Have you ever seen a young thing swigging from a bottle of domestic water? Buxton Spring, Ballygowan and Highland Spring simply don’t have the cachet of a bottle of Volvic, despite the fact that the taste difference is negligible. But the most enduring habit, one which originally looked like it was going to be a feature of the more-money-than-sense credit boom, is the swigging of mineral water.
Increasing comfort brings with it increasing faddishness. While I’m all in favour of recycling, the fact that cycling shorts still reappear from wardrobes when the sun hits the sidewalks comes as a bit of a shock every year. There was a time when everyone wore hats, and not just for weddings. Then, from the Fifties, demand fell and by the Seventies, many hat manufacturers had gone out of business. Christy’s, Britain’s oldest surviving hat making company, established in Stockport in 1773, survived this lean period by making riding hats. Now, says Roger Hulme, factory manager, demand is picking up “Youngsters are wearing hats again.

I saw some lad roller-blading down the street the other day wearing a bowler.”. WWhat is water to you? The start of life? Something you own shares in? Something you get from a standpipe? Or a fashion accessory?

One of the less attractive features of the changing seasons is the reappearance of old modes one had hoped might have died a death. Hiking, most definitely, is not on the agenda.”Hats are the same. Squashy velvet hats, streetwise Rasta caps, skateboarders’ “Beenie” bobblehats and fleece pull-ons are now widely worn for reasons other than head warmth. The old and new tunnels will join up here, near the foot of the old bridge, the one which fell down and whose foundations have caused significant engineering challenges.

Here, tunnelling is going on by hand and pony boys wheel carts of muck back toward the surface; it’s a scene from the Industrial Revolution. Here, also, it smells different: sort of stagnant and river-like. Everything is prepared: Marcus shows us where the old tunnel has been excavated: a hundred- year-old cast-iron tube surrounded on all sides by air I put my hand on it and it vibrates as a train passes by. I don’t suppose that any of the passengers have the first idea that they are only feet away from a JCB.We walk on until we’re under the river.