Apparantly we women are supposed to use a face mask of some sort once or twice a week. Those with dry skin use one that hydrates and those with oily/spotty skin use one, such as clay, that absorbs oil. Men with such skin conditions would benefit from this too. Personally I am very lazy so I only use these things about a tenth as often. I used to think I was just being tight with money - but now I have to admit that it's more down to sloth, like how today I didn't even bother to wash my face let alone apply anything else to my skin. It's not as if it's necessary to try too hard, so why bother? As long as you aren't driving men away I suppose. Anyway there's something desperate about high maintainance women, don't you think?

The reason I had to face up (geddit?) to the fact that it is sheer laziness is that I came across a popular recipe for a face mask that costs next to nothing. This recipe is something I found, while reading India Knight's article promoting her book on thrift, in the Times. She explained about the aspirin face mask. She said there were various versions of it on the internet. And sure enough there are. Some say it has helped their acne, while others say it has made it worse, but otherwise everyone who used it gave it the thumbs up. So just don't blame me if it makes your spots worse, okay?

Basically: take 3 uncoated aspirin pills, dab a drop of water on each with your finger before crushing them up with the back of a spoon. Now you can mix a drop of aloe vera or runny honey or cleanser (for example) with this to make a paste sufficient to apply to face and neck. Avoid the eye area and lips. Depending on what you add to it, it suits any skin type. You leave it on for 10 minutes, lightly scrub your skin enough to exfoliate gently, and rinse off followed by applying moisturiser. Unlike with clay masks it doesn't crack up if you find something amusing and it leaves your skin refreshed and softened. Recommended!

Washington (Corrupt, Inc.) - Responding to the sharp falls in the sock market, President Obama urged consumers to shun the depression era mentality of "make do and mend". Instead of darning holes in socks, Obama suggested that there are often surprisingly good bulk buy offers if you look out for them. "To voters concerned about America's national debt, I say: 'Worry not, for a new stimulus box of shiny new socks is here, that we made ourselves out of thin air.'"

Hillary Clinton's suggestion that the new "First Dog" should be named "Socks", as she had named her "First Cat" were rejected as being too likely to remind people of her husband Bill's past sock scandals as President. Not only the matter of "those women", with whose stockings Clinton had rumored insider dealings, but the matter of Clinton encouraging banks to loan inadvisable sums to people who kept their socks to stay warm, yet never paid the money back.

Promising that he would keep his own socks firmly pulled up, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown repeated Obama's message, hopeful that a stimulus to the sock market would improve the Footsie Index. "We live in times of economic winter, but our government will Labour more socks out of nothing to keep our feet warm. I have spoken with President Obama and he promises us that as long as we continue to pull our socks up, we'll stay warm at least up to our knees the winter through."

In the past week I have discovered some amazing facts about female sexuality. I have yet to recover from this.

The first shocker was that, physically speaking, women are hornier than men. Much much more so. In fact if our minds were aroused as much as our bodies and we acted on it... well, the world would be a very different place. We would make bonobos look restrained. In fact bonobos come into the research which discovered this phenomenon:

All was different with the women. No matter what their self-proclaimed sexual orientation, the women showed, on the whole, strong and swift genital arousal when the screen offered men with men, women with women, and women with men. They responded objectively much more to the exercising woman than to the strolling man, and their blood flow rose quickly and markedly as they watched the apes, though to a lesser degree than during all the human scene.

If scientists weren't too sexist to do the experiment, they would almost certainly find normal woman are as likely to react to photos of women in sexual poses as if they were "objects" as men were found to. Which might delight lesbian feminists as much as it annoys them!

The body says "yes" but the brain is not so keen. Unlike men, whose brains tend to agree strongly with the advice in their pants, a woman will only allow herself to become mentally turned on when it fits in with the woman's sexual orientation. This includes a little self-denial since a woman may fear that sexual arousal on viewing a sexual image of a woman implies they want to plug a dyke, when the alternative explanation is that it is more down to a sort of involuntary fantasising, which has more to do with the imaginary presence of a man.

The fact that the mind does not engage with the physical arousal explains the levels of sexual "dysfunction" in women (lack of desire) and is the reason why foreplay can take so long for women - when it seems counterintuitive considering women get physically aroused as fast as men.

