The hosepipe ban, that modest instrument of English liberty, now governs roughly 29 million people. Wessex Water went company-wide on August 18; Affinity expanded its east region the day before. Seventy-one percent of England is officially in drought. [1]

The state has responded with its characteristic weapon: the recurring meeting. The National Drought Group reconvened Thursday after a COBR session chaired by Prime Minister Andy Burnham and will now meet weekly. The Environment Agency's numbers justify the calendar. Reservoir storage sits at 62.6 percent, more than 16 points below average. August rainfall is running at 17 percent of the long-term norm. Farmers report the earliest harvest in two decades and boreholes drying beneath them. Some 1,562 abstraction restrictions are in force. [1] [2]

The Agency also warns of the English climate's newest joke, simultaneous drought and flash flood, since baked soil sheds sudden rain rather than drinking it. Thursday's downpours promptly tested the theory. Nine new reservoirs sit in the government's promise column; none holds water yet. [3]

X has its own ledger. Screenshots of leakage rates and dividend schedules circulate beside drone footage of half-empty reservoirs, the privatization indictment renewed daily. The government promises nine new reservoirs, which is to say, eventually. [3] In the meantime the nation waters its geraniums with washing-up water and calls it the Blitz spirit.

-- CHARLES ASHFORD, London