I am on a training course, learning about the most exciting development in IT since the last one. Struggling to stay awake, I stand up, cross the room and start to pour myself some bottled water. The label on the bottle, being somewhat more interesting than the course material, engages my attention. It is a piece of copywriting gold.
The cool, clear, natural mineral water sourced from the Caledonian spring on the Eastern edge of the Campsie Fells is one of Scotland's purest mineral waters. For centuries the Campsie fault has guided and filtered the Scottish rains through layers of volcanic rock to create an underground source of purified natural mineral water. Caledonian mineral water is exclusively bottled on a protected estate owned by one family since 1508.
Let's just check that...
Natural - check
Filtered - check
Pure - check
Sounds perfect. All I have to do is raise it to my lips and - wait, what's this?
Best before June 2009.
Um. Excuse me? Could you just run that by me again?
The cool, clear, natural mineral water -
No, the bit at the end.
Best before June 2009.
Oh, right. Because after centuries of filtering through volcanic rock, and then being stored in a hermetically sealed bottle, it might go off within the the next two years?
No, after the next two years. Well, one year and ten months now. Come on, drink up.
Ah, that's all right then. Mmmm, tastes really, er, tasteless. What did you say was in it again?
Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium, Sodium, Bicarbonate, Sulphate, Nitrate, Fluoride, Chloride, Silicate.
Can't get much purer than that.
*Raises hand*
ReplyDeletePlease sir, I know the answer...
It's to do with permeation and the plasticiser in the bottle itself.
Hmm.. I wonder, do thay have a date on glass bottles which is a totally different story all together. I bet they do.
"Eastern edge of the Campsie Fells"..
ReplyDeleteThat'll be Possilpark then?
Brom - So what about cardboard containers of salt?
ReplyDeleteMisssy - So it's that kind of estate?
You can get the "fuck, it's all we have left" for a conference bit.
ReplyDeleteAt which point, I bugger off to the nearest bar and get a nice deal with a promise that I will bring all the sad twats with loads of money to the bar
Hooray - free beer for me
And the air you breathe? Best if inhaled before 2008.
ReplyDeleteI buy a drink called iron bru from time to time Mr farty sir, not sure what the shelf life is but I'm sure it does actually feature as the subject of a whole verse in that Zager and Evans song from the sixties. I don't know if you can get it in Scotland though
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine has some old bicarb of soda that says best before 3050!
ReplyDeleteI don't understand the fascination with bottled water. Why pay £1 for something you can get from the tap?
ReplyDeleteGuess I'll keep drinkin the heard stuff... either way, something will kill me! ;-)
ReplyDeleteoops, I meant HARD STUFF (trying to multi task while typing)
ReplyDeleteLOL
S - You, my friend, are a genius. *salutes*
ReplyDeleteBOSSY - On the subject of fresh air, have you read Michael Jackson's blog? Plug plug.
Rilly - I didn't need to look up Zager and Evans, I heart that song. And I believe the drink to which you are alluding is made from bits that fell off of the original Forth Bridge.
John - Yes, it lasts a long time because nobody wants to touch it!
Cat - This post was partly inspired by an item about Pepsi marketing bottled tap water. In Epistles To The Corkonians.
J - Sounds like you've been drinking too much of the heard stuff already!