Hosepipe

There’s something that seems distinctly bizarre about the hosepipe bans that are coming in to force today across a lot of the south of England.

For one thing, it specifies that you can’t use a hosepipe to wash the car, or water the garden. You can still use one to fill a swimming pool, or a hot-tub. In theory we could get away with using one to play with Hound, who loves being zapped with the hose, and runs round the garden like a mad thing as a game. No idea why she likes it so much, but she does. Bizarre creature.

And despite the fact that it’s necessary for the hosepipe ban in order to preserve levels of water, I bet that every golf course is still allowed to use sprinkler systems etc. in order to keep the greens all beautiful. They seem to be exempt from every other water conservation method, so I bet they don’t get hit by this one. Fuckers.

If the water boards were serious about water conservation, the first thing they’d do is sort out their own leaking pipes. Yes, I know that Thames Water (and others) say they’re doing their best, and that they’re spending more than ever on repairing leaks, but they also said that ten years ago when I worked for their customer services department. They haven’t changed their story in a decade, and will continue to get away with doing as little as possible for as long as they can.

Oh, and the second thing the water boards should do is offer discounts to people who conserve water, who have water butts to store rain water for garden or domestic use, and perhaps even subsidise the purchase of those water butts. Now that would be doing something to help the situation…