quite common, but the hospice doesn’t like to tell the public. It fears we would stop putting coins in its tins if we understood the possibility that they could fund a criminal lifestyle, rather than contribute to the care of terminally ill people. But surely more of us would be deterred from donating if we felt the hospice was unappreciative of our generosity - and how much more unappreciative can you get than apparently caring so little for the money of pub-goers?

Struggling to comprehend all this, we called the hospice again. Now it did want to complain. But the police’s strange behaviour took a new twist - they could do no more, apparently, because they could not identify the suspect. Er, don’t they employ detectives any more?

Finally, we spoke to a helpful policeman. Now an appeal has been issued and the hospice wants its money back. Phew. But it made us think: what if we'd never known about the theft?

Don’t go back. Don’t. Go. Back.

Sometimes the lure of the past is irresistable; the past, as we all know, was better. But as Kevin Keegan has learnt, making the return journey is fraught with peril. It won’t be like it was, because it’s happening now; we simplistically tend to label memories as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, forgetting that there was plenty of bad with the good. By going back, we are reminded of that, and golden reminiscences are forever stained.

This sad truth becomes distressingly apparent on any YouTube-assisted trawl through one’s youth. We all remember the wrestling, don’t we? Wrestling was on ITV on Saturday lunchtimes and it was great. It was vibrant, violent fun, a preposterous cartoon acted out my big slabs of man, some goodies, some baddies: a wondrous, sparkly, sugar-coated spectacle.

And so the delight at finding that all this is catalogued, archived and available on the internet is initially tremendous. These images that have existed only in our darkening, Monster Munch-flavoured memory have become illuminated, moving from behind our eyes to before them. You choose to watch Big Daddy versus Giant Haystacks, because they’re the most famous, the biggest stars. So you press ‘play’ and, before you know it, you’re transported to...

Some kind of nightmare, in which two appallingly obese, smelly-looking, lumbering lumps occasionally collide, very slowly. Sometimes they hold each other, resembling grotesquely inflated slugs mating, while everything outside the titchy ring looks brown and musty. There’s more athleticism on show in your average game of dominoes, more skill in ludo, more drama on Gardener’s World. This stuff was watched by millions, these people household names. But even those names were stupid when you think about them: what’s in the least bit menacing about a stack of hay, however large?

Don’t go back, folks. It transpires children’s TV was mostly deadeningly dull, poorly written and dreadfully produced. Those computer games that held your attention for hours? You can play those online, too. And guess what? They were terrible.

No: the past is unworthy even of a fleeting visit, let alone a prolonged stay. It is best left in our heads. Look forward, everyone.