The explanation is that natural selection has favored females who are wet enough not to be as damaged when a male attempts to give them a surprise package. As a woman, I think all this research sums up everything I wanted to know about the female sexual response but never dared to ask! It should revolutionize intercourse on sexual differences.

When I hear of someone who has suffered heartbreak because of the way they were let down by girlfriends or boyfriends, I am sympathetic, but mostly in the way that I have sympathy for someone who has a weak immune system and catches every flu virus going while continuing to shun vegetables and eat too much sugar. In other words I think it's only bad luck for them that they somehow got programed to repeatedly make choices that are inadvisable. Many people are drawn towards romantic partners of a type that they themselves may even sense is not going to lead to happiness. It's as if they seek punishment.

So is it possible that any advice can prevent people getting in a mess like that? Perhaps not. Perhaps mate selection is such an instinct-driven process that you either have the right template or you don't. Upbringing and relationship with the opposite sex parent is a known influence; for example, a girl who had an abusive father sometimes becomes so sure that she deserves to be treated that way that she is only attracted to abusive men as boyfriends. And then there is the tendency to go for someone based on physical resemblance to your mum or dad. Which narrows the range and increases the chances of falling in love with someone who looks right but has an incompatible character.

There are different ways of getting hurt though. I have never had a broken heart, but I certainly have had my pride hurt by a (deserved) rejection from guys I've been out with a few times - moving on because we were not in love and not even on the same page. There's one rule I have followed, and no doubt its easier said than done, but I firmly advise anyone not to fall in love with another unless you feel it is mutual and shows the signs of being able to last long-term. Love may be blind, but you can try and suss out what someone is like before you allow yourself to fall. Don't forget that in ancient times couples hardly ever fell in love until after they were married. Marriage was primarily a practical partnership for efficient rearing of a family - and still is in various cultures.

I can understand that a broken heart feels a lot like bereavement and I just wish people would take more care to avoid it, Yet without fear of getting close to anyone and eventually allowing themselves to experience the mind-blowing sensation of infatuation and then love. Just try to hold it back until you both come to that together - yet retain a tiny seed of skepticism in case you need to fall back on it one day. It is so annoying when you get (mostly young men) afraid to approach women because they are scared of rejection or getting hurt. Women tend to bounce back more quickly. I suppose there is some evolutionary reason for this.

Whites slap on the fake tan or get skin cancer and serious burns from sunbathing and tanning beds, meanwhile the naturally brown are eager to beautify themselves into a glamorous white ideal with creams that bleach the skin:

You know L'Oreal. The "Because you're worth it" company. The world's biggest beauty products manufacturer, whose product lines range from the Body Shop to Soft Sheen Carson, the leading haircare brand for women of African origin. L'Oreal faces include Beyonce, Penelope Cruz and Aishwarya Rai. In a recent glossy report about sustainable development (the cover is a portrait of a Mauritanian woman), L'Oreal devotes several pages to its commitment to good corporate citizenship and in particular to "skin and hair diversity".

In the meantime, young brown women in India, please buy our whitening cream – 16% increase in brightness in one week, 32% increase in luminosity in four weeks, and intense action on your brown spots.

All this exploitation of consumers to make them pay to look like another group of people reminds me of Dr Seuss's wonderful poem, The Sneetches, in which the trickster capitalist cynically targets his gullible market to make himself a fortune:

I've come here to help you.
I have what you need.
And my prices are low. And I work with great speed.
And my work is one hundred per cent guaranteed!"

Then, quickly, Sylvester McMonkey McBean
Put together a very peculiar machine.
And he said, "You want stars like a Star-Belly Sneetch?
My friends, you can have them for three dollars each!"

"Just pay me your money and hop right aboard!"
So they clambered inside. Then the big machine roared.
And it klonked. And it bonked. And it jerked. And it berked.
And it bopped them about. But the thing really worked!
When the Plain-Belly Sneetches popped out, they had stars!
They actually did. They had stars upon thars!

Then they yelled at the ones who had stars at the start,
"We're still the best Sneetches and they are the worst.
But now, how in the world will we know", they all frowned,
"If which kind is what, or the other way round?

