Tap Water

We have developed a number of silly habits over the last 10 years. Most of which seem to link to two causes - consumerism and health. In the past we would have been happy with a nice cup of Nescafé and it tasted fine because we did not know any better. Now consumerism, however, has somehow taught us that that we must drink only freshly ground coffee and having instant would make you mightily uncultured. This sounds awfully inconvenient, but consumerism quickly provided the answer – lots of coffee shops, with crossing the street just being too much of a stress for many. Starbucks have tapped into our demands particularly well, according to The Guardian – “if you stand on the corner of Regent Street and Wigmore Street in central London, you are within five miles of 164 branches of Starbucks”. Brilliant. But I don’t really care that much, as I don’t like coffee and everyone has been banging on about this forever. Sorry to be the last.

Water is somewhat a different kettle of fish. I bet fifty years ago in some meeting someone suggested bottling water and everyone else laughed. You know, bottling that stuff which comes free from the tap. However, we have somehow engraved it in our psyche that we need to drink huge amounts of water. But not any old water – bottled water. What sort of evil genius is that – consumerism and health both rolled into cheap to produce package which no one could possibly object to. It’s just water – how could you not like that?

Until today I thought that I was getting around this problem by simply taking my existing water bottle (not a flask or I would look insane) and filling it up from a tap. I know there are often signs saying ‘don’t drink’, but I just dismissed them as a conspiracy to get you to spend £1 on a bottle of water. I tried to ignore people such as my good friend Amy Jones as merely being too easily influenced by the propaganda attached to the tiles above each sink. However, Ruth, my lovely coffee lady, has suggested that the water in the Dover Street Building at The University of Manchester is checked monthly, and routinely contains legionnaire’s disease. Bummer.