I'm not a hoarder, but F1 generates so much paper that every so often you have to be ruthless. Do you really need it? No. So bag it up, get down to the tip and head for the New Year with an organised office and a clear desk.
This time, I thought, I'd get serious, go right back. But sometimes you just can't bring yourself to drop stuff into the black bag. I was stopped in my tracks by a Roland Ratzenberger CV from 1985, which Roland gave me when I first met him at the Essen Motor Show. Then by a selection of black-and-whites I took of Didier Pironi outside his Leader Offshore power boat premises in '86.
The memories came flooding back. That meeting with Pironi came about in the strangest of circumstances.
I'd just reported the Monaco F3 race and was taking a busman's holiday at the following weekend's Pau F3000 showpiece. I was travelling with Mark Gallagher, ex-journalist turned commercial man who is now running the Irish A1GP entry among other things.