“Save water – bath with a friend”: this has to be the most risqué public information advice ever broadcast by the government, but it certainly caught the mood at the height of the 1976 drought . Within days it was on badges and plastered across T-shirts. It might even have saved some water.

As drought conditions intensify across the UK , following the hottest spring on record , and with much of England under a hosepipe ban which is set to continue into autumn, it is time to think again about how we might save water.

It might seem strange that, on an island renowned for its drizzle, we should find ourselves hit once again by water shortages , but this should not really come as a surprise on a planet where global heating is running amok. Six of the hottest years on record in th

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