Dr Seuss', "The Sneetches and Other Stories"

There was once a wise old hermit who had lived all his adult life isolated in a log cabin in a huge forest. The old man had a remarkable talent; he had figured out how to communicate with birds. One day, while picking mushrooms and berries, he noticed a young female thrush sitting on a branch. He decided to offer the bird the benefit of some wisdom.

"Little bird," the hermit said, " you face a short life, fraught with danger. There are many predators in this forest and the air above that may kill you. You must do your best to avoid such beasts as foxes, wild cats, bears and birds of prey." The bird looked quizzically at the old man, who went on, "you must listen out for the song of the male of your species and choose out a good mate." The bird made no response, but looked at him with one eye and then the other.

"Then you must ensure you keep your eggs warm, bring your offspring up with care and keep them well fed until they fly the nest". The hermit stopped to think what further wisdom he could impart to help the bird in his life, and felt satisfied that the bird would now benefit from his logic and insight. The bird finally responded. "I don't need to be told this - I still have my instincts!" she twittered as she flew off.

Corrupt Hq (Corrupt, Inc.) - Researchers suggest that by imitating the bored and disinterested mannerisms of the wealthy, single men can attract women looking for cash to spend -- even if they're not wealthy. Instead of pretending their other car is a Porsche, they can use nonchalant body language to give the impression they are a millionaire.

Forget all those self-help books that tell you the importance of paying attention, seeming interested in what she says, nodding, laughing and eye contact. All you achieve with these behaviors is to show you are most likely broke. People from wealthy backgrounds have unmistakable nonverbal behavior, they fidget, they yawn and they doodle. Do this and you give the signals that you are a millionaire.

This stimuli will be processed in your date's amygdala immediately causing strong feelings of arousal and fantasies of rampant spending sprees. Such insouciance tells the object of your desire immediately that you come from such a wealthy family that you don't have to give a stuff about other people - you don't need them because you have so much money. It's a cinch.

NEW YORK (Corrupt, Inc.) - ACLU may sue a state funded New York public school for teaching extreme pre-Christian practices that violates basic human rights. According to ACLU representative Mark Toleranz, any idea not directly proven by scientific evidence, becomes a form of religion and must be stopped under the Constitution.

The concept that "all men are created superheroes," which is attributed to Abraham Lincoln is one such faith-based idea which has no scientific grounding. The idea of tolerance is not inclusive enough, since it alienates those of alternative, supremacist, faiths in which "outsiders" are regarded as infidels whose skulls need to be crushed between rocks, for example, as well as those who sacrifice preeteen virgins to the Sun God in order to bring their followers Voodoo power, and to whom goats and/or snakes are holy animals, with marriage initiated by forcing the bride to sleep with at least 500 hairy men from the same village.

Another ACLU representative also identified several politically correct falsehoods at the school, contradicting scientific knowledge. This led to the singling out of a geography class in which it was taught that Africa is a country; a sex ed lesson teaching that condoms prevent AIDS and scary boyfriends at blind dates, a biology class told that natural selection is a random process regulated from a distant galaxy, and a history class in which the teacher insisted the reason the nazis lost WWII was "because they were pure evil."

The school has promised to make the relevant changes and comply with legal requirements.

It's the question on all Catholips: is the Pope an atheist?

The Pope has had a pop at the mounting claims of lunatics and wanna-be cult leaders to have seen visions of the Virgin Mary or Christ. Now such claims will be intimately probed by a team of Bishops and psychiatrists in what critics are hysterically calling a new Inquisition. Would a psychiatrist consider anyone sane who says they have seen such things?

It's about time there was some regulation; after all, some people have worked out how to get Holy likenesses burnt into slices of toast, which can make them a fortune on ebay. It's a sticky situation for the Pope, and not just because of the marmalade, since if all such apparitions, stigmata and personal conversations with bearded men on clouds are now under suspicion it will be impossible to find any genuine examples. The only ones that can be approved will be those the Church gives a nod and a wink to - preferably after a substantial financial donation or agreement to drop allegations involving young boys.

