WELL, pet, how are you? OK, my love? Or perhaps you prefer Good morning, madam, Thank you sir? Tesco thinks you do. They've banned staff from using colloquial familiarities and have told them they have to be all formal instead. Shame.

Well, yes I know there are people from whom some colloquial greetings are a familiarity too far. But frankly, after you've trailed around some giant supermarket in all its vast enticing soul-lessness, I think it's a great relief to find someone at the end of it who speaks like a human being instead of a robot.

True, there are some who get perilously close to the Fast Show's Arabella Weir.

"Yeeurrgghh" said one, as she passed my pack of sushi over the scanner. "You're not going to eat this are you?" Then she looked at me. "Still," she said, "maybe you need all that raw fish." I've looked at myself in the mirror a lot since then, trying to work out what she meant.

Then there are the girls in the discount supermarkets who whizz things through so quickly you haven't got time to pack them in your 2p extra carrier bags. They hardly look at you either. Poor things probably haven't got time. If they talked to you they'd probably get sacked for time wasting.

The really moronic ones sit, slumped, chewing gum and looking miserable. The bells on their tills never work so that when they need to ask the price of something (and they always do), they have to sit there and shout DoreEEEN! And their chewing gum falls out.

So it's a treat to find someone bright and chirpy and alive, whatever they call you. The nicest supermarkets have the nicest assistants. And they're the ones who tend to call you love, or pet, or ducks, or dear, because they're being naturally friendly. The danger of banning checkout assistants from using the words and phrases that come naturally, is that Tesco will make them clam up altogether, which would be miserable for all concerned. For as you stand there unloading, packing, loading, it's only the checkout people who make life bearable.

And the chat adds to the sum of human knowledge too. I once had a good recipe for leeks from an assistant in Sainsburys. The girl at Tesco told me what it was like to be thrown out of bed by the Omagh bomb and the nice Safeways lady and I have a mini-support group for the mothers of teenage sons.

If they had to call me "madame", I bet we would never have got that far.

Have a nice day now.

THE dreadful stabbing of 16-year-old Rosie Ross by stranger in the middle of Birmingham is enough to send chills through us all.

But think - when they saw what had happened, people around immediately rushed to help. Three teenage boys chased after and caught a suspect. Others called the police, tried first aid. One man ripped off his T-shirt to make a tourniquet.

Tragically, their efforts were all in vain. But at least people tried. We're constantly told that no one goes to the aid of strangers any more.

The one tiny consolation in Rosie's case was that this time at least, they did and she died surrounded by help instead of alone and ignored.

DID a Sunderland granny beat Sir Alexander Fleming to the discovery of penicillin?

Inspired by news of a book of old-fashioned remedies and household hints that has just been published, an 82-year-old reader rings from Sunderland to tell us about her grandmother.

"She had 22 grandchildren and whenever any one of us fell over and cut ourselves badly we were sent to Granny's. She kept a jar full of mouldy jam and would always put some of this on our cuts. It was absolutely brilliant. I've never heard of anyone else doing this so I wonder if my granny knew something before Fleming."

It just proves - yet again - that it doesn't do to dismiss old wives' tales too lightly, but has anyone else heard of anything similar in the past?

Come to that, there might still be plenty of ancient and humble remedies waiting to be re-discovered . If you know of any that work for you, then please let us know.

JACQUELINE Cowan has just won a £3m divorce settlement from her ex-husband, for being a stay-at-home wife while he built up an empire built on black bin liners.

She has been mocked for the lifestyle which she wished to maintain - the £10,000 a year on clothes and jewellery, £36,000 on personal care and holidays.

No, Mrs Cowan hadn't worked in the business. But from their early days as teenagers she'd kept the home together, brought up their sons and, before Mr Cowan's ideas bore fruit and profit, she lived without fridge, phone or TV and did all the washing by hand.

She kept the home together in bad times and good and gave her husband the secure base which meant he could devote all his time and energies to his business. That sort of partnership is just as valid and vital as if she'd been sharing an office with him and it's good to see the courts recognising this.

In a society where everyone is increasingly judged by the size of their paycheque, it's good to know that one stay-at-home mother at least is worth £3m.

AMBITIOUS young businessmen on Wall Street are apparently paying up to £10,000 for chin implants to give them a hero's jawline and make them look stronger and more successful - though if their results at work remain the same, you could wonder how the other financial hotshots could be so easily fooled.

Still, a few hundred years ago men wore stuffed codpieces to make them look more macho, so I suppose this is progress of sorts.

GERI Halliwell in a party political broadcast? All very well, but not half as much fun as listening to John Humphrys and Tony Blair on the Today programme.

No wonder Labour want to ban cruel sports.