The word drought means the lack of anything, which we sure have, but we mostly think of it in terms of water.

Two weeks ago before the official drought, I suggested we all put out a low rimed container like a flower-pot base filled with water for the wildlife.

I mentioned we may even get an unexpected visitor.

When I checked my own container to top up with water, I found a wasp standing on the edge drinking the water, that was a surprise!

Last week I went for a short walk in Dawlish Countryside park, it looked unnervingly still and dead, apart from some dust blowing around on the Sun baked ground.

No wonder the wasp was taking its chances of a drink.

The Land Trust, who looks after the parkland, has banned barbecues and any fires, and yes, a cigarette does constitute a fire. But I noticed someone has already tried to burn the notice saying, ‘No BBQs.’

The country I love seems to have turned into the Wild-West with no law and order since I was young.

A famous saying from history said: ‘the leaders were fiddling while Rome was burning.’

Whether it was literally playing the fiddle or just not doing their job properly, or blaming the new Christian movement for everything, we many never know, but probably all of it.

As someone who writes about the environment and science, I have never seen a time when there are so many issues to write about; it’s quite a test.

So let’s focus on water. Continue to help the wildlife. Get rid of any large shower heads and replace it with a fine environmentally friendly head.

Time your shower to four minutes if you have short hair and no more than 5 minutes if you wash your long hair.

Don’t take a bath unless just 150mm of water.

When running off cold water to get to the hot water, don’t throw that water down the sink, but catch it in the bowl and water the garden with it.

Last week I reread the book, The Earth and the Genesis of Code, a book I wrote in 2008.

In this book I gave a long list of what we must do immediately to stop global warming.

The most frightening thing about my reread was that not one of the things I listed all that time ago, has really been actioned properly to stop a runaway climate crisis by any government that I am aware of, apart from one remote small beautiful kingdom in Asia in the foothills of the Himalayas called Bhutan.

If this is not fiddling while Rome burns, then please explain! Clearly it must be time for the people to shout from the roof tops, ‘that we want a long-term action plan on water; food; energy and climate change, and not – Carry on up the Khyber,’ while everything burns!