Responding is easy right?

A couple of weeks ago I was playing Acol with a relatively new player (an intelligent one that's learning fast) and I picked up pretty useless hand. Normally at this point I decide that this hand must be easy to bid, switch my brain off and start thinking about the cheese and jam on toast I'm going to have when I get home. Or whatever. But just as I was getting to the decision of whether to grate or to slice my partner opened a diamond and RHO bid a spade. I looked at my hand and despite my earlier prediction I couldn't think of anything that fit.

♠ x x x ♥ J x ♦ A T x ♣ Q T x x x

Bother.

Lets see, double is going to land me in a world of trouble if partner has 4 hearts, partner will probably expect a better spade stop from 1NT and pass seems a bit wimpy. Think of the disaster if I pass and the next hand bids 3♠ or  4♠, partner will be left in the dark (as will I if it's passed back to me).
What could go wrong if I bid 2♦? If the contract is left here we're in an ok spot and it doesn't promise things I haven't got in the majors. I bid 2♦, LHO pushed with 3♠, partner bid 3NT in tempo and there it ended.

♠ A J ♥ A K Q x ♦ K J x x x ♣ x x		♠ x x x ♥ J x ♦ A T x ♣ Q T x x x

My partner managed to find the missing diamond royalty and bring in ten tricks. Well at least I didn't double. 4♥ will make on the very same diamond guess but I've found that sort of justification never makes my partners less angry.