Faucets and Spigots

Our plumbing is making a terrible noise.
If you turn on the bath taps the kitchen tap whirrs and thumps then it spits and drips and you have to shout to make yourself heard.
I have looked up 'How to cure waterhammer' on the Internet so today I am going to cure the waterhammer and be done with it. First I phone Linden the plumber just to make sure that he won't be able to come, but he is busy, so it's down to me.
EHow on the Internet says, 'turn off your outside spigot'.
I put on Maisie's  bright pink hunter boots and I brave the snow to turn on the outside spigot but on account of all the snow the outside spigot is frozen solid. then I think that maybe a spigot and a tap are different things and so I run inside and look up 'spigot' on the Internet. Spigot and tap are more or less the same thing, so I run outside again and I turn on the outside spigot being very careful to direct the flow of water away from the house foundations and towards our horrible neighbour's horrible extension foundations. Unfortunately the neighbours foundations do not respond, nor does the spigot. I run inside again and boil a kettle. I am going to pour boiling water onto the hose attached to the spigot and try to improve the situation. While the kettle is boiling I run downstairs to the basement and as instructed I flush the loo and prop open the valve with a screw driver. I hope that it is the valve but I can't be sure. Next I turn on the washing machine and run upstairs again and grab the kettle. I skid round the side return sloshing boiling water into Maisie's bright pink hunters. I sit down in the snow carefully placing the kettle on the edge of the goldfish pond and rip the boot off. I push some snow into my sock to deal with the burning sensation and knock the kettle into the pond with my elbow.
I decide to go and watch TV for a bit. TV is very interesting. Apparently Prince Harry has killed a Taliban. I can't hep noticing that Prince Harry is going bald. Prince Harry is very annoyed that pictures of him were put in John's newspaper when he accidentally took all his clothes off in Las Vegas. "I forgot I was a Prince" says Prince Harry "and was more of a soldier at the time." Apparently soldiers spend their time, when not killing a Taliban, ripping their clothes off in bars in Las Vegas. I must tell John. John was the one that broke ranks and put the pictures of Prince Harry in the papers in the first place. "Well", he explained at the time, "everyone could see it on the Internet anyway."There are a lot of things that are on the Internet anyway, which we don't necessarily want in our newspapers," I told him. But John was adamant and every other newspaper got adamant as well and put all the naked pictures of Harry everywhere. Anyway my foot becomes a little less painful so decide to go back to the plumbing.
I turn off the stopcock in the playroom and open all the  taps/faucets. I am not sure if turning on the taps is exactly the same as opening the faucets but I look it up on the Internet and it seems that they are one and the same thing. Next, I run upstairs and find the little brass key for bleeding the radiators and I bleed them all and squirt dirty water all over the wall in Abigail's bedroom,  Zac's bedroom and on the landing where some of it squirts onto the carpet as well. By now the water in the kitchen faucet/tap is splattering into the sink in fits and starts and the noise is horrendous. I turn on the stopcock and the washing machine bursts into life with a screech, I forgot to turn it off before I stared all this.
I decide to give up on the plumbing and have a cup of tea instead. plumbing is probably best left to the professionals, I decide.
I turn on the tap/faucet in the kitchen. It rumbles into life with a sound like a reversing traction engine, but I can't have a cup of tea because the kettle has completely disappeared.
O well.