Howard Tool is not a plumber to hold his punches, and having been called in by BP to give a quote on fixing their leak in the Gulf of Mexico, he merely blew out a gush of air from his mouth, tutted and expressed his dismay at the situation. Plunging his hands in his overall pockets and shaking his head, Tool insisted that this was “a tough one” and that he would need time for parts and labour.

“We got Howard in because we were told he had repaired the Finance Director’s bathroom,” said a spokesman for BP yesterday. “In fact, he did rather a good job, fixing a dodgy tap and replacing some of the piping. We’re told that he even did the job in under a month, which is exemplary in the world of plumbing. However, when Howard had a look at our leak in the Gulf of Mexico, we were shocked by the estimate we received.”

Tool told BP officials that it would “cost them”, before listing a number of reasons why he could not start work until the start of July at the earliest. The BP spokesman continued: “We do understand that Howard needs his two-week holiday in Majorca, but the other two weeks just sounds like procrastination to me. While I’m sure Mrs Crocker at number 31 needs her kitchen re-fitted, we do not understand why Howard could not get the manpower to come and help out here.”

“Equally, a further two-week wait for parts is just unacceptable.”

Tool merely shrugged off the accusations, saying “basically, they’ve got a blown pipe and that’s going to take me a couple of weeks to get the parts, and my business partner Wayne is off sick at the moment with a bad back. You’ve also got to factor in the fact that it’s under water, and we don’t normally do that, so that’s going to cost them extra. Also, it looks like they’ve got a load of old golf balls down there, and I’m going to have to get some guys in to clean that up because it’s a bloody mess.”

Hauling up his jeans, he continued “So, when you consider the ins and outs of it, an estimate of £1,181 is actually pretty good, although we don’t accept liability if we mess it up. That’s in the contract.”

BP officials have attempted to negotiate with Tool, who insists on a number of contractual obligations. The oil giant attempted to persuade Tool to reduce his tea intake from 5 cups a day to just 2, and have insisted on a maximum of 3 breaks per day. Tool has also refused to undertake any work unless he is allowed to listen to Radio 1.