Someone I know has a rule about dating: never go out with someone who did not watch Changing Rooms, the home-improvement show. It is age related, but more than that it is taste related, and it is about to be rendered obsolete by the fact that of all the shows that were ever on, Changing Rooms will be returning to our screens. The reboot train is long and cluttered with carriages that would have been better left in the scrapyard, but Changing Rooms is about to transcend its status as a relic of the 90s, a mere monument to enthusiasm and stencilling. It was almost inevitable that it would rise again, like a wobbly shelving unit put together with a glue gun and some MDF. Over the past few years, the home- improvement show has taken on a near-mythical status online. Did people actually let their friends do this to their houses? (The answer is yes – my mum and dad took part in ITV’s bigger-budget version, Better Homes, and ended up with a lovely extension and some “original artwork” on the kitchen walls.) Davina McCall will present this new Changing Rooms, but its former host and one-time designer is back to provide the DNA of the original. Of all the designers, it had to be Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, if it was going to be authentically Changing Rooms. “It’s taken quite a lot of coaxing to get me under the Changing Rooms banner once more, but nothing like as much coaxing as it’s going to take for me to squeeze those leather trousers back on,” he joked. Based on my unreliable memory, he was responsible for draping everything in purple or deep red velvet, painting wood to look like marble and talking about the influence of various numerical Louis while he etched things on walls. He embodied the can-do spirit of the show. The budget may have been small and the results makeshift at best, but his ambition was limitless. As we prepare to see out 2020 in a terrible state, the prospect of watching a man turn a suburban bedroom into a Roman villa, a man dedicated to creating an illusion of grandeur and opulence with only plasterboard, spray paint and ideas, feels very of the moment. We are about to be marooned at home, stuck inside and broke like we’ve never been broke before, so why not entertain us with the idea that we can all knock up our own version of Greece in the spare room or shove a load of pampas grass in the conservatory, turn up the heating and pretend we’re on a hotel terrace in Tenerife? Demi Lovato: telling it straight to America The slogan “vote” is hardly an incitement to anarchy, but when the message flashed up behind Demi Lovato at the Billboard awards on Wednesday, as she finished a goosebump-inducing performance of her new song, Commander in Chief, the network instead broadcast a closeup of her face. Elsewhere, there had been other demands for people to vote, from Billie Eilish and Lizzo, but neither had just belted out a song quite so politically direct as Lovato’s new one. For whom she was asking people to vote was never in question. It is foolish to be surprised by the fact that pop can be powerful in this way but, coming from Lovato, the message of the song felt different, arresting. Pop stars being political is no longer the potential career-ender that it was but, even so, Lovato felt compelled to state on Instagram: “I literally don’t care if this ruins my career.” Pink and the then Dixie Chicks before her certainly felt the reverberations of aiming their ire at George Bush Jr; perhaps she is right to anticipate a backlash. I think the song is so powerful because Lovato’s fan base remains young and Commander in Chief does not bother with soft metaphors when hard facts will do. “We’re in a state of crisis, people are dying, while you line your pockets deep/ Commander in chief, how does it feel to still be able to breathe?” runs one memorable phrase, more Chumbawamba than Top 40. I love the idea of a teenager in a car, listening to Lovato, being told by their parents to turn this nonsense off. Jennifer Aniston: no wonder she calls it puppy love Jennifer Aniston has joined seemingly everyone I know and has welcomed a puppy into her life. There is little more cheering than a tiny dog, as seems to be evidenced by the fact that I cannot pass a puppy in the street without squeaking in a high-pitched, strangled voice a sentiment that is supposed to be “your dog is so sweet, may I stroke it?” but comes out as a sound that barely resembles the words “puppy” and “cute”. There was a BBC4 documentary not so long ago about the science behind dogs and their relationship with humans and it suggested that dogs have evolved eyebrow muscles in order to make their expressions more appealing, so that we feel the need to look after them. Puppies are master manipulators when it comes to those muscles. Lord Chesterfield, as Aniston has named her rescue dog, is advert-cute, with a great, noble name and, even in a short Instagram video, reduces me to whatever the dog equivalent of broodiness is. Still, puppies are cute for a reason and that reason is that they are nightmares for at least 12 months and they have to be cute to even begin to get away with it. • Rebecca Nicholson is an Observer columnist