Plumb job

"Hello, Reception?" I called downstairs. Reception promptly sent someone to sort out my internet connection.

"Hello, Reception?" A couple of hours later, I called Reception to bring me a portable heater as my room was cold.

Barely an hour later, the toilet in my bathroom wouldn't stop filling. I really didn't want to call them again and be the pain in the arse whose breakfast they'd spit in tomorrow. I did the next best thing and called Mr Nunn.

"Dad," said I, for when we're on informal terms, I rarely call him Mr Nunn. "Do you know how to stop a toilet when the cistern won't stop filling?"

"Indeed I do," said Mr Nunn, who whilst an English graduate, knows lots of useful things about plumbing and putting up TVs and what rawl plugs are for. "Lift the cistern lid."

I did.

"Can you see the floaty thing? That's the ballcock. Lift it up."

I did. The noise magically stopped.

"That's genius!" I said. But as soon as I let go, the noise started again. I relayed this information to Mr Nunn.

"Right, well you'll need to bend the metal pole that holds it up a bit so it doesn't touch the water."

"But it's made of plastic, Dad."

"Bend it anyway."

I did. It snapped. A jet of water hit the far side of my bathroom.

"Fuck," I said. "I'm going to have to call you back."

I put the lid on the cistern and called Reception. There was no answer. A steady stream of water made its way towards the bath in one direction, and towards the bedroom in the other. I called Reception again. Someone was despatched to my room.

"Jesus Christ," he said. "I've never seen anything this bad!" He fixed the leak very swiftly and went back downstairs to get a new key for me to move room.

He had left the room for about fifteen seconds when the noise started again. It was worse. The jet of water was now spraying out in three directions. The entire bathroom was three inches deep in water and it was now halfway across the bedroom, to the extent that the carpet squelched. I called Reception again and the man ran all the way down the corridor with some elastic bands which appeared to solve things... at least in the interim.

And that, dear reader, is how Mr Nunn managed to flood an entire hotel room so - to quote the employee at this nameless hotel - "no-one will be in that room for quite a while". Mr Nunn is thinking of opening his own plumbing academy. Applications to the usual address.

In the meantime, my new room has a jacuzzi. Result.