I was watching a film the other night. A couple were decorating and they were beside themselves with joy. No arguments, no sulking, no awkward tension as one of them flips out and slings a roller into the wall. I don’t know what colour they’d chosen to paint that front room but I would hazard a guess it was probably called something like “Hint of smug bastards”

These people weren’t just smug either, they were stupidly happy. Giggling like children, playfully dabbing each other’s noses with the brushes, it was like some weird foreplay. I’m glad the camera cut when it did, otherwise I think they’d have ended up going at it right there on top of the pasting table. I can only assume that it was emulsion they were using too. You try that nonsense with some oil based gloss and you’ll be scrubbing your face with white spirit for a week.

But it got me thinking, there are really people out who actually enjoy DIY. They choose to spend their bank holiday weekends wandering around B and Q looking at wallpaper samples. They say things like, “we should do a feature wall Robert” and “let’s use eggshell on the banisters darling, it’s more hardwearing” and they do all this without getting divorced, it’s incredible. If this were my wife and I, we’d start sniping away at each other in the kitchen section, moaning about how one of us isn’t showing enough enthusiasm. Graduating to some heavy swearing near the floor tiles and a full on wrestling match as we go through the till.

The reason I hate DIY is the same reason I hate golf. I’m not good enough at it to enjoy it. I probably could be with enough with practice, but I don’t have the time or the patience. I tend to wish I was good at DIY, right at the point where I actually need to do some. When I have the hammer and chisel in my hand, looking blankly at the project in front of me, that’s when I need those skills to enter my head, but unfortunately then it’s too late.

It’s ridiculous when you think about it. It takes years of training to be a tradesmen, learning all those skills, on the job for hours every day and I’m so arrogant that I think I can re-create it on a Sunday morning in my jogging bottoms and some tools from Wilko’s.

That’s like thinking you can play premiership football just because you can do some tap ups on the patio.

My wife Jemma always tries to cushion the blow, but the unescapable fact is, I’m pathetic and I’ve failed.

“Don’t worry darling, at least you tried, we’ll just have to get a man in”

She often does, and that man is my Dad.

Both my dad and my father in law are just so practical. They have so many skills, they just know how to do things. Where does this knowledge come from? It must have crept in via osmosis?

They blend in at a builders merchant, they can locate damp by just sniffing the air, they tap floorboards and walls for no reason and can plan out an extension without even using a tape measure.

It must have started at birth? I reckon my dad probably built his own cot. Standing there on the mattress, just pulling the nails out of his nappy, smacking them in with his rattle whilst smoking a roll-up. There was no such thing as playgroup back then, there was just apprenticeships. These kids didn’t have time to play in a pretend kitchen, because they were too busy helping to tile a real one.

In the past Jemma has waited months for me to do things. She’s dropped subtle hints. She left Dulux colour cards scattered around the house, made me watch Homes Under The Hammer on repeat and taken me for romantic dates down the paint isle.

Sometimes I find myself in awe of other men. The coolest person I’ve ever met, was a brain surgeon from LA. I was hosting a conference in London and he was one of the main speakers and I’ll be honest, I’ve never wanted to be another man so much. He looked like a movie star and not only that he saved the lives of children for a living.

At some points during the day, I found myself just staring at his face. Mesmerized by his perfect teeth, my mouth open, just daydreaming and dribbling.

He said to me when we were talking:

“When I go into the theatre Scott, it’s not about my personality anymore, it all comes down to the skill in these hands, my reputation lives or dies by these hands”

What could I say to that?

“Yeah, that’s just like me mate when I’m in the theatre, my reputation lives or dies by those dick jokes”

Afterwards I went onto his Instagram page and it was just a picture of him coming out of surgery in the full medical scrubs, looking up to the camera his arms outstretched and the caption read, “another life saved”

I went onto mine and frankly I was ashamed. I’ve got one at the same angle, looking up to the camera, my arms outstretched, just after eating a massive pizza. At least I didn’t have the caption, “another slice finished” that would’ve been appalling.

Jemma has given up asking me to do DIY now, she just takes matters into her own hands. I’ve come home to find her smashing out the kitchen with a lump hammer or knocking out the fireplace with a lump hammer, or knocking through a wall with a lump hammer. To be honest I don’t think it’s DIY, I think she’s just really angry.

The other problem is I always want praise when I do even the most minimal maintenance tasks. I’m like a toddler wanting their artwork on the fridge door. My idea of DIY is wandering around the house with a can of WD40 giving things a little spray and demanding the same level of praise as someone who has built an extension.

“Look at that love, I’ve sorted that hinge out, listen to that door, beautiful now that. No, there’s no need to thank me. If you need me I’ll be in the shed drinking beer!”

I’m frightened of DIY, that’s never a good starting point. I’m terrified of making mistakes. Every job I do just seems to escalate.

One moment I’ll be hanging a picture in the front room, two hours later, I’m in Screwfix, with a pencil behind my ear, eating a sausage roll and ordering a cement mixer.

My tongue comes out when I’m concentrating too, that’s not a good look is it? Imagine asking something to come and fix your boiler and you catch them just licking their own face. You’d immediately ask them to pack up their tools and leave.

I tried putting up some curtain rails once, it took me about six hours. That’s just madness. You can’t be spending three hours on one curtain pole.

Rawlplugs are one of those things in life that should be so easy. Not when it comes to our walls. I’m not saying they are hard but it was like trying to drill into Iron Mans nut sack.

If those walls were a person I think they’d be Ray Winstone. Just standing there staring at you, unflinching and intimidating, spitting everything back in your face.

“You ain’t putting that thing in me mate, I’m the Daddy ere’ take that Rawlplug and do one, before I cut ya!”

It takes hours just to drill a hole a centimetre deep, Bruce Willis had an easier time drilling that comet in the film Armageddon.

It’s a 1940’s house, I reckon post war they thought, just in case it happens again, let’s make these walls totally impenetrable.

The areas above our window sill could take a direct hit from a bazooka! What were they thinking? It’s a semi-detached house in Nottingham not the bleeding Pentagon!

I felt like I was trying to drill a hole in the middle of the A52. I was sweating, my arms were shaking and my drill smelt like a burnt out clutch on an old Ford Capri. It’s a decent drill, or at least I thought it was. A hammer drill apparently, well I reckon it’s an MC Hammer drill, because that thing ain’t touching sh*t!

I think I understand now why they call them drill bits, because that’s what mine are in by the time I’ve finished with them. They go in all hopeful and proud, like hardened marines, but come out all jaded and demoralized.

“Sorry sir, they’re just too strong for us!”

There is one job I do enjoy doing though. Using my pressure washer. Everyone should have one. There is Something very primal about that. I think that’s why men enjoy chasing that air freshener up and down the trough in a pub urinal. They aren’t childish idiots, it just reminds them of their pressure washer.

When I use it I think I slip into some sort of trance. I’m just on a quest to pressure washer things. One day I imagine I’ll be doing the patio, then I’ll just end up wandering the streets, like a serial killer looking for victims, jet washing stray pets and blowing the chewing gum off the pavements.

The pressure washer has achieved something incredible. It’s made a chore enjoyable. That’s the secret. I think I’d happily volunteer to do the hoovering if I could do it sitting on top of the Dyson.

That’s the problem with DIY, most of the enjoyment comes after you’ve finished, not during. The satisfaction of standing there looking at the result of all your hard work, on the platform at the “Admiration Station” that is the moment people love. But does that moment make up for all that stress, arguments and tension?

Of course it doesn’t. Do it yourself? Nah, I’d rather get a man in mate.