We drank, we fought. We made our ancestors proud
Guaranteed to make you more angry than the infantilised urbanities, though, is Michael Mascha, author of Fine Waters: A Connoisseur's Guide to the World's Most Distinctive Bottled Waters (Emperor's New Clothes Press; price: your dignity). Mascha lectures you about the "terroir" of different bottled waters, about their "mouthfeel", about their distinctive molecular structures. He sees sophistication as changing waters with each course and frets about the sorry state of stemware culture.
- Marina Hyde
If there's anything more likely to make Brockley Central reexamine its humanist principles than an anonymous conspiracy theorist, it's bottled water drinkers.
It takes about three litres of water and approximately 3.4 megajoules of energy to produce and sell a single litre of water in a plastic bottle. The environmental impact of a glass of tap water is less than 1% of a glass of bottled water. It costs hundreds or thousands of times more to drink it, offers no health benefits, tastes worse and occasionally does favours to juntas.
A wonderfully quiet and peaceful location where you can spy on the busy city life whilst relaxing on the grass. And what better place for a water fountain to quench your thirst than on top of hill? Just perfect.
20 comments:
How do we get one at hilly????
Surely this is in the upper park.
Are you sure edleman doesn't lobby for Thames Water?
@MB Not yet, but once they see this baby...
There is one in Hilly Fields, but you need a toddler to accompany you into the playground area – although you do get a choice of fountain or pump
I am always concerned about the hygiene of these water fountains. It only takes one person's mouth touching the tap for germs to be left, multiply and be passed on. Ugh!
It's good to see sturdy park appliances. Very few meet the euro standard EN5677-9 for secondary recreational usage in public spaces, requiring resistance to a lateral load of 1.5kn applied at 1.5m from the base. Most only meet the accidental loading requirements, the hospitals are full of those carrying the sometimes life changing injuries due to failure. It one of the great unspoken scandles of the age, we've written to Joan Ruddock, she will be asking a question in the house next month.
Unfortunately this particular water fountain usually doesn't work. Great idea and it would be ever so handy for filling my dogs water bowl.
I agree though. One at Hilly fields would be fantastic. With a water bowl at the bottom (for dogs) that collects from the unused water up top.
Anyone know who we could write to to request one at Hilly? (outside the children's playground)
Jo.
How do we get one at hilly????
The fountains are cheap although it took us a long time to get them installed using unspent funds left over from other activities. (There are two fountains in Telegraph Hill Park). The expensive bit would have been putting in the water supply, but we had that put in when the parks were restored in 2005. Both are on the sites of original fountains and, in fact, the stone base seen in the photograph here is the original which I got rescued from the skip after the people re-laying the path had inadvertently ripped it up.
I have hopes that one day we can restore a more impressive drinking fountain back on the plinth in the lower park.
Both fountains have had some maintenance problems (unfortunately they are relatively cheap affairs owing to minimal funds). To say the upper park one usually doesn't work is overstating it a bit. It usually works. Sometimes it doesn't. But, hey, at least it is there.
It wasn't working again the other day.
It usually doesn't work.
It is a glorified tap.
Why is it so hard to make it work?
It's a communal tap, socialism pared down to it's very essence. it's bound to be sub standard. We need a private sector sector faucet, a state of the art water dispenser with a special key operating system so that wealth creators can quench their thirst while driving the economy forward. Those who contribute less than they consume can use puddles.
Why is it so hard to make it work?
People damage them. Good workmanship and quality products are expensive. People don't like paying higher rates. I am sure you can think up some other reasons as well.
And be sure you email the Council / Glendale when you find it is not working. The quicker they are notified, the faster it can be repaired.
I am just be grateful there is something that works most of the time. For all the years from some time in the early 1970s through to 2005, there wasn't anything at all.
So even if it works 5% of the time, it is better than what was there before!
There used to be one on Hilly down by the bowls green but they took it away.
There used to be one on Hilly down by the bowls green but they took it away.
Bottled water, if fizzy, is lush.
Quite like the human/canine one by the Cafe at Greenwich Park though it doesn't always work.
Maybe a competition for local artists and designers to create a fountain specific to Hilly Fields?
How about a statue of a Brockley Dogging Society member grinning while urinating mineral water into the air?
i wish dogs wouldn't use these things it's seems so unhygenic
We wanted a human/canine one for the Upper Park but it would have cost a ridiculous amount of money. But so nice - drinking fountain at human level and dog bowl down below. Just could not see why it was so much more costly.
But maybe in due course...
For the record, the poor functioning of the water fountain in Telegraph Hill's Upper Park was raised at the open 'Friends of Telegraph Hill Park' meeting last month. Glendale have been asked to fix it.
Basically, it is a flow issue. At first you get a fine jet, then a dribble. - A medical diagnosis was offered to all assembled.
The one in the TH Lower Park works well.
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