Wake up and smell the emulsion man, cos' DIY's "the new cool". Who say? Only hipster-in-chief of B&Q, dealer in skunk-grade gear to retailer and tradesman alike. "DIY is cool again" says the main man Euan Sutherland, whose crew stashed £137million in the six months to August. They'd even trashed targets so much, bonuses of fifty coin a month were being slipped to 20,000-odd workers. Well I ain't got no beef 'bout getting jiggy with a jigsaw, so maybe I shouldn't talk, but giving money to workers who get staff discount in the candy store, well what's next bro, hanging 'round schools with free socket sets til the kids come runnin' for a power tool hit? Man, you gotta draw the line somewhere….

Sorry, sorry, got this DIY cool thing all wrong. As the delightful Lucy Alexander recently explained in The Times: "Kingfisher [B&Q's owners] declaring that DIY is cool is a bit like the Job Centre declaring dole queues are a hot new trend…. No one in their right mind chooses to sign on or grout the bath if they can afford to do otherwise." You tell 'em Lucy, although I'd advise grouting the tiles on your bathroom walls or floor rather than the bath itself. Never mind luv, you'll get there, writes infamous DU.IT blogster to mere Times journo.

Let's hope Lucy doesn't come across this ad on Google next time the scribe-ess feels in need of a good grout:

HUBBY FOR HIRE!

The total solution for all your DIY needs simply contact 00000 000000 www.hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.orgEngland.

WHAT? Oh right. The doorbell rings, in walks some bloke she's never seen before who says: "'ello sweet cheeks." He walks past our Lucy, plonks himself down on her Habitat sofa, whacks on the footie and shouts: "Do us a cheese sarnie darlin', I'm starving - and I'd love a cold brew while you're up."

It was service like this which gave us the idea there might be a gap in the handyman and building services market in the first place.

We should've realised 'Handy Andy's' day was done when fellow 'DIY' giant Focus Do It All spent most of 2009 trying to avoid administration or, failing that, keeping 5000 people in jobs if they didn't. Either way DIY is not cool. Being cool is like being funny. You don't tell a crowd you're hilarious - you tell them a gag and make them laugh. What you don't do is gloriously displayed on Google again:

COOL CAMPING!

"Hey you found us! We're Cool Camping and…" and no, no NO! You are not flaming cool! You're a bunch of geek geography teachers, the height of whose miserable lives is a toss up between the annual village fete and the harvest festival. Excuse the overkill. You don't need to read Cool Camping! to realise that Duffy didn't come back from the Brits, get out some diddy Dulux matchpots and ask herself: "What's it to be for the hall then, midnight terracotta or cerise with a hint of apple?"

Only the question remains what does muggins do with 5000 T-Shirts printed with the slogan: 'DIYers do it for themselves'? "Wear them," suggested a mate. "Anyone who fell for the 'DIY cool' line must be exactly what it says on those T-shirts….