Drip-drip.

You know those Saturday mornings when you haven’t got a huge amount of time and you’re not sure what to do with yourself? You know that in an hour or so you’re going to have to head down to Marlborough School in Wiltshire, via Kensington to look at some reflective cubes left in the middle of Exhibition Road. At the exclusive boarding school you’ll look at some intricately balanced pieces of wood, listen to an embittered failed Catholic priest rail against the establishment and worry about an eighty-six year old drunk driver before gathering up one Peruvian and one French girl and heading back to London.

You know, that sort of morning?

So, I was drinking coffee, reading the Saturday paper whilst Beck banged around upstairs. Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks was overshadowing the incessant drip-drip coming from the kitchen, when I came across an article on the twenty people who, allegedly, decide how I live my life. My attention was drawn in particular to Phill Mills the deputy chief-executive of Water UK, whom the Guardian bills as the man who ‘stops your toilet overflowing.’

Except he doesn’t.

No-one does. Hence the drip-drip echoing out of the kitchen as water seeped between the bathroom floor and the wine rack.

Suddenly irate I considered speaking to Trevor-The-Handy-Man’s voicemail yet again, but then a sliver of sun slipped through the gap in the concentrated grey clouds, through our back window and across my face.

“No,” I thought. “I am a man. I should be the man who stops our toilet overflowing,” and I rise out of my chair with determination etched into my eyes.

Then, the sun disappeared behind a drizzle filled cloud and I sat down again; the heady high of optimism swiftly departing. For whilst I am a man, just, I am one who fails to grasp even the simplest elements of DIY.

It’s just not my forte. It’d be pointless if we were all good at the same things so my skills lie in talking at length about why The Jam were such an important band or naming a pub for every square on the Monopoly board - AND what they sell on tap - or I can even whip up a fantastic mushroom risotto blindfolded and with one wrist tied to the opposite ankle. However, I breath a sigh of relief every time I change a light bulb successfully.

(Of course, that’s partly because of the growing suspicion that the wiring in this house is probably of a similar standard to the plumbing and that death by electric fire is a daily risk - perhaps we shouldn’t run the TV, DVD player, video, broadband hub and four lamps off the same socket anymore.)

Actually, it’s more that I definitely don’t have much DIY experience, and I think the desire to have a go has been battered out of me by regular failure.

Failure which, I should add, isn’t usually my fault.

For example: when we moved into this place at Christmas 2005 the door to the utility refused to shut properly.

“There’s a bit of a draft,” Beck said pulling her cardigan tighter.

“No problem,” I replied in a moment of uncharacteristic macho confidence. I bought a sliding bolt, drilled a hole into the door frame and fitted the bolt in place. Hey presto - extra security and warmth in one.

Half an hour later I heard grunts from the kitchen.

“Stupid - ngh - door -ah - won’t - ugh - open.”

The bolt just about survived Beck’s prolonged attempts to shoulder barge the ‘stuck’ door, but now it forms an interesting crescent shape. The seven years living together are littered with instances of draws fixed, windows temporarily repaired, telephone wires neatly run around the flat all to be ripped up, broken, moved or otherwise interfered with mere hours after I’ve downed tools and this has somewhat dented my willingness to even bother.

So, anyway. The leaking toilet. What to do? What do real men do?

They consult the internet, clearly.

A couple of helpful websites complete with illustrations later I set to work.

Our toilet is, for some reason, encased in a wooden box making access difficult so first I removed the bottom portion of the box to ascertain exactly where the leak was. From the overflow pipe. Good. Then I ripped off the top of the box, opened the cistern up and fannied about with the ball-cock for a bit. The website’s weren’t very consistent in whether I should turn the little screw clockwise or anticlockwise, but after umming and aahing for a while I went for clockwise.

I flushed the toilet and it appears to fill to the correct level.

I put a selection of bowls under the overflow pipe before deciding on a pint glass as more efficient water catcher. Just in case I’m wrong.

“Right. Sorted,” I said to no-one in particular yet with an air of triumph. Not one shout or swear word has escaped my lips.

Eleven hours later we returned and I excitedly scampered upstairs to inspect my handiwork. The pint is, of course, not only full, but overflowing. I empty it out, then turned the screw all the way anticlockwise optimistically and replaced the glass with a large vase.

“Perhaps you ought to have a go at getting Trevor round,” I said a little sulkily. Not shouting or swearing, mind, but quietly wishing we owned a cat I could kick.