DIY - Do not try this at home (or indeed anyone else's home)

Our subject is, as some of our readers will know, a Rachmann like landlord of a number of slum properties in Bristol. Indeed so keen is he to save money (and force out his fetid tenants) that he refuses to engage professionals to do any work around the flats but does it all himself.

The tenants in one of his flats recently called him out with a broken dishwasher and washing-machine. Blithely turning up one evening after work with a couple of screwdrivers he set about "repairing" the dishwasher. Being a bit of an idiot when unplugging it he forgot that it is usually prudent to turn the water off before detaching an appliance from the mains and found himself being showered with cold water. Doing his best little Dutch boy impression he stuffed his thumb into the mains (which just succeeded in spraying the water all over the shop) and called for one of his tenants to come and help. Being girls they had not the first clue how to locate or turn off a stop cock and after some 10 minutes of their faffing around he simply dropped the pipe and let the water flood whilst locating and turning off the water himself.

Of course one unlooked for advantage was that both his tenants were soaked through and wearing t-shirts. The hours of mopping up rather took the gloss off that however.

This past Friday was the inaugural meeting of the Mustapha Club (so named due to this famous letter - his mother should look away now) and for reasons principally of expense our subject was asked to give the after-dinner speech. Considering the amount of alcohol imbibed we can say that the organisers got almost full value for their investment (of precisely nothing) in the quality of the speaker.