13 Aug 2022

WATER WOES

In this issue

Featured articles

Water woes: who’s to blame for the shortages?

For residents of the London borough of Islington whose homes were flooded this week by a burst water main, Thames Water’s decision to announce a hosepipe ban the following day must have come across as a sick joke. Just a few days before the flood, the company sent out an email asking its customers to be a ‘hot spell hero’. ‘Every drop you save really is another drop more in your local river or reservoir.’ But Thames Water seemed unable to follow its own advice: five million litres of water were lost during the leak.

Should you grass on a neighbour who breaks the hosepipe ban?

We know many water companies are themselves guilty of profligate waste through unrepaired leaks. So to snitch on a neighbour, who is making a comparatively tiny personal contribution to the drought, seems petty. But we are only human and it is hard to watch your flowers and vegetables wither and die while your neighbour is still drenching his own produce with gay abandon. If you have a smart water meter you might be more careful about over-use as Big Brother is watching you.

Going bananas: Biden’s America is fast regressing

It’s hardly surprising that China feels emboldened. Xi Jinping must look at America and see not just a superpower in decline but a gerontocracy that has lost its marbles.Last week, Nancy Pelosi, the 82-year-old Speaker of the House of Representatives, visited Taiwan as a gesture of solidarity, in spite of China’s fierce warnings that her arrival would be treated as a grave provocation. Presumably Pelosi felt that, by not being cowed, she’d shown China who’s still global boss.

The high life of stonemason James Preston

The impact had shattered the churchyard path. Chunks of asphalt and mortar lay in the surrounding grass. Just next to the path, like a broken chess piece, lay the remnants of the church’s 150-year-old spire. A few hours earlier, it had stood at the very top of the church, towering over the churchyard. Mercifully, the Victorian construction had fallen to earth rather than through the church roof. For reasons now lost, St Thomas’ in Wells is one of the very few English churches with a spire to the north-east corner.

What happened when I took my son to Drag Queen Story Hour

The nice young man in the library had told us he was worried about protests when I booked tickets for Drag Queen Story Hour. We only began to hear the chants halfway through the show; they drifted up from the courtyard in front of St John’s Hall, the council building that houses Penzance library, through the window behind where my son and I were sitting. They got louder and louder – the children started looking round, puzzled, and the drag queen gesticulated at me to close the window.

State-building is a Tory tradition. It’s time to rediscover it

The Conservative leadership contest has descended into a low-tax auction, which is not a good thing. The implication is that the Conservatives think government should be minuscule at the very moment when private enterprise is letting us down – the energy companies are raking in cash and spending it on stock buybacks – and the state seems to be on its knees. We live in a country where it’s become widely accepted that if you call an ambulance, it won’t show up for several hours; the borders are wide open; social care is under-funded; and the police have ceased investigating certain crimes.

Liberté, égalité, nudité: France’s new sexual politics

Montpellier France is going through a sexual civil war. After the great carnal outburst of the free-loving soixante-huitards, some have reverted to abstinence and prudishness, while others are pushing sexuality to new extremes. The crisis in French sexuality has exposed itself this summer as the clothes have come off. It’s not always a pretty sight, and not just because it isn’t true that French people don’t get fat.

What I’ve learnt from editing a newspaper letters page

Letters to a daily newspaper have a curious power to gain an impetus of their own. ‘I owned a Triumph Herald many decades ago,’ wrote Robert Brown of Crosby to the Telegraph in January. ‘She was my first love. On cold winter nights I would keep her warm with an old mackintosh thrown over her engine under the bonnet. Perhaps it was this that protected her from a thief one night. She was driven off our drive on to the road but steadfastly refused to go any further.

Notes on...

Who needs a hosepipe? The watering cans worth investing in

In the hot, dry summer of 1976, I was working as a gardening student at Arboretum Kalmthout in Belgium. The temperatures in July were frequently 40°C by lunchtime, so we worked in the early mornings and through the evenings. My job was to drive a tractor pulling a trailer, on to which were placed dustbins full of water drawn from a borehole. These were ferried around the grounds so we could water rare, precious and drought-hating rhododendron and tree species.

Next up: Columnists