Yes, it has.

How did we come to lose water? I’m not entirely sure. One minute our downstairs neighbour was doing some DIY, very lustily with a loud drill, and the next moment a fire engine pulled up outside the building, lights flashing and alarms blazing, some firemen hopped out, and they spent ages fiddling around with the water supply under the street. After an hour or so they drove off, and I went to brush my teeth. But nothing came out of the tap. That was two days ago.

I’m clearly no American “Patriot” worth his salt. I had no stored water, survival straws or water de-fluoridatisation filter system. And after two days with no potable water in the apartment, something needed be done. I had long since swung into action.

Various trucks and vans came and went, day and night. Thames Water. Camden Council. The black helicopters…

I talked to the plumber from Camden Council (who are responsible for the utilities in our part of London) when he came back this afternoon, and he was very courteous and personable, but he said that although the problem has apparently now been fixed (save a massive gaping hole in the street) he needed the agreement of everyone in the building – all six households – before he could turn the supply back on.

In case one of us had left our taps on and left the building, never to return, thereby potentially causing a flood.

Problem is, only myself and one of the other apartment owners are home. The rest are away. Probably because it’s a bank holiday weekend.

I’m not sure how often this happens in real life, if at all – that people lose water pressure and then turn all of their taps on full blast before sauntering away without a care in the world to leave their homes to flood – but it apparently the horrific prospect of this very specific eventuality caused the plumber’s remote manager at Camden Council HQ to make him stand down and leave without reactivating our water supply. He is supposedly coming back at 7pm, when he will reconsider his decision to deny us the life-giving gift of water.

But I’m supposed to be going out to meet friends, and I won’t be here to talk to the plumber when he comes back, or to remonstrate with the remote, faceless managers at Camden Council over the telephone.

So some proper British passive-aggressivism was obviously required.

There, that should do the trick.