Sorry to go on about plumbers again but they do really, really, annoy me. This week we had one in to install a very simple shower attachment.

To me it seemed just a matter of removing the side of the bath, unscrewing one lot of taps and slotting in our new set.

But Bob, or whatever his name was, managed to make the job last all morning and part of the afternoon, and then charged us a full-day rate of more than £300.

I should have pointed out to him that he had spent at least an hour on the phone arranging other jobs for the week. He then disappeared at noon for 45 minutes to "get some parts" (I'm inclined to think this is a euphemism for "have some lunch") so it was no wonder he was there until the sun began to set.

To top it all, he walked off with our old taps, which had nothing wrong with them, without asking us. I can only imagine he is also doing a roaring trade somewhere in secondhand bathroom fittings. Or am I being completely unfair?

I should have had it out with Bob. But he was a big bloke and not too articulate. And I'd seen him bend metal with his bare hands.

All my friends have had similarly exasperating plumbing experiences. They've been overcharged, or overquoted, or have taken time off work to wait for workmen who then haven't had the decency to turn up - probably because something more lucrative had cropped up since agreeing to the job.

The awful thing is, plumbers know they can get away with it because there is such a dearth of them and they know we're desperate for someone else to do our dirty work. Where there's effluence, there's affluence.

Our experience this week actually inspired my husband to consider giving up journalism, where the pay is pretty miserly these days, and retraining.

"We could be rich beyond our wildest dreams," he pointed out. "I wouldn't even need to rip people off. My slogan could be No jobbie Too Small. Ha, ha, ha, ha . . . "

Before he got too carried away, I had to remind him that when we had the shower leak emergency recently, it hadn't occurred to him to turn off the stopcock. And I'm the one that knows how to bleed radiators. He ought to think first whether or not he had the fundamental aptitude for the profession.

"All right then, you do it," he said. "We'll sign you up for one of those day-release courses. I like you in overalls."

I said I wouldn't mind knowing how to do our plumbing but I didn't fancy putting my hands down other people's U-bends.

"Oh, where's your sense of adventure?" he admonished. "Plumbers have made some important discoveries. Remember the one that found the dismembered murder victims of serial killer Dennis Nilsen in a sewer? Makes you wonder how many more bodies there are hidden in pipes, eh?"

I said he hadn't talked me into it but we could perhaps get a more comprehensive guide to Doing Your Own Plumbing.

We could also deter our small children from aiming for media-related professions when they grow up by buying them their own sets of spanners and plungers now. Then we'd all be laughing.