Middle-class man successfully avoids making eye contact with his plumber

37-year-old Simon Williams managed to get through the ordeal of a 2-hour heating inspection without making eye contact with his plumber once, he has revealed.

Simon, who does something involving spreadsheets in PR, described the ordeal as ‘harrowing’, as the workman attempted several times to engage him in frank, man-to-man conversation about the defects in his heating system, Meghan Markle’s arse, and whether his new Audi can crack a hundred and twenty.

“It was close at times,” a visibly shaken Simon told us.

“Several times he asked for a cup of tea – or ‘hot brown with three’, as he insisted on calling it – and I had to explain that I only had herbal raspberry infusion without looking him in the face, or entering the same room if I could avoid it.

“And once he walked into my study where I was trying to book a cultural weekend in Ravenna for my kids Poppy and Oliver and asked if I’d got any ‘bog roll’ to mop up a spill.

“Fortunately I had the presence of mind to wave him towards the downstairs lavatory whilst pretending to be on hold. I dread to think what might have happened if my wife found out I’d let him in the upstairs wet room.”

When asked if he thought Simon could have been friendlier, plumber Dave Evans said he couldn’t give a toss so long as he pays the fucking bill on time.