Fixed it. With no more than some scrabbling around on the floor and a pair of nail clippers I was able to find a substitute mains cable in my room.
Turns out the PC, so thoughtfully provided by the management here, has a separate screen that is powered by a 16v DC "brick" type supply (shown here in grey.) The plug that fits into it from the mains side has a similar pattern to that required by my laptop power adaptor. Close, but not quite close enough it seemed - I couldn't force the plug far enough in. Turns out that the laptop supply has a ridge of plastic between the two mains voltage pins whereas the brick powering the PC screen does not. Hence the need for the nail clippers. By partly cutting away that plastic ridge, along with nipping a grove in the plug to match, I was able to just get enough contact to deliver power to the laptop supply. Success!
(Note to self: next time, remove plug from mains voltage before attacking same with metal clippers ....)
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