Has the Pope lost faith in visions of Holy characters following his surprising apologetic acceptance of the works of the heretics Charles Darwin, Galileo, David Icke and Oprah? It's enough to get rosary beads in a universal tangle. Could he be a secret atheist who wears a condom, and dances the Hokey Cokey? One day he may have been struck by the blazing light reflecting from Occam's Razor, and become possessed by the conviction that one should not add God to the equation at all, if he's not necessary to explain the world. If recent pronouncements on biological determinism (misinterpreted as gay bashing) are anything to go by, he is rapidly becoming a devotee of Richard "The God Delusion" Dawkins.

Reading the news today I found a flurry of current stories about fatties. Perhaps "flurry" doesn't convey the necessary gravity, since it is not a matter to take lightly. The most recent data; previously classified information, delayed from public scrutiny a few years lest it cause mass apathy, shows that numbers of obese Americans (34%) now outnumber the merely overweight (32.7). Yet it can't be any fewer now, even with the tasty sounding "credit crunch" biting.

You have to be a blimp before even showing up on the radar as being officially "overweight". I would have to be 15kg or so heavier before qualifying, and by then I would look full-term pregnant with triplets. Talking of which: a hell of a lot of obese women are somehow overcoming their reduced fertility and are now "eating for two."

Some British maternity units have had to widen doorways of delivery rooms because so many women of gargantuan proportions are breeding. Up to half of women giving birth in some areas are obese. It's phenomenal! But you know what these women will say: "Me?! Obese?! I'm pregnant!". It's the obvious way to justify rotundity and to prove someone found their kancles sexy. This is now the lifestyle choice of the majority of US voters. Isn't it fascinating to see such rapid evolution within a generation?

Good news for any gamers living near the Franklin Mills shopping mall in northeast Philadelphia. Now you can play as much as you like for free - just as long as you "can't make up your mind" to join the army. The games are variants of old favourites: Kabulmageddon, Pakiman or the SAMs. But don't be fooled into thinking that a career fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq will simulate the excitement of this recruiting office. Real war is much slower and literally nothing happens for days until, just as you can't take any more heat, your head gets blown off by someone whose name is as likely to be Joe as Muhammed. Enjoy!

Recent research has shown that women don't like their partners to be domineering - as if this is some kind of surprise. A lot of reports now tend to be all about confirming the stark nakedly obvious.

Being domineering isn't a trait in any way exclusive to male personalities, as women are more than capable of being bullies. Yet why is it that only women are accused of being nags? Men nag worse than I ever would, as I am repeatedly making clear. There's a saracastic saying though: women nag, but men remind. Nagging is not quite the same thing as being domineering though, it's more like being whiny.

Being domineering is arrogant, "you will do as I say and I don't want to hear any objection" rather than considering other options. It is the caveman dragging the mate off by the hair. It's no wonder if women don't like men to be domineering towards them. What we DO like, however, is that our partner is able to make firm decisions and has a "take charge" attitude. It really isn't the same thing as being domineering. The alternative, after all, is a man who doesn't know what he wants to do. We want him to know what to do, but it had better be the right thing, or else.

A survey this month found that almost three quarters of doctors believe in miracles. Somehow I doubt that this news is all that reasurring to a patient, even if they are themselves religious. We want doctors to have faith in the medicines they give us, but we would prefer that this confidence came from the scientific proof of its efficacy rather than through keeping their fingers crossed and hoping for divine intervention. There is a problem though. Being a doctor is not a very happy career for those who demand that medicines are thoroughly tested, safe and beneficial to patients. Maybe this is why those who believe in miracles end up dominating the medical profession.

It has occasionally been observed that when doctors go on strike, the death rate drops significantly.

To find out whether the industrial action was affecting deaths in the country, the Jerusalem Post interviewed non-profit making Jewish burial societies, which perform funerals for the vast majority of Israelis. Hananya Shahor, the veteran director of Jerusalems Kehilat Yerushalayim burial society said, "The number of funerals we have performed has fallen drastically." Meir Adler, manager of the Shamgar Funeral Parlour, which buries most other residents of Jerusalem, declared with much more certainty: "There definitely is a connection between the doctors sanctions and fewer deaths. We saw the same thing in 1983 when the Israel Medical Association applied sanctions for four and a half months."

