Plumbing Checkmate

I had a go at removing the old taps from my bath this morning.  Complete disaster!  When I took the handles off for painting the tiles, one was really stuck and after finally getting it off, the inside looked like it was all full of grout.

But it left behind a nut that I couldn't remove which prevented me from removing the housing and the spindle.  So I put a huge effort in this morning to remove the nut.  You can sort of see it in this closeup...

Anyway, the result was that the nut didn't move at all, but the whole spindle snapped off instead, nut still attached.

That didn't matter too much, because I needed to remove the whole spindle to put in the new taps, but after hacksawing a bit more off to get a clean edge and removing the housing, the spindle WOULD NOT BUDGE.

I went to Bunnings and got a proper shower socket for the job, but all I managed to do was repeatedly bend the socket out of shape.  And I was very worried that I might do more damage by trying to force it with a hammer or something.

So now, the spindle is fully turned on and can't be closed, which means I have to leave the mains water off until it's sorted.  Gah!  Which means, after managing to avoid plumbers for years, I've finally had to make the call.  :(  He can't come until tomorrow morning, so until then, no running water for me.

I have to say I'm very curious to see how he manages to remove them.