The drippety-drip sound from the kitchen plumbing has now stopped. I finally got the pennies together for a roll of self-fusing silicone tape from my local Maplin and did some more scrambling about the counter-tops.
The tape is weird stuff. It doesn't have any glue and is only very slightly sticky in a sort of static cling way- at least to materials that aren't the tape itself, because once tape touches tape it is stuck together fast and there ain't no way you're peeling it apart again, especially if the tape was being stretched when it touched.
You have to wrap it around the pipe under repair quite tightly, stretching the tape out to about twice its relaxed length, and overlapping the tape on top of itself about half-way. If you keep it nice and taut at all times, it stays in place beautifully and so far there's been no sign of leakage. The only problem was the aforementioned habit the tape has of sticking to itself when you don't want it to, which is an absolute pain when you're trying to wrap the tape around a pipe in a restricted area whilst maintaining proper tension.
Anyway, it's done now and with a bit of luck, the horrible fused mass of silicone (have I done a Pamela Anderson joke yet?) will keep water from leaking until such a time as I find myself back on my feet and can pay to have some proper plumbing done, or until I am thrown out onto the cold streets by an uncaring society, boo-hoo, a boo-hoo-hoo, boo-hoo.
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