Trust me - I'm an expert...

No, not me - I have no discernable expertise to speak of (I don’t think my active interest in all things alcoholic counts). The experts I refer to are those frustrated individuals you see on TV trying to help some hapless eejit who ignores their every word.

Working my way to expertise - one cocktail at a time.

Granted, I can understand why the ‘restaurateurs’ on Ramsay’s kitchen nightmares may have trouble accepting advice when it’s screamed into their faces and peppered with expletives (but I also fully understand Gordon’s affinity for effing and jeffing). My main point of confusion lies in the fact that they call him in in the first place – and then refuse to listen to him. Eh?

Same thing happens to Messrs Beeny and McCloud in the property field. OK, so Kevin McCloud does tend more towards mocking the grand designers behind their backs and having a little cackle when things go wrong; ‘and she’s decided to take on the role of project manager herself …he he he’. But how many times have we seen virginal property developers blatantly ignore Sarah Beeny’s advice, only to come a cropper further down the line? Learning from your mistakes is all very well – but learning from other people’s mistakes has got to be the better option, especially when it comes to D-I-WHYYYYYY.

And then there’s our lovely Apprentice friends. Britain’s brightest young business minds apparently. Really? I despair. They’re all so busy trying to impress Lawd Suuugahh (I preferred Surrralan to be honest – had more of a ring to it) they ignore EVERYONE. Focus groups, field experts, each other – they don’t discriminate and their single-minded determination to listen only to themselves does not falter. I suppose it’s not really surprising from people who come out with gems like ‘don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon’ and describe themselves as ‘the reflection of perfection’ <retch>.

Self-belief is a wonderful thing, and anyone who’s got anywhere knows you can’t let the critics, haters and nay-sayers get to you, but for god’s sake, when someone who knows what they’re talking about is giving advice – listen!

I should have listened to Phil 'The Power' when I had the chance...

D-I-WHYYYYYYYY

On this lovely Easter bank holiday weekend, while many of us are gorging, spare a thought for the poor fools who thought it would be a good idea to use the long weekend to get round to those ‘little’ jobs round the house.

While you lie there prone with your chocolatey distended stomach aloft, they too are probably lying down – either trapped under the shelving that’s just collapsed and rendered them unconscious or curled up in the fetal position as the true magnitude of what they’ve taken on hits them.

I’ve seen grown men cry over laminate flooring. Not my better half, I hasten to add – he’s a dab hand with click-lock, but I have seen him truly broken, head in hands, when our 100-year-old postage-stamp-sized flat has revealed yet another of it’s ‘quirks’ at the end of a long and dusty day. Who needs straight walls and floors when you can have ‘original features’? He’s utterly convinced that all its previous builders and workmen were cross-eyed. I put it down to DIY demons.

These little imps have a wicked sense of humour. They enjoy setting booby-traps on the ‘easy’ jobs, like putting the water pipes in the wall just behind your drill so the simple hanging of a mirror morphs into an emergency plumbing situation. They particularly like encouraging pets to get involved - sharing the latest in paw-print paint interior styling, weaving around the ankles of the DIYer on the stepladder in an opening-scene-of-casualty style, or helping with flat-pack furniture assembly by batting the most essential screw across the floor and through a crack in the floorboards – never to be seen again.

If you, or any of your loved ones, have fallen prey to bank holiday DIY, you have my deepest sympathies. Try to keep your sense of humour when the demons show off theirs.

I’d offer to help, but I have a pressing appointment with an Easter egg.

Murphy the cat and the DIY demons 'help' with the new bath panelling...