Apart from a basic adequacy with a paint roller, my DIY skills have repeatedly proved themselves to be practically non-existent.

Sure, I've not yet had to call in a professional to fix my many cock-ups, but I have still made extremely heavy work of the various botches I have employed around the flat (past and present) over the last dozen years or so. My finest moments have included: discovering why it's a bad idea to saw MDF in the living room (entire room, including brand new TV, ends up coated in sawdust), determining how not to remove a toilet seat (hacksaw), spending 4 months tiling one bathroom wall with the wrong colour tiles, and attempting (and failing) to spray-paint polka dots on my living room wall.

Along the way, I have accrued an extensive collection of tools – most of them used only once. Of the many useless, never-to-be-used-again tools that I own, I would say that my favourites are the blow-torch (used to unsuccessfully loosen a stuck tap) and the Dremel rotary power tool thingy (used to obliterate the limescale from my old kitchen taps, along with most of the taps' surface).

My DIY annoyances are not, however, just limited to the frustation of making a mess of things, or the storage challenges of accumulating a load of redundant tools. Oh no. There is a third aspect to DIY displeasure, forming a fundamental part of the unholy trinity of (un-)handyman humiliation. And it is...

Not Knowing The Correct Terminology To Explain What You Are Trying To Do When Talking To The Bloke Who Sells The Stuff To You (a.k.a. 'looking like a clueless amateur')

A big part of this problem is one of vocabulary. How am I supposed to know that the wooden/metal things that plasterboard is attached to are called 'studs'? Who explains the differences between particleboard, chipboard, MDF, plywood, hardboard and wood? Is WD40 a 'penetrating oil', or is that something else? How can there possibly be so many different types of screw, when all I want is a 'big one' (yes, yes)? Why is there no such thing as a 'micro-crowbar'? There really should be a website that explains all this stuff, with pictures and a massive glossary. But there isn't. So I invariably end up having to search the online catalogues of various retailers until I see something that looks (from the shitty accompanying picture) like the sort of thing that I need. It's either that or the gauntlet of eye-rolling and ritual embarrassment at the local hardware shop.

My latest quest for equipment came when I realised that I needed to make a big circular hole in a piece of wood. I knew you could get these attachments for power drills that do that. But I didn't know what they were called. And so the Googling commenced. 'Big drill bit'? Nope. 'Drill bore'? Denied. 'Hole bore'? No. 'Hole cutter'? Not that either. And so the Googling continued, until I eventually stumbled across the correct term: 'hole saw'. Pfft.

And so, armed with the knowledge of exactly what I wanted, I trotted off to the local hardware store, and started scanning the shelves for a 54mm hole saw. And I looked. And looked. And looked some more. I found lots of drill-bits for most eventualities (wood, metal, tiles, masonry), but no big-hole-making hole saws. I was rapidly coming to the conclusion that hole saws must be exotically rare speciality items, and that this modestly-sized shop did not sell them. But then a crazy thought came into my head... I could just ask, couldn't I?

And so, wary of impending patronisation (is that even a real word?), I approached the bloke at the till. He stared at me. But I was not afraid – I was emboldened by my knowledge of the correct vocabulary. Deep breath.

"Do you have any hole saws? I can't see them anywhere."

A pause. He looked at me as if I was a half-wit. My resolve faltered. What had I done wrong? Was a 'hole saw' not what I thought it was? Was it practical joke terminology (like sending someone out for a 'long weight' or a set of 'skyhooks'*)? And then, I saw the problem.

On the wall, behind the till, and directly behind the bloke who was 'serving' me, was what must have been...

THE BIGGEST AND MOST BLATANTLY OBVIOUS DISPLAY OF HOLE SAWS IN EUROPE

Oh well. At least I got one.