If you’re a resident of the UK, the likelihood is that your water bills are soon going to rise dramatically, and if you’re not - but sometimes travel here for either business or pleasure, you’ll likely soon be paying more for your stay because the establishment that hosts you will be attempting to cover its higher water bills by increasing its own prices. It’s a knock-on effect of someone not doing their job properly... someone has to pay, even if it’s not the perpetrator of the ‘crime’. And in cases such as these and in the bigger scheme of things, we all pay, since our planet’s being damaged, along with our health, since the muck you can see in this pic of the River Wye at Monmouth in Wales, and whatever it breaks down into, isn’t going to stay local. When are we going to start treating this type of vandalism with the seriousness it deserves? 

  

In other news, I was sent the following, in response to last week’s Leader, by one of our 20,000 US readers who’s asked to remain anonymous. “During my second month of college many years ago, our professor gave us a pop quiz. I was a conscientious student and had breezed through the questions until I read the last one: ‘What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?’ Surely this was some kind of joke! I’d seen the cleaning woman several times. She was tall, dark-haired and in her 50s, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the answer to the last question blank. Just before class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our quiz grade. ‘Absolutely,’ said the professor. ‘In your careers, you’ll meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say hello’. I've never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy.” Now that professor’s worth his weight in gold, don’t you think?