For those who think in black and white: no I am not saying that doctors only do harm, after all, if they never helped anyone there wouldn't be any apparent miracles now would there? You should see a doctor if you really feel you need to, but it is a good thing that you can check for yourself what the possible side-effects may be of whatever drug they administer to you. Sound fair?

After a series of prescription-medication scares in recent years, consumers are receiving a flood of safety information about the drugs they take -- so much that it risks scaring some people.Too much information about drug safety -- disseminated through media, online alerts from consumer watchdog groups and even by the Food and Drug Administration itself -- might overwhelm patients and raise undue alarm, some medical professionals caution. A Pfizer Inc. survey of 300 medical professionals in March found that 89% of respondents were at least somewhat concerned that patients might stop their medications if potentially negative safety information was released to the public too early.

Let's hope these professionals don't succeed in having this information taken away from us. Some of us like to weigh up risks, but we are probably in the minority anyway to judge by the wreck society is in. If people eat GM crops, never mind smoking and generally unhealthy lifestyles, it is not that likely many will worry much about what's in the magic pills their faith healer doles out. If you do check it out, you can try to make an educated choice.

Financial pressures and incentives put upon the medical profession by corporate bullies are the biggest threat to drug safety. Doctors are bribed to sell certain brands and practices such as paying doctors per vaccine shot encourage coercion to maximise uptake.

Critics, including prominent cancer and kidney doctors, say the payments give physicians an incentive to prescribe the medicines at levels that might increase patients risks of heart attacks or strokes.

Sometimes the drug company conspires to lie to the doctors.

In her lawsuit, Gleason charges she was sexually harassed and, eventually, fired because she refused to follow orders to market the drug for all purposes, such as telling docs the drug could be used in lower-cost, 100mg doses to treat candidemia. The FDA, though, had not approved Mycamine for that use or dosage. As an example, she cites a June 2007 club luncheon at which a presentation was being made and she refused her supervisor's instructions to discuss an unapproved clinical study article.However, her supervisor, Tom Long, allegedly proceeded to discuss the article. In violation of FDA rules, Mr. Long represented to the physicians who were present at the luncheon that Mycamine 100mg is being used at Tampa General Hospital and Jackson Memorial, two large hospitals in Tampa Regionals sales territory, according to the lawsuit. Mr. Long falsely told the physicians present at the luncheon that, with regard to Mycamine, no one questions the 100 mg anymore, its a given.

In the above case a drug was being pushed for uses other than those it was approved for. But the corruption often starts at an earlier stage in the process. There are side effects for some drugs that you simply cannot discover, unless you find out the hard way.

There's a common assumption that when a drug makes it to market, it has run a rigorous gantlet of testing and proper disclosure. Testing, yes. Disclosure - not necessarily.Findings from many clinical studies assessing prescription drugs never see light of day. That skews the basic scientific record that every patient, physician and researcher needs to judge whether treatments cause more harm than good. There is no easy way to discover how much knowledge we've been missing, raising the possibility that we may be taking medications that are less effective than we've been led to believe or may have undisclosed side effects."

As the medical industry is run for private profit these problems are inevitable. Given that medicine has such a profound impact upon our lives and upon society itself, there is good reason to prioritise strict controls, wiping out the growing mafia-like corruption by Big Pharma. It is hoping for a miracle if anyone expect's this to be tackled under a democracy in which corporations pull political strings.

It's a remarkable fact that many thousands of people seem to relish the thought of the world ending in their lifetimes, and many more than this really don't mind if it is to end, just so long as they get through their own life first.

There is some kind of "death wish" mentality, a coctail of despair mixed with denial. A determination to have as much of a good time as possible in one's own life without any thought of what happens afterwards.

The first group I mentioned, the "end of days" Bible bashers like Sarah Palin who think that a Biblical prophesy is coming into fulfillment and that armageddon is around the corner are not the people I am addressing in this article. They have their beliefs and they are sticking to them. The latter group however have no ideological dogma leading them to conclude, as they typically do, "I don't care what happens in 50 years, since I won't be around to see it". They are not responding to supernatural prophesies when they say this. They are reacting to the deep concerns of the various scientific experts and environmentalists who are increasingly anxious that humanity should change course before we deplete the planet of the resources we, and millions of other species, need to survive, while also polluting and altering the environment so as to destabilise every ecosystem and cause massive sealevel rises. All these predictions may sound like the ravings of religious doom mongers but science has now firmly established that we are well into this process at this moment and that it must be reversed.

