My morning ...

1. Purchase new and wonderful vacuum cleaner. Look forward to bidding stupid little dustpan and brush farewell forever, and entering a new era of truly clean carpets.

2. Vacuum downstairs carpets with oh-so-wonderful machine. Feel amazed and slightly horrified by the amount of dust that appears in the vacuum's dust container.

3. Vacuum stairs. Have fun playing with cool little attachment thingies and seeing just how far that telescopic reach thing can stretch.

4. Pull car around to the front of the house so that new vacuum cleaner can be used to banish all yuckiness from inside of car.

5. Hear cry of horror from kitchen. Child (who shall remain nameless) has helpfully switched vacuum cleaner on, and in the process has allowed the vacuum cleaner to vacuum up its own cord. Lights trip, vacuum cleaner stops working.

6. Inspection shows that the cord is completely ruined, and must be replaced. It's not clear whether the actual motor has been damaged or not. Put in call to help centre; "the engineer" will call tomorrow to discuss replacement of cord. Help desk person is extremely cagey about costs involved in this.

Total time elapsed from purchase of vacuum cleaner to death of vacuum cleaner : one hour.