DO MY ears deceive me or has Delia Smith been taking lessons from Tony Blair's elocution teacher? Last night on Delia's

DO MY ears deceive me, or has Delia Smith been taking lessons from Tony Blair's elocution teacher? Last night on Delia's How to Cook (BBC2), she was swallowing more Ts and Ds than hot dinners. Her hair, too, had shaken itself out of that amateur harpist's bob. Blow-dried strands danced sexily as she explained that a spoon, and not a knife, was best for making a cup of instant coffee Our placid madonna has gone a little bit funky on us. When Delia, bless her, moves even one step towards being cool, you know that cool is definitively uncool.

It's almost as if her work is taken for granted.Interview byKatie Sampson. She's hopeless with computers, but she's a very good employer and she looks after my needs.I play rugby twice a week to unwind and the other day I came in to work with a black eye and Floella didn't want me to leave the house because it looked as if I had been fighting.I've been here nearly a year and have become a jack of all trades, but my secret ambition is to present children's programmes myself.I think it's sad that she gets so little recognition for all that she does. She makes up words and phrases, such as "clippy-clippy machine", meaning stapler, and "the tappy- tappy", referring to the keyboard. She doesn't believe in sex before marriage, and complains about the way some girls flaunt themselves on children's TV.

She likes to give me advice, anything from how to keep young-looking to the importance of winning people's respect. I boss her around sometimes; I don't mean to but it just comes out, and it makes her laugh.I often say mad things, but then so does she. Aston is a very grown- up 16-year-old, not at all like your average Harry Enfield teenager.Floella's just so busy. She chairs the Woman of the Year Award as well as Bafta Children's Awards and Bafta Television.