A Drought? Are You Sure?

I was coming back down the M40 today looking at all the trees dripping with fruit and  acorns, and the long green grass swaying in the fields, and it suddenly struck that were in the middle of a drought. Then I started thinking about all those pictures from Ethiopia and Eritrea and Burma (etc., etc.!) from the 60s and 70s, and thought that calling what weve got here the water companies pissing away a lake the size of Hampshire every week through holes in their leaky pipes is not a drought! Its a bit of an inconvenience. When drought strikes sub-Saharan African countries, there isnt a hose pipe ban. It isnt still OK to fill swimming pools and wash public buildings (yes, folks, you cant water your lawn but Thames Water are still allowed to wash the front of their headquarters with as much water as they can find!), and ou cant still water golf courses (man, those bunkers are tricky) its a real drought. A drought as in, you have no water all day, and may die tomorrow if it doesnt rain.

Have the UKs crops failed? I dont remember it being on the News at Ten. Has anybody died through lack of thirst? Im sure Id have remembered that one. Are there sun-bleached animal skulls lying around the local parks? I suspect not. No, the worst that is happening is that the lawns a bit brown (next doors swimming pool is looking perky tho), and I get bombarded daily with adverts suggesting its my fault theres a drought because I take a shower. (Do you remember the good old days when they told us to not take baths, use a shower what next? Dont shower just go out when it rains. Which is quite frequently, given were in a drought)

It seems to me that calling our dry-ish spell a drought is not only wildly inaccurate, its really quite offensive to countries and people who have, and still do, suffer real, crop-failing, population-reducing droughts.

So, in this sense, drought is really more of a marketing/propaganda term, isnt it? What will they come up with next? Tsunami for Spring tides on Brighton beach, or Asteroid Impact if I drop a pebble?

So outrageous that Mister Doo felt compelled to write not 1, but 2 songs about it. Look out for Fat Cat a song about a hypothetical company that is more interested in its shareholders than its customers water requirements, and Seven Air a song about a hypothetical company that is in control of all the air, which gets sold to a company in a country weve been at war with on and off for the past 2 thousand years (dont even get me started on the foolhardiness of allowing a commodity as basic and necessary to life as water to be controlled by a foreign power). Thesell be on MySpace or the web site soon

Cheers,

Mister Doo

w: http://www.misterdoo.co.uk

e: info@misterdoo.co.uk

m: http:/myspace.com/misterdooblues