Yes, it's true. I'm going to be sectioned next week

FROM next week you will notice some changes in the design of this column.

The most obvious one is that it will have shorter paragraphs.

Not only will this make it easier for you, the newspaper reader, to read, especially if you have not been reading for very long, but it will make it easier to write.

Sometimes, if I feel that an individual sentence is going particularly well,

I might continue it on into a second paragraph.

Or even a third.

But that is not all.

The column will also be split into different sections.

This is the first time that any column has been divided into separate supplements.

There will be a Leisure Section, a Business Section, a Deathstyle Section, a Property Section, a Media Section, a Sports Section and a Disappointments Section.

What is a Disappointments Section?

I'll tell you what a Disappointments Section is.

It is the opposite of an Appointments Section. 'Appointments Section' is the posh name given to a job or employment section, to make it sound a bit more exciting than the ordinary job round-up, just as Property sounds a bit better than Houses, and salary sounds better than wages.

However, as most of the people who apply for any given post are unlikely to get it, it seems only fairer to call the section a 'Disappointments Section'. It is just one of the many honest innovations that will put this column ahead of the game on Monday.

Another is its revolutionary Deathstyle Section. Lifestyle sections are two a penny these days, and if you want advice on what fizzy imported water to drink or which is this month's country house hotel, you can find them in any paper. But there is more to life than living. Dying in style, and preparing for it, is becoming more and more important to the trend-conscious.

The first sign of this was in the recent upgrading of the Obituary sections in all newspapers. There was a time when obituaries were the shabby basements of newspapers, places where there was little light and a lot of second-hand dust.

No longer.

Obituary pages are now gleaming pages, full of jokes and glamorous early photographs.

Definitely places to be seen in.

This is a trend that this column would like to be a trail-blazer in.

So in our new Deathstyle Section we shall be telling you which are the fashionable places to be buried in, what diseases are definitely out and where to get a lovely, country-style, environmentally friendly coffin. Plus a regular fashion feature, 'I Wouldn't Be Seen Dead In It]', advice on your famous last words, and a scoop exclusive on how David Mellor has already written his own obituary for FOUR different newspapers.

But that is not all.

There will also be colour in this column, thus making it the world's first fully rainbow-

oriented column.

Key words will be picked out in glowing vermilion.

Jokes, if any, will be highlighted in a new saffron hue that will gently throb on the page.

Strong language and swear words, which are sometimes inevitable in today's foul-mouthed satire game, will be signalled ahead by a harsh scarlet print, thus enabling you to skip these disagreeable passages if necessary.

(Handling this bright-red print will also produce a mild though annoying skin rash - another first, we believe.)

Unintentional puns will no longer be followed by that most infuriating of all phrases, 'no pun intended]', but will be printed in an apologetic blushing pink.

Our most revolutionary innovation of all, however, is the unique Fire-Lighting and Drawer-Lining Section.

All too often, when we need paper to help start a fire or just wrap things in, we can't find a section to spare. Even worse, we pick up a newspaper supplement that normally we would be bored stiff by - Business or Education, maybe - and find now that it's chock-a-block with good stories. And you know how the 30-year-old newspaper lining your chest of drawers has fascinating items about Marcia Falkender, Bobby Kennedy and Elvis Presley (though not all in the same story) that are much more interesting now than when you first read them?

That's why the new Fire-lighting and Drawer-lining Section will contain nothing but stories and features from over 50 years ago, reproduced by the most modern methods in a sort of grey-brown pre-faded soup.

Coming on Monday. The column with a difference] Only 45p - and the Independent comes FREE with it]