Don’t flush your wee. Share a (short) shower. Keep a (small) bowl of water by the sink to wash your hands.

Reluctant as I am to catastrophise a situation, with five ongoing national emergencies, to quote Dad’s Army’s Private Fraser, we’re doomed.

It’s time to wake up and all do our bit to mitigate against the worst of the cluster of right old mess ups we’re in, even if that is only turning off the tap while you brush your teeth. Every little helps, and, with the magnitude of issues the UK faces, it’s probably all individuals can do.

On top of everything else, warnings are in crescendo about droughts in August.

The hot tub and garden pool brigade might be sticking their fingers in their ears continuing to soak up tens of gallons per household on their home leisure centres, but the summer of 2022 will be remembered for the time when the UK grasped reality of what we all take for granted.

Until this year, water, electricity, and gas were, literally, on tap. Rarely a second thought was given by anyone to where they came from because they were there, like magic, to do their jobs, switched on and off at will, as long as bills were paid.

Almost overnight, they are increasingly scarce commodities and face shortages. We’re profligate with them all.

Now at the 'prolonged dry weather stage’, with drought conditions and water restrictions looming, comes a warning that escalating energy bills from October may well top £4,000 a year, with January bills alone at £500. That, in most families’ cases, is disastrous.

There hasn’t been a drought in England for four years.

And while the horrifying fires of last week in record temperatures felt like freak events, they were just the start of a new normal threatening to destroy more homes, land and life as the climate crisis escalates.

The most severe on record was in 1976, when water supplies were restricted, trees were destroyed by moisture stress, and dried out moor and heathlands set on fire. Last week’s temperatures dwarfed those.

Everyone – hot tub owners, that means you – has a responsibility to use water, and energy, responsibly and treat them as they are, valuable crucial resources to be treated with respect.

Most of our water goes down the bathroom plug hole, so is the obvious place to start. Surprisingly only 1% of water use is via garden hosepipes, although that’s the first restriction to be imposed in droughts.

Each person uses an average of around 150 litres a day. Our showers - 60 litres vs 80 litres - account for 25%, toilet 22% and taps, 29%.

The UK uses an estimated 16 billion litres of water every day across homes and businesses, according to the Energy Saving Trust.

The National Drought Group, the Environment Agency and water companies this week urged people to be mindful with their usage to avoid shortages during hotter spells.

We should all invest in energy efficient shower heads and units to decrease our water usage.

In the kitchen, washing machines use the most water (9%) – use only for full loads - followed by hand washed dishes (4%) and the dishwasher (1%).

It’s basic, but boiling the kettle with only enough water for what you need is an effective way to conserve water

It’s time we grasped the scarcity of what we treat as plentiful supplies and become mindful responsible users.

Times of emergence call for emergency measures. It’s time to buckle up and face the nightmare time ahead full on.

There’s no point moaning about the situation. It is as it is and we all must do our bit, carefully and responsibly with water, energy, and fuel.

Be mindful, not miserable, and empty those hot tubs and garden pools on your lawns and beds, unless you want to become social pariahs.

If you can’t share a bath, share a car.

Small-minded parents drag fun event into the gutter

Donkeys years ago, I had a blazing row with someone who equated gay men to paedophiles. Their logic – a man who fancied a man must fancy little boys too.

They had no answer to the logical conclusion to their argument was that straight men must find little girls attractive.

Depressingly, years on, that type of small-minded nonsense prevails. Some of a gaggle of shouting placard-waving protestors outside a library in Reading stormed a story hour hosted by a drag queen, Aida H Dee.

The three to 11-year-olds gathered for Drag Queen Story Hour UK faced angry grownups screaming paedophile at the sequin-adorned 27-year-old, who was escorted to safety by police who arrived in a riot van amid shouts of "disgusting" and "child grooming.”

Drag Queen Story Hour UK was inappropriate for children, they said, and insisted they were protecting children.

One asked Aida if he knew what "autogynephilia" is – the term for when men are sexually aroused by thinking of being female.

I wonder if these are the same parents who embrace the ‘traditional’ pantomime for their children every year and laugh like drains at the pantomime dame or defend as ‘traditional’ seaside Punch and Judy, complete with the wife battering, pet battering and hilarious violence.

All their bigoted fury would have achieved was to cause more trauma to those poor children expecting an entertaining story than any man story telling in sequins could