There is a certain word that can strike unparalleled fear into the heart of any man or woman on this Earth. It is more offensive than the worst expletive your filthy minds can conjure. It is a loathsome word: unremorseful and dripping with a terrifying sadism.

Okay, I'll say it once. 'Dentist'.

My last one (I refuse to write it again) was perched atop a dodgy solicitors, with a malodorous receptionist, a stack of year old cheap mags, an aquarium of dead fish, and a trigger-happy nurse with a mean case of the DTs. And that's before we even get to the Master Sadist himself.

But that was over a decade ago, and - just as I haven't dated anyone Swiss since 'Old Crazy' - I've avoided tooth-manglers since him. So if the new Covent Garden Dental Spa is managing to get a non-believer like me through its doors, then that's got to be saying something.