That question was posed by a young colleague a few years ago. I was able to put her right, but her need to know was purely professional and my answer, however embellished, is unlikely to have inspired any pressing desire on her part to go there.
This gap in her life was filled at the weekend when the occasion of my milestone birthday lured her to the Stadium of Light in Sunderland, where I had chosen to hold the party.
As she returned to London, she announced in a "status update" at Facebook that she was "back from Sunderland where I literally couldn't understand a word anyone said".
This may well have been an exaggeration. But I am glad to say that in common with others who ventured north for the event, she found plenty of compensation for the language difficulties.
Everyone was given a tour of the stadium, or that part of the stadium closest to the function room where the party took place. We saw the dressing rooms, the physio room, the cold tank into which injured players are required to plunge after leaving the pitch, the dug-outs and so on. Can you honestly claim to know of any finer way to spend your Saturday night?
A few of my guests also saw a little of the lovely village of Whitburn, a couple of miles up the coast. It has leafy lanes, lush lawns, cricket, stone-built cottages and a picturesque beach.
Food was provided at the party, but I was taking no chances and arrived in the North East in time for a splendid seafood lunch - in Whitburn - washed down with champagne and Sancerre. Nothing is too good for the working class, as I may have observed before.
The friends who prepared this feast always insist on buying only langoustines that are "good-looking", tough as that may seem on specimens with more modest physical attributes.
In the event, stadium catering has improved since my last exposure to it, and there were murmurs of approval among my friends and relatives for the Thai chicken curry and exotic little brochettes (with shepherd's pie offered as a soft option for less adventurous souls).
It certainly had the edge on the fare available in the buffet car of our Grand Central train back to London next night. As if I had not suffered enough, watching Sunderland being hammered by pre-Abu Dhabi Man City and then getting soaked to the skin walking away from the ground, the only item of hot food was a solitary Cornish pasty. I cannot have been more than about fourth in the queue as the train pulled out of the grim Sunderland station.
It was fairly tasty, so I chose to share it only with Mme Salut, leaving the rest of the train to go hungry.
Football had naturally been the theme of the party, with many fellow Sunderland fans present. But other, equally sad aspects of my life were also reflected: family of course (a bunch of smurking Smogmonsters from down the road in Middlesbrough), folk music (Phil Steele, with whom I played my one and only professional gig, with these results), badminton (Martin Emmerson, still whingeing about the various thrashings I have dealt him on the courts of west London and County Durham) and work (a sprinkling of former Telegraph pals).
My birthday, age included, coincided with that of Derick Attwood, the father of a young reporter with whom I now work in Abu Dhabi. He had already celebrated his 60th while still 59, because his daughter was back home then but could not return to be with him on the day. How tempted I was to borrow one of his lines for my own speech...it went something like this:
At 20, you worry what people are thinking of you. At 40, you claim not to care what people think of you. At 60, you realise no one was thinking of you anyway.
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