Am I totally imagining it, or was the fact that one of the London Bridge terrorists

[Burney]

Ah, the almost incandescent rage of a tradesman as he swears and gets angry, almost blaming you the Householder for the original placing of pipes, the original wiring etc, the garage mechanic who will almost give out to you because your car is French.

Of course a lot of it is just a whizz to try and make the job appear more difficult and thus an excuse to raise the price.

Just fix it you ****, I have things to be getting on with, television to watch etc.

I think it was the fact that he'd quoted us a price for the job and it took him far longer than it should have because the previous householder had put all the piping in in a distinctly non-standard way. He was effectively losing money doing this job for us.