(A excerpt from a working diary at Merv's house this weekend)...

It started, unpredictably with a drip. Not a large regular sized drip or even a raging Niagara falls effect drip, but a slow, steady, and monotonous drip that soaked the ceiling plaster, rotted away at the joists, assailed our olfactory sense with damp and foul smelling waterness...and thence, to our absolute terror, and horror, an 240v electric cable, which acted as a veritable conduit to disaster !

I was called to Merv's house, a light fitting, an 3 - way 'swan' effect which, had I the artistic temperament, would have admired, displayed at the Tate modern perhaps, but was alarmingly discovered emitting a 3 way torrent of accumulated and foul smelling water, from a 'sump' somewhere built up under the floorboards upstairs at his residence, which I am sure was not its primary function...

Using my plumbing skills, and, noting the said electrical light fitting was directly under the bathroom, all appeared to be straightforward, there's the rub ! However, fate had deigned against me, are things ever that simplistic ? after all this was not the labour government think tank.....there was more to this trickle than met the trained eye, perhaps Sherlock Holmes would far better have been engaged than I !

On entering Merv's gaily lit, and bohemian styled bathroom, my face fell.... the floor was covered with a heavy duty waterproof floor covering, and, I knew from past experiences, it would be difficult to remove, but, remove it I must to ascertain, to discover even ! if said leakage of water was coming from a pipe therein, but first, follow the rules.... ! checking as I did, one by awful one, each tap in turn and, then taking fate, stomach, and nose in hand, searched blindly by touch to the darkest recesses of the toilet bowl.... stranger still ! no leaks.

The floor covering would have to be removed, I would need support so, called on my trusty second in command "Dodger" Davis to assist me in tracking down the cause of all our concerns. 1 hour later, the flooring was removed, as was the bath paneling, thence, in serious trepidation onward, to removing selective floor boarding, this was done with undue haste, I have to admit... time was of the essence, and damage was our business, after all, dinner beckoned. The plot thickened, there was NO obvious source of the leakage under the bathroom floor...... we are going to investigate further.....

"Nothing for it", said Dodger, "We'll have to work our way backwards along the landing, so up went the carpets, up went the floorboards, and up went Merv's blood pressure at the damage.... so the bathroom was virtually gutted and the leak wasn't there ? thankfully, the landing floor rip up, proved fruitful, at the top of the stairs, an old lead water pipe was discovered, underneath, a top tread.... it had worn through,via countless foot treads, over the years and had finally succumbed to a rift in its debilitated casting.

"Hoorah, Hoorah !" we cried, "stap me ! the games afoot, we have the quarry in full sight now, and mark ye, that leak is for it's final filling, or my name be not Alistair Clutzworthy the fourth !!" (It isn't actually, I give that name out so the tax man can't catch up with me...) We were tired, but happy to give Merv the welcome news, albeit he'll need the best part of a new bathroom, and there will be no hot water for a week, he will I am sure be grateful for the small mercies afforded......