I love my dad

There are days when all I want to do is flee this den of mediocrity in which I work, catch the train way out to the 'burbs and sit with my darling dad and watch fusty war documentaries, listen to the BBC World Service and Phillip Adams on Radio National and talk and talk about the world - where it's going, what it means - 'wot's it all abahht, guv'nor?'. I want to extract and capture the contents of his long memory - to absorb all those witty stories, smoothed like pebbles caressed in a sea of many years of repetition, refinement and perhaps a fair bit of embellishment. He has seen so much more of life than anyone else I know, and I'm proud as punch of him. He'll be 80 next month. I haven't known many 80 year olds, and I doubt I'll see that age myself. What on earth can I do to mark an occasion like this?