…nor any drop to drink”, goes the famous quote by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, although it could easily have been uttered by the greedy panjandrums at the helm of our water companies, who (quite literally) are running the country dry.

Thankfully, the global wetting has begun to drip from the clouds, after an ‘extreme’ summer (surely an extreme use of the word ‘extreme’.) Even so, the annual hosepipe ban (especially in residential areas of the south-east UK) has become a regular occurrence – alongside other quaint national traditions, such as Morris-dancing and strikes.

Like the millennium bug myth, roasted penguins flying past the window, or Build Back Better (remember that?), we the idiot populace are being gulled by the bloated, cash-rich, water utility companies into believing there’s a shortage of the wet stuff. The excuse? There’s nothing they can do.

Ergo, the long-suffering, sweaty punter is exhorted to shower once a month in a thimble-full of sewage, while the incontinent system leaks 2.4bn gallons a day1.

Yes, a day. Which could turn the Sahara into a lido and have enough left over to give us ten hosepipes each.

My response rhymes with the surname of the abstract expressionist artist Jackson Pollock.

Wrong type of Rain

As if to rub salt in the proverbial, we’re then told by the genius media meteorologists (whose forecasts have all the accuracy of psychic chicken entrails) that not only do we have the ‘wrong type of ground’, but now, the ‘wrong type of rain’. Presumably it’s too dry, or it doesn’t voluntarily plug the holes in water mains.

Is this an intractable problem spawned by global warming or is it because the damp parts of the north are disconnected with the arid wastes of the south?

A Proper Grid System is Needed

Before we even talk about a ‘lack’ of water and how we can persuade the clouds to bestow us with more aquatic bounty, let us question why these utility companies are not organising a proper grid network in the manner of the London Underground, or motorway system.

Reservoirs, oh how we yearn for more of these. Effectively, besides the Castleton (built in 1988), Kielder (built in 1982) and Rutland Water (in the 60s), there are no more of these planned and I wonder why? Could it be, that they consume too much money? Der, my brain hurts!

These could be linked across the UK so that when we’re a bit parched in the south, the ‘blue stuff’ can trickle down from ‘oop norf’. We know it’s possible. The Grand Union Canal (all 137 miles of it) was completed in 1882 and connects a network of waterways that extend from London to Birmingham. If the Victorians can do it, so can Thames Water and their incompetent ilk.

Prior to the national electricity grid being established in 1935, power outages were frequent. I remember watching the Miss World contest in the 1970s and 80s – the main worry (apart from whether some angry wxmin would disrupt the event) was if the creaking electricity supply would hold up during the commercial break, when everyone made a cup of tea at the same time.

England is swilling around in H2O. We are gifted with over 45 inches a year of rainfall, yet the lack of a water grid is exacerbating the problem and reinforcing the fantasy that one of the soggiest nations in the world (and an island, no less) is drying up.

Supporter of Environmental Cause

I am an ardent supporter of the environmental cause. I’ve been trundling around (silently) in an electric car for eight years, my domestic waste is sacrificed religiously on the recycling altar, and I support our milkmen. They’ve been the most consistent recycling service since 1947, with their reusable bottles and 20mph electric milk floats.

In the 1970s, when you had the occasional climate emergency, I mean, sunny day, it was almost impossible to find ice-cool drinks anywhere. Unless you were the writer W. C. Fields who never drank water “because of the disgusting things that fish do in it”, you were fortunate to quench your thirst with a glass of tepid, unfiltered water that came out of (shock, horror) a tap. Somehow, we managed.

Water Companies, Get Your Tackle Together

Now though, we need to deal with this issue of hotter summers without turning into a nation of whinging prunes.
Homeowners across the country should crack open the paddling pools, irrigate their gardens and tell the water companies where they can shove their hosepipes. Instead of soaking the hapless customer with ever-higher bills, the companies should get their tackle together and sort out this problem of distribution.

England’s ‘green (although increasingly grey) and pleasant land’ should remain so at all times of the year – not just after a wet spell.