Water

I don’t think I’ve ever come across any unnatural spring water and I shudder when I try to think of the form that it might take, but when the cabin attendant delivered my bottle of natural spring water the packaging gave me cause for reflection.

I suppose in defence of the marketeers that there are very few ways of making water attractive in the marketplace short of calling it beer.

I did give passing thought to the fact that when one is sitting on an aircraft, desirous of a simple drink of water, one could probably question the need for marketeers involvement in the packaging at all.

I imagine that if I was the manager of the graphics department in a large marketing company I’d be inclined to leave the packaging of something as simple as a bottle of water whether from a natural spring or not, entirely in the hands of one of the upwardly mobile young things in the office, it’d be great experience for them after all. A bit of a taste for the real world eh?

It wouldn't be a task that would demand a good deal of experience I would have thought, but do think I’d stop short of flicking it to someone on work experience from the local tuck shop though.

I’m not usually prone to giving harsh criticism of this sort of thing, after all the label on a water bottle label is hardly going to have a lasting impact on the way I live, and it was hardly going to be an impulse decision, held firmly as I was by my seat belt unless moving around the cabin. I must say I was initially curious rather than impressed by the simplicity of the somewhat drab, two toned grey colour scheme, spoilt by what I thought was a mark where someone had pulled a bit of sticky tape off it.

Perhaps the words “Fresh Spirit” rising vertically in the fine print were there to instill me with confidence that this water was not just natural, but supernatural. Or had they just cropped the label a bit long and left some printing from the margins in the real thing accidentally, I wondered.

Then I put my glasses on and realised that what I thought was an unfortunate accidental defect in the packaging was just as unfortunately although quite irrelevantly, an apparent rendition of a cloud.

A cloud, juxtaposed with a flying kangaroo, a natural spring and a fresh spirit, on a blue-grey sky, with a wide grey land hanging below. All I wanted was a drink of water.

Next time I think I'll have a Coke and leave the natural stuff to people who understand these things.