I bought a new bedside lamp today, and the label said

If the external flexible cable of this luminaire is damaged, it shall be exclusively replaced by a similar qualified person

How very illuminating.

As you can see, I have a chunky old TV set. I'd quite like a flatscreen one, but Boll wouldn't be able to sleep on it.

Teenager 1 - I've - like - run out of adjectives?
Teenager 2 - Awesome!

When I was a lad, everything was mega. Sometimes it was cosmic. I was too old by the time it turned wicked. It was cool for a while (briefly fly if you were very trendy). Now, it's awesome. Awesome's particularly awesome if you're under 20 and slightly posh, as I discovered this morning while eavesdropping on some irritating Hertford teenagers in a café.

This dread word's finally reached us from California, almost 30 years after it was first considered totally rad.

Urban Dictionary defines it variously as -

Something Americans use to describe everything

Greater than cool, wicked, super, kick-ass, and mega put together

and

An adjective overused as an exclusionary Shibboleth to identify Americans and differentiate them from educated English-speaking adults

But that's no longer true. Even academics and scientists use it -

The awesome power of the immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif

Awesome or ordinary? Global diversity patterns of oribatid mites (a cracking read in my opinion)

and

Awesome - Angina With Extremely Serious Operative Mortality Evaluation

Consultant - I'm sorry sir. You've got Awesome.

And the Awesome pandemic has now crept from the Groves of Academe into the cloisters of the Church of England. The Anglican Women Evangelicals Supporting our Ordained Ministry call themselves Awesome. Bitchin! as a Californian might say.

The word is of course English in origin. In the early 17th century, it meant 'in awe of' - We stood in awesome silence before the ancient ruins.

After around 1670, it also meant 'inspiring awe' - an awsome thunderstorm.

The new usage, meaning 'good', was first recorded in 1961. It was all downhill from there.

But the awesome virus has produced one positive mutation - the website 1000 Awesome Things which lists various reasons to be cheerful, on the lines of 'raindrops on kittens' and so on. My favourites are -

No 915 - When there’s leftover cake in the office kitchen

No 905 - Using all the different shampoos and soaps in someone else’s shower

No 899 - The smell of frying onions

No 895 - Getting something with actual handwriting on it in the mail

No 806 - Ducks

No 804 - Gym pain

No 758 - Celebrating your pet’s birthday even though they have no idea what’s going on

No 668 - Walking faster than cars sitting in traffic

No 656 - When the plane suddenly speeds up on the runway

I don't think they've reached number one yet.

It's quite American, but most amusing. And site visitors suggest awesome things too, such as -

Homegrown tomatoes

Being the first person to walk on fresh snow and

When the windshield wipers match the beat of the song you’re listening to

Mega!

I don't normally do decorating tips. But here goes.

Basically, my kitchen walls were starting to look like Jackson Pollock had been eating in there.

I can't help it. I always end up with more food on the wall than in my mouth.

So I came up with a fiendishly clever solution. I decided to buy some paint which was exactly the same colour as my stains. In the end, I opted for olive green. It's stain-resistant and quick-drying and I spent this morning applying two coats.

The kitchen's now worryingly dark and resembles a distressed avocado, but at least it's stain-free and I'm a happy bunny.

There are lots of dentists in Hertford.

We even have celebrity ones. Victoria Beckham allegedly frequents The Perfect Smile near Peacock Towers. This spa-style practice has also starred on TV's Extreme Makeover.

And Hudsons on Bull Plain is renowned throughout the globe for its seasonal window displays of fluffy toys.

That's all well and good. But I draw the line at dental jollity and I've been seriously irked in recent weeks by various freakish dental marketing ploys.

The first was a 'smile makeover', offered on the Ware Road, of all places. Good grief. What do they do? Tickle you?

Then I saw a sign today saying 'Nervous Patients Welcome' and boasting 'drill-free' and 'injection-free' dentistry.

This is heresy. Going to the dentists ought to be traumatic. It's a rite of passage.

No pain, no tooth fairy.

It's a really neat site, where you can keep your daily to-do lists. You put a red line through things you've done. Things you haven't done are automatically shunted on to the next day at midnight.

And there's even a some day section for items that are less urgent.

Put it on your to-do list now.

He's very creative, efficient and friendly and definitely knows his stuff. Here are some pix of his gardens in the Hertford area -