There are times in a foreign correspondent's life when he is glad most of his occasional broadcasting work is for radio and not TV. Last week I was pontificating on the BBC World Service from my office at home, clad in a wet, muddy tracksuit and anorak, complete with foul smelling, mud-covered wellies.
Had it been television, there might have been a credibility problem. (Irish Times readers can rest assured that as I write this I am, of course, wearing a dinner jacket and bow tie, standard issue for all Irish Times foreign correspondents.)
The reason for my unorthodox garb on the airwaves was based on the need to combine work with one of those household crises whose resolution simply brooks no delay - a blocked sewerage system.
Help had been summoned, in the shape of our local plumber, Alberto. He immediately pointed out that problem number one was not to establish where the block had occurred but rather where the sewerage pipes themselves were to be found. Problem number two, Alberto pointed out cheerfully, was to establish whether we were attached to the local authority's sewerage system or had our own private cess pit.
We live in a small, bungalow-style Lazio house in its own grounds, a few kilometres from the village of Trevignano Romano, near Rome. Our memory was that when we bought the house four years ago, the former owner assured us we were linked to the local council sewerage system.
The "House" folder, containing a welter of indecipherable local authority and planning documents going back to the house's construction in the mid-1960s, was hastily consulted. There were no plans indicating sewerage pipes.
By sticking a variety of plastic tubes and wires into the pipe at its link-up point just outside the house's bathroom, it soon became clear that the block was fairly close to the house. But how close and exactly where? There was nothing for it but to identify the direction the pipe was taking from the bathroom, then follow it around the house, doing a series of archaeological digs along the way, in the hope of finding first the pipe and then the blockage.
The rain poured down in timehonoured, Lazio autumnal fashion. Further help had to be summoned and Jan, one of the small community of Poles resident in Trevignano, arrived. Back in Poland, Jan has his own small farm. He is familiar with all types of agricultural, gardening and building work. In no sense were blocked sewerage pipes unchartered territory.
With your correspondent in the role of not-especially-adept builder's labourer, Alberto and Jan found both pipe and blockage. As luck would have it, the blockage occurred exactly under the only five metres of concrete paving to be found around the house.
No amount of pushing and hauling with wires would relieve the blockage. In the end, we had to break up the pavement, remove the old cement pipes (30 years ago, pipes were of cement) and replace them with modern plastic ones.
Before doing that, however, we had had to be sure we were attached to the local council system. Nothing simpler. Take a garden hose, stick it down the pipe you have just opened up, turn on the water and then go and check the entry point to the local authority system on the road beside the house. No problem except that an over-enthusiastic neighbour had cemented the little roadway beside the house, cementing over not just road but also the sewage system's manhole cover. Jan, however, resolved this with the help of a pick, a chisel, some Polish resolve and a deal of Irish foulmouthedness. To our relief, we discovered we were linked to the local system.
All that then remained was to lay the new pipes, cover them up and take a long shower. Two days of high drama were at an end. World Service listeners will never know the hideous truth.