I wouldn't like to add up the amount that I spend annually on bottled water, but it's about what I used to spend on cigarettes. Yet, considering that water comes out of the tap cool and ready for drinking, it seems a lot less defensible. As a matter of fact, I was on the cusp of going back to good old British tap water when the story broke about the hermaphrodite fish whose sex has been compromised by all the oestrogen floating around in our rivers. The idea of residues from the Pill lurking in our drinking water (albeit not in actual sex-changing quantities) was enough to put me right off the back-to-basics plan. At least, that's what I told myself.
As it happens, the superior quality of bottled water is only part of the reason why I, and millions like me, are hooked. Apart from anything else, we now know that water "fresh from the mountain glacier" could have languished on the shelves for anything up to two years. In addition, it comes in plastic bottles, which contain phthalates that have been connected to the decline in male fertility. So, while everyone imagines they've embraced bottled water because it contains fewer impurities,
the truth is rather more complicated. Portable drinking water has
become the thinking person's accessory: a symbol of belonging and partaking in the serious business of life that occupies the same niche as a mobile phone. With a bottle of water in your bag, you feel on top of things, in control. The bigger it is, the better you feel. One thing you are not going to do is dehydrate.
When you come to think about it, this is a pretty extraordinary
development. Ten years ago, no one drank water, other than at mealtimes, when it arrived in a jug in sufficient quantity to slake the thirst of a table of eight. Now, there are many of us who sit at a desk with a 1.5-litre bottle beside the computer, a couple of back-ups on the shelf behind, and proceed to guzzle water throughout the day as if it were a fat buster. Lately, I find that I can't go to a film without carrying a 500ml bottle of water in my handbag; can't get on a plane without 1.5 litres of the stuff (preferably two bottles of 1.5); and feel happiest on a long walk with a slimline Evian bouncing in my pocket.
Obviously, this is a kind of neurosis. Behind it is a whole range of explanations, from the need to find an alternative for those endless cups of coffee, to knowing that water fills you up and flushes you out (so that's fewer biscuits and less guilt about the extra half-bottle of wine last night). Water has become the mark of atonement, the promise of longer life and more youthful skin. Drinking it throughout the day is like a prayer for the future, a cleansing ritual, even an alternative to exercise. One thing is for sure: if I had a shrink I'd feel obliged to mention my relationship with water quite early on in the proceedings.
