Last week's papers were full of Hazel Wheeler, and her amazing life story. In 1941, aged 14, Wheeler found a blank diary in her parents' attic. She then went on to post an entry every day, without exception, for the next 67 years.

The main joy for the press has been that, in the past 67 years, there has been no global event - however cataclysmic - that didn't take second place to Wheeler's reports on her knitting, baking, or domestic arrangements.

Lennon's murder is marked with: “John Lennon of The Beatles shot dead in New York. Got first Christmas card, from Roy and Vera.” JFK may or may not have been blown away by a multi-party consortium of vested right-wing interests, but at the time, Wheeler had some pretty vested interests of her own. “President Kennedy was assassinated as he drove through Dallas today. Shot through the head. Baked macaroons and scones. Did knitting.” And the Moon landings get short shrift compared with the excitement over her new, round table.

Of course, while everyone, understandably, has had a misty ROFL over Wheeler's diaries, what we are all forgetting is that everyone's diaries look like that. We don't have much material to work with. It's fine if you're a Mitford, say - going to balls, hanging out with Hitler, inventing new words to oppress the working classes. But, for the rest of us, life is little more than a procession of meals, laundry, increasingly desultory efforts to find some curtains for the spare room, and alarmed, but ultimately clueless, reactions, to world events. If I kept a diary now, it would consist of entries such as: “Credit crisis is happening. Still don't really understand it. Looked at T-shirt with owl on it on topshop.com. Kids still not dead.”

This sheer lack of anything to write about is infinitely more acute during the prime diary-writing years - childhood. Who has not been given a diary as a Christmas present by a parent, with the words, “Best thing you'll ever do, keep a diary. I wish I'd kept mine up.” And who did not eventually abandon their diary some time in March, shouting, “This obsession with epistle-writing during the most empty, lacklustre decade of my life is a farce! It is a sham! No future generations will want to read, ‘Swimming. Corned-beef sandwiches for tea. SNOW.' I'm going off to discover masturbation, instead.”

And even if something of interest should occur, then you - a puddingy child, sucking the end of a Biro, ten minutes before lights-out - have no real ability to write about it. The ten battered diaries I kept, between 1986 and 1992, prove the case to devastating effect. My entry for the day of the Hungerford massacre notes: “Fourteen shot in small market town. Bad. Watched Howard The Duck. Choc ices. Brill.”

Similarly, a cataclysmic lack of understanding dogged my viewing of Nelson Mandela's Birthday Concert at Wembley Stadium in 1988. “Ten hours of wall-to-wall music,” I wrote. “Sting, Bee Gees (yuk), Dire Straits (bliss), Simple Minds. WOW. Triff. Brill. Every year, please!” Totally ignoring that the only reason the concert was happening was because Mandela was sitting in jail on Robben Island, rotting. Despite what I'm sure were dozens of heartfelt speeches, any political aspect of the afternoon passed me by as I sat on the sofa, cheerfully singing along to Walk of Life with my mouth full of crackers and cheese.

Even reading other people's diaries left me none the wiser. After finishing The Diary of Anne Frank, my six-word review is: “Wish I was more like Anne.” I'd like to think that I was appreciating Frank's indomitable spirit in the face of persecution - but actually, I think it was because she a) was thin and b) had a boyfriend.

But was all this my fault? After all, no one ever teaches us to write a diary. There is no accepted format or tone to the things. We don't know whether they should simply note the days on which things happened (“Dustin Gee died. Washed dog with apple shampoo. 6/10”), or whether we should actually open up and talk about our thoughts, our hopes, our possibly illegal feelings towards others. Doing the latter opens us up to almost infinite danger - a fact acknowledged in my diary entry for December 11, 1987: “Caz a pain. Read her diary. Must hide mine somewhere different.”

And it's not as if there's any glory or triumph in getting the “real you” down on paper anyway. The modern belief that letting your feelings out is always right is thunderingly disproved in the diary of any adolescent. Rendered fearless and, more importantly, incredibly stupid by hormones, teenagers write diaries giving simple proof that everyone would be better off just bottling up everything until they die.

Reading my teenage diaries now, there are things that - even 20 years later - cause me to get up briskly from my chair and walk around the room, making pained, opened-mouthed noises; quite similar to those I used during labour.

“I now fancy David Baddiel more than anyone on the planet - but it's not like the stupid obsession I had with Nigel Kennedy.” “Drew a picture of Edward Scissorhands and cried.”

I'm sorry. I'm going to have to run up and down the garden for a minute.

Imagine if everyone kept a diary during their teenage years. When time-travel is finally invented, the space-time continuum would just be cluttered with mortified adults travelling back to 1987 to give their lumpen, adolescent selves a slap. If I ever find my daughters writing a diary, I will do them the very good turn of driving to Brighton and hurling it into the sea.

If they insist, however, I will at least make sure that have a diary of adequate size for the job. My very first diary, that I kept when I was 10, was tiny. In it, I had to note both personal feelings and my future appointments - such as that, on March 6, 1986, we had reserved some hot new releases from the video shop.

Alas, when the circumstances of that day took a shuddering left-turn, I was forced tearfully to scribble out: “Return of the Jedi!!!! Police Academy 2: First Assignment!!!!!” and write: “NAN'S DEAD. WHY? NAN NAN NAN!!” over the top.

And then, of course: “Egg and chips for tea.”

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