Humanity has, with few exceptions, a fatal flaw of always making the wrong decisions and never doing anything to rectify things. Humanity likes to stick its collective head in the sand and imagine somehow things will turn out fine or delegate responsibility for sorting things out to God, to leaders, or to fate itself. Like an obese woman, told that she will die of a heart attack next month if she doesn't change her eating habits and start exercising, many people, assuming you can get them to even accept the path that we are on, will even be honest enough to admit that they simply don't want to allow such an uncomfortable thought into their minds, let alone to change their lifestyle in a way that inconveniences them. A close relative confided "I wouldn't want to live in a world where that was necessary, so I refuse to think about it". Indeed there is this determination to attack the messenger, as if he is really the one creating a threat. The psychology behind the huge determination to give credence to climate change denial, and wave aside all arguments regarding the many other consequences of our unsustainable lifestyles, while the economy is a monster we must continue to feed at any cost, has much to do with this displacement behaviour. "The messenger is making me uncomfortable, he is the real problem" - that is the mindset.

Short-term thinking; making a profit while you can for yourself and refusing to think about the consequences - this is the way to make a lot of money. The length of the human lifespan is a key factor in these calculations. The whole attitude is selfish to the point of psychopathy. It is like a mass insanity. Even though only a minority get rich and do so off the backs of everyone else, corporate capitalism is accepted as legitimate. The attitude is this: I want to (try to) enjoy my life and I don't want to think about what happens after I am dead. Or even: I have enough problems of my own and don't want to add to that by acknowledging I need to take responsibility for the troubles of future generations. Even people who are very charitable to others in their lives often feel this way. That is because the charitableness most often has a self-centered motive behind it anyway: making the giver feel better, or improving their status.

How might things change if people have this bombshell dropped on them: your lifespan can be expanded ten fold, you could live to be as old as one thousand years?

Humans were not evolved to grasp the concept of living over such a length of time. It would cause a revolution in the way we do almost everything: from relationships and having a family to how we plan to use our time, to how we intend to keep ourselves fit and healthy, and ambitions. It is fairly impossible to go into speculation about how much it would shake up our lives if it became possible for most of us to opt to live for such a lenghth of time. Yet with the self-centered obsession that leads people to prioritise their own life experiences over those of future generations, most people would leap at the opportunity to live for centuries.

Now there is increasing reason to believe that this incredible possibility is going to become reality very soon. How many people will be hoping it happens in their lifetime? Perhaps as many as those who say they don't care what disasters humans store up for the world as long as that happens when they are dead and gone? The irony!

The first person to live to be 1,000 years old is certainly alive today ... whether they realize it or not, barring accidents and suicide, most people now 40 years or younger can expect to live for centuries" says Aubrey de Grey, a leading gerontologist at Cambridge University.

Breakthroughs from stem cell research and genetic engineering have resulted in some scientists, not just de Grey, expecting that very soon it will be possible to do with humans what has already been achieved with yeast.

Humans, unlike animals who think no further than their immediate needs, would have to reevaluate their world-view dramatically on the assumption that they could really be around to find out first hand what a state the planet has been left in. Instead of future generations cursing their ancestors - you can't expect ancestor worship to last when your ancestors have bequeathed you a hell on Earth, it will be we who are adults today who may be forced, like Ebenezer Scrooge compelled by the Ghost of Christmas future, to have a look at what our greed and irresponsibility has led to. And if nothing is done now, we may yet live experience the pain. So let's make a tomorrow we would look forward to instead!

In parts of the US supplies are so vulnerable that last autumn the Red Cross delivered water parcels to the town of Orme in Tennessee. 'I thought, "That can't be the Red Cross. We're Americans!"' resident Susan Anderson told a reporter. In California, some farmers abandoned their crops this year as Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared the first state-wide drought for 17 years. Meanwhile Barcelona was so desperate that it began importing tankers of water from cities along the coast. Even in the notoriously wet UK, water has become such a problem in the crowded southeast that one company plans to build a desalination plant, the sort of desperate measure associated with oil-rich desert states.

