Alan Titchmarsh. Wasn't he the man who urged the nation to enhance its gardens with decking, that crazy late-20th century equivalent of crazy paving? Yes he was.

I remember watching in astonishment the TV programme in which Alan first nailed down his planks, creating a graceless feature with a surface likely to become slimy and gaps ready to receive any dropped material, which might be compost or a wedding ring.

Of course, Alan repented of his great sin. In reaction to his eager advocacy, decking has become a gardening joke, perhaps unfairly since it might fit in certain locations, though perhaps not just outside most patio doors.

But Alan is now giving support to another fad: garden lighting. Shown last week, his makeover of a small garden was completed by the uplighting of trees and shrubs. "How nice to be able to enjoy your garden after dark,'' said Alan, or words to that effect.

But is it not enough to enjoy a garden in the light that nature provides? On a fine summer's evening, is there any need to top the lovely experience of sitting in the garden as the sun goes down and dusk quietly settles? And then to go indoors and call it a day?

Every garden light, especially those powerful enough to illuminate trees or other features, contributes to the destruction of something far more beautiful than any garden - the night sky. That alone should persuade us not to use any outside light that is not strictly necessary. And if we are serious about wanting to check global warming, frivolities like garden lighting should be complete non-starters.

How strange that Alan Titchmarsh, obviously a man who cares about the environment, seems blind to these issues.

'High Street suffers worst Christmas for 25 years'. A typical headline summing up the less-spreeful shopping spree of last Christmas. But is it really bad news? Isn't it good news that we reined back, by almost two per cent, the orgy of consuming that has for too long defined Christmas? Wouldn't it be even better news if this "setback" became a trend, routing the forces of commercialism? You don't have to be an unreformed Scrooge to think so.

Eighty today, the former Bishop of Durham, the Rt Rev David Jenkins, confided an interesting thought to my fellow columnist Mike Amos. "It has struck me lately that I am getting old. It's absurd, of course, but I always assumed that I wouldn't. I just thought I'd always be young."

My late grandfather, a man of much less erudition than the former Bishop, came to the same conclusion. "We all know everyone grows old," he said, "but none of us can imagine ourselves as old." At 67, I am beginning to appreciate this as a profound truth.

Holocaust Remembrance Day tomorrow. Hitler took great care not to have any documented link with the Final Solution. But in his book, Mein Kampf, he wrote: "My conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty creator... In standing guard against the Jew, I am defending the handiwork of the Lord.'' Acting for the Lord. Has there been any bigger source of unnatural death and suffering than that motive since the dawn of mankind?