Water on the brain
Petronella Wyatt
So Coca-Cola's latest designer drink, on sale for 95p a bottle, comes out of the tap. Dasani, the company's new bottled water, is being promoted as a 'pure' product in a £7 million marketing campaign. But, apparently, the drink is only purified tap water from a factory on the borders of south-east London.
This has caused much consternation at the Natural Mineral Waters Association, which claims that consumers could be misled into thinking Dasani was a natural product. Bosses at the association are writing to the Food Standards Agency, calling for an investigation.
In my opinion it's the people who buy bottled water who need investigating. I refer to their heads. This is not Victorian England when water had to be boiled free of bacteria. As far as I know, the tap water that is supplied to homes these days is in robust and pristine condition, This is because I drink it.
I can't be bothered with bottled water. Some people I know shriek with horror when I fill myself a glass of water from the tap. But as I have been doing the same since I was a child, why stop now?
Most bottled waters cost barely under a pound, while Thames water costs 0.031635p for the equivalent amount. Twenty bottles of designer mineral water equals the price of a bottle of good champagne? I mean, what would you rather do? Waste your money on mineral water and forgo champagne, or drink perfectly good tap water and get yourself a bottle of Mot?
I always apply this theory at restaurants. The waiter is always bunging you some bottle of designer water that costs about £7. That's the equivalent of two glasses of wine, The waiter, though, still presses this bottle with its silly label on you. So I say firmly, 'I'd like tap water, please.' They look furious but at least they can't say, 'Sorry, we've run out tonight.'
Guests of mine, especially Americans, don't like this, of course. I have never met an American who will drink tap water. I assure them that this is not India and that no one I know has ever gone down with dysentery after a glass of Thames Water, but they shake their heads in terrified disbelief.
Lately I have come up with the ruse of referring to Thames Water as if it were a new bottled water, which for some strange reason comes only by the glass. This mollifies them a bit, especially when I add that the Queen uses it, too. 'And Prime Minister Blair?' they ask. 'Oh yes, definitely,' I reply. 'In fact Thames Water is so good for you that the whole family even bathes in it.'
I know a bit about designer water because my late uncle started bottling water near his house in Cornwall. He manufactured some green bottles, stuck a label on them, with the old family crest, natch, and called it `Bonython Spring Water'. We used to get free supplies. Frankly, Bonython Spring Water tasted exactly the same as the stuff that came out of my bathroom tap.
It had an impressive list of natural ingredients on its label, which also said that the water met EU standards. This always sounds impressive until one discovers that our tap water also meets EU standards. It is simply a jargonised way of saying, you won't keel over if you drink it.
Even my brother drinks tap water. I say even my brother, because he lives in South Africa. When I spent Christmas there with my mother, she and my brother got into some sort of altercation. My mother asked for some water. My brother said, 'The tap's over there, Ma.'
My mother replied, 'Don't be stupid, I mean proper bottled water.' My brother then shot back, 'We don't have any, Marie Antoinette. We drink tap water.'
'In Africa?'
'Yes, and I haven't felt better in my life.' I think my mother then asked for CocaCola.
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