The Stockholm International Water Institute talks about 'an acute and devastating humanitarian crisis'; the founder of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, warns of a 'perfect storm'; Ban Ki-Moon, the United Nations Secretary General, has raised the spectre of 'water wars'. And, as the population keeps growing and getting richer, and global warming changes the climate, experts are warning that unless something is done, billions more will suffer lack of water - precipitating hunger, disease, migration and ultimately conflict.

Most of us at times have had to cut back on our water use, perhaps installing a toilet that has a half-flush function, using a shower rather than bath, or throwing out water used for washing dishes into the garden, careful to avoid hitting grandma in the deckchair, when it hasn't rained in a while. But it was a shock to me when I realised how much water goes into making so many things, from food to clothes, and all objects resulting from industry. The little we conserve from our personal attempts is as insignificant to the environment as a nation turning to eco lightbulbs while building a new runway at Stanstead Airport. In other words: spitting into the wind.

It is remarkable to learn that it takes 13 litres to grow just one tomato, and 1000 litres to produce a litre of milk. 8000 litres are needed to produce a pair of leather shoes, and clothes manufacturing is particularly wasteful with one cotton t-shirt requiring 2000 litres of water (and heck knows how many thousands of litres of toxic chemicals).

Many of these products are produced in countries that suffer from worse water shortages than westerners do, so we are effectively using up their water supplies. You may dryly dismiss that as being just their problem, and not worth crying a river over, but it has implications for manufacturing in the long-term because something has got to give. Producing goods at such a price cannot continue much longer. As water's cost rises so will the cost of nearly everything else.

Each Briton uses about 150 litres of tap water a day, but if you include the amount of water embedded within products our water consumption is around 3400 litres every day!

If present levels of consumption continue, two-thirds of the global population will live in areas of water stress by 2025. Increasing human demand for water coupled with the effects of climate change mean that the future of our water supply is not secure.

Water consumption varies widely from one country to another, with Americans being the biggest drips, using 600 litres each a day, while Europeans soak up 250 and Africans paddle in a mere 30 - which sounds like what you would need simply to quench thirst and avoid BO (no, I don't mean any future US president). But how much water does it take to produce an African? Some economising by reducing the expansion of the population wouldn't be a bad idea. Yet it is astounding the amount of water, never mind immigrants, flooding from there to the west.

About 70 per cent of the water consumed by people in the UK, for example, comes from overseas, according to Waterwise, a UK government-funded body that aims to reduce water usage by businesses. It is imported in the form of food, clothing, computers and cars. These imports give people in developed countries a far higher “water footprint” than people in poor countries.

But the west has been feeling the pain of droughts in various countries, and global warming is set to bring further problems like this.

In the world today, over a billion people lack safe drinking water. As tension mounts between states competing for diminished supplies of “blue gold,” the global water industry is expected to become a trillion-dollar-a-year operation within a decade.

Up until now, no single publication has given shape and meaning to statistics about water use, re-use, and control. With a range of maps of startling clarity and richness of detail, The Water Atlas brings together the latest findings to show water distribution worldwide, the real cost of use in water-rich countries, and the dangers of a future where privatization and profit dictate availability. The atlas covers a wide range of topics, from consumption and scarcity to areas of political tension and looming catastrophes. Including detailed profiles of vulnerable regions—such as California, the Middle East, and India—as well as bold summaries of the global picture, The Water Atlas will be a unique resource for general readers as well as health professionals, advocates, and students.

There are beneficiaries of this crisis, achieving a sinister level of global influence and vast profits, and who must be moist with excitement and anticipation of heavier cash flow. These capitalists aim to make money out of water, controlling the supply like Moses commanded the Red Sea. Water should be free, like the air we breathe. But we can't even take clean air for granted as pollution levels rise. Overpopulation is a critical factor but, to the profiteers, the thirstier the people the more liquidity for them. And money is power: the power that decides the policies.