Comments on: We’ll get more hosepipe bans if Prescott showers us in new homes

By: Ron Ball

Ron Ball — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 01:49:54 +0000

I have been away a bit and have only just been catching up with news on this web site. Boris is not alone in wondering why we have a hosepipe ban when the water is falling from the heavens in buckets. But the water supply problem in the UK is entirely down to mismanagement. The water companies work on the basis that water must fall as rain, steadily in an average manner throughout an average year to produce the standard average annual rainfall. If it does not fall in such a manner, it either pours down the drains at great speed and disappears out to sea – causing, possibly, a few floods along the way – or it stops falling for a few days and we have a hosepipe ban. I get rather upset about being told not to wash or flush the toilet when the biggest water waste is through leaky pipes – 1,000,000,000 litres are lost each day by this means in London alone. So far most water companies have tried to reduce water losses by reducing water pressure in the mains. Cheap and easy but still total UK leaks lose enough water to supply 11,000,000 homes.
Some years ago, when we in Sussex were suffering the annual hosepipe ban, I wrote to our then MP Nicholas Soames and asked why in the city of Las Vegas [in the middle of a desert]it was possible to supply water without interruption and at an annual cost less than we paid in Sussex. Mr Soames passed my letter to a government junior minister, who in his reply told me that it was much easier to provide a reliable supply in an area where the rainfall was predictable. In other words we could be better placed to have a consistent supply if we had no rainfall whatsoever in the South east. Mr Soames seemed quite impressed that the Tory Party had such original thinkers.

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By: Macarnie

Macarnie — Sun, 14 Aug 2005 09:51:53 +0000

The paucity of posts on the question of water shortages would seem to mirror the perceived National importance of the Fat Conntroller.
“Well done,” Deputy P.M. another triumph.

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By: David Russell

David Russell — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 21:14:44 +0000

Yes, over the past week or two we have been having fairly normal levels of rainfall. The reason for the hosepipe ban is that it’s the first time this has happened in eight months.

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By: Macarnie

Macarnie — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 08:55:35 +0000

Damien:In what way does Mary’s mourning over her Son ,(pietas),equate with Household Gods( or even EFFECTS, as the phrase’s alternative meaning suggests)?

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By: Lilly

Lilly — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 17:59:48 +0000

Boris, Well done for going on PM today. You were quite right. I am no Tory, but the discussion about the MP’s remarks can be simply resolved as a matter of fact. As Boris said, we must defend the English language, and explanation does not equal justification. We can all debate about causes and appropriate responses, which are subject to opinion, but this is a matter of FACT. Many terrible things are explicable, they are no less terrible because of it.

I feel very sad that we have reached a time in Britain when educated, prominent people can not understand the English language.

Peter Hitchens was way off – the Tory party a bunch of appeasing social workers?! I think not.

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By: Lobster Blogster

Lobster Blogster — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 16:07:39 +0000

I was going to mention canoeing of the River Wye and the water being low that year, but you seem to get a lot of comments, so I won’t.

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By: Macarnie

Macarnie — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 15:50:43 +0000

Edith L:
If your question were not entirely rhetorical, your hose, I presume, would be where all others keep theirs: i.e. in the knicker drawer.

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By: Damian

Damian — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 15:13:51 +0000

Not John Prescott again!

I read this morning in the Telegraph that Frank Dobson has a son who’s strutting around calling himself Osma bin Dobson or something or the sort. I blame the parents – if they’d educated the boy better he’d have seen the intellectual absurdity of falling for a 7th-century superstition. He would also have had more loyalty to his own culture – more pietas (respect for the lares and penates).

Just what happened to “old Labour” – the Prescotts and Dobsons of this world? Somewhere along the line “old Labour” lost its senses,

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By: Edith Lavender

Edith Lavender — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 14:48:00 +0000

Sigh. Livingstone can leave his pee unflushed and his skin unwashed but I will be more preoccupied with the water that’s escaping under our feet.

Thames Water & Leaking Pipes

Perhaps if our pipes were in good order I wouldn’t be fantasising about digging a well to take advantage of all that clean water that’s leaking away underground. Now, where’s my hose?

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By: jaq

jaq — Sat, 30 Jul 2005 12:20:12 +0000

Hear Hear Alfie! Totally agree.

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