I would not be so harsh. You of course have to know what you are doing but with some basic background in electrical engineering, I see no reason why the 4.5V battery trick would not work. My only uncertainty would be about the sense pin, missing in maurochiado's solution, but I am happy to believe that the worst that can happen is the battery capacity measurement being bogus. Since this is only a temporary stop-gap solution, that would not bother me too much.

You should have seen the improvised solutions I've made in my time. When I was stuck in a hotel in the middle of nowhere, in a foreign country with different mains socket plugs, with no wires... I had to make do with rolled-up aluminium foil from chocolate wrappings I definitely would not recommend that to anyone who does not know exactly what s/he is doing.