"Do you know there is no smoking in the bathroom, or anywhere else in the centre for that matter?" It's the security guard. "I wasn't, I don't even smoke!" I blurt out before I actually catch myself lying. I do smoke, I just wasn't this time. "It must have been the person before me." He replies with a look that says, 'Yeah whatever loser.' I haven't felt that embarrassed since I was caught with a girlie magazine in English class when I was 14.

Try as I might, I can't get hold of a plumber. I have called six of them and each one tells me they are too busy at the moment, but they'll give me a call back.

None do. Some of them ask have I tried fixing it myself. Yes I have.

I've looked at line drawings of loos on the internet long enough to know how to dismantle and re-assemble a standard cistern set-up in seconds . . . blindfolded.

I've had my hand in the cistern twiddling with plastic bits and bobs long enough to develop a shrivelled prune at the end of my arm. I still can't fix it. My cistern isn't standard, mine is complicated.

I've also subjected myself to the most horrific imagery in my search for answers. Let's just say that when you do an image search on Google for 'toilet diagrams' what comes up isn't always what you might expect. I feel like I've lost the last of my innocence.

Most of my friends are telling me they know someone, who knows someone, who has a number for a Polish plumber who only replies to texts. I'm not looking for crack cocaine, I only want my toilet fixed . . . it would probably be easier to get the former, though. I eventually call an old school friend to see if he knows anyone. My old school friend is a carpenter who now drives a pearl black 2007 Mercedes CL500. I drive a wine 1993 BMW with a funny noise coming from the exhaust pipe. Who made the right career choice there then? I bet his toilet flushes, I bet he has one of those electronic sensor toilets from Japan that flushes itself and perfumes your posterior with tepid rose water as you leave. God, I'm experiencing toilet envy.

I need help.

Eventually I track a guy down, he arrives, sticks his hand into the cistern for a couple of seconds, makes a funny face, pulls the handle and Whoosh!

There it is! What was the problem?

"Just a loose valve, that's 70 bud." I give him the money and he leaves. I go back upstairs and flush it again. And again. And again. Ah, the luxury of having a working toilet. Still, it's probably nothing compared to the luxury of getting 70 for five minutes work.

There was a time when the 'intelligent' thing to do . . . if you wanted to live comfortably . . . was to go to college, work hard, get a degree and become a 'professional'. "You'll be set-up for life, " I was told. My reality has been a pale reflection of 'set-up for life'. Yes, I can waffle on and on about Marshall McLuhan and Jurgen Habermas at dinner parties, but I'm still bringing a dessert from Aldi while my multi-homed tradesmen contemporaries are bringing their butlers.

It seems the smart decision all along was to leave school, do an apprenticeship, gain a much sought-after skill and end up filthy rich. The working class are considerably wealthier than the lower middle classes now. They are upper working class, if you will. As for me?

Well, I'm not exactly flush.