Whats with bottled water...

There were experiments done on members of that long-suffering sector of society, identical twins, to prove that should one twin practically drown herself in liquid and the other be kept, hyperventilating with panic, away from the bottled water, then the condition of the skin and hair of both remained the same – one didn't turn to a fine dust and have to be vacuumed from the floor.

Which brings me to bottled water? How satisfying, how laugh-out-loud funny, how just plain all-round great that sales of bottled water are finally falling.

Status symbols are peculiar things. One minute you're up there with the angels, flaunting that prized nutmeg around your neck for the entire world to admire, the next - you're just wearing a bit of cheap spice on a ribbon

That's what happened in the 1600s anyway when that rare and exotic flavouring the nutmeg became the talk of the town. It became quite the fashion to wear whole nutmegs as jewellery, one dangling from each ear, a couple strung around the bosom area. That sort of thing.

Of course when the nutmeg bubble burst, when just anybody could afford to grate a bit of the stuff over their egg custard and onto their hot milk, and it didn't seem to ward off the plague after all, the sound of stale spice hitting the bottom of the bin was deafening.

Because nothing, absolutely nothing, looks sillier than a status symbol whose time has gone.

From a ridiculous peak when we grabbed one billion bottles a year off the shelves, finally we're walking right past that supermarket shelf and heading for the nearest tap instead. What a laugh…

There was always something ridiculous about the bottled water craze, it was always the modern-day nutmeg around the neck.

But how very, very fashionable it became, giving out ear-splittingly loud signals about status. A small bottle of water in the hand or on the desk said you were reasonably in control of your life, that you understood the rules of engagement: be a member of a gym, only eat calories with a guilty look on your face, drink water until it comes out of your – well, never mind.

But a litre bottle of water – now you're talking.

Walking around clutching a full litre meant you were totally, kick-ass, in charge of your life: you never ate, you never left the safety of the gym, and you poured the stuff down your throat until you squeaked.

It meant, in short, you were just plain better than other people.

For a time the world went completely bonkers.

Restaurants had water menus with different bottled brands to match different foods, water was even flown right across the world, to land on restaurant tables placed only feet from a kitchen capable of delivering lots of perfectly good stuff on tap - no matter that taste tests proved people couldn't tell the difference between the bottled stuff and water that had passed through several sets of kidneys.

Strange to tell, bottled water didn't even lose its allure when people began to say, in awed and disbelieving whispers, that they had read it wasn't actually necessary to drink eight glasses of water a day.

And that – and this was a paradigm shift akin to leaving the concept of a flat earth behind – the liquid contained in tea, coffee, fizzy drinks, beer and even food all contributed to keeping us full of life-giving liquid.

There were experiments done on members of that long-suffering sector of society, identical twins, to prove that should one twin practically drown herself in liquid and the other be kept, hyperventilating with panic, away from the bottled water, then the condition of the skin and hair of both remained the same – one didn't turn to a fine dust and have to be vacuumed from the floor.

Finally, the message is getting through – bottled water doesn't make us better people: carrying it around ostentatiously makes as much sense as adorning ourselves in nutmegs.

The truth is this: it's water, its great stuff, we're lucky enough to have it on tap.

End of story.