The power of water
Maggie Black wrestles with the economic and political might of water.

The water privateers
There were business interests behind water privatization in Britain, looking for lucrative contracts overseas, as Geoffrey Baker reports.

Two tales of pollution
What is wrong with our water? Consumers think one thing. Experts another. A comic strip drawn by Jim Needle.

Water in life and death
A spiritual quest. Reflections from William Raeper in Nepal.

The writing on the dam
The mega-dam is on the way to being busted, thanks to mounting people power. Robin Wiseman explains.

The grand embankment
Could Bangladesh's floods be controlled by shutting in its mighty rivers? Annette Bingham is doubtful.

WATER - THE FACTS

The decade flows on
The UN's Water Decade did not achieve what it said it would. Yet everyone says it has been a great success. Why? Brian Appleton and Maggie Black explain.

The fiery serpent and
the new party offices
The campaign to eradicate guinea worm from Nigeria is ready to run - but politics are getting in the way. Elizabeth Obadina reports.

Simply: the magic of water

Mrs Oyepeju's pump
The handpump broke down, with unforeseeable consequences. A short story by Maggie Black.

I can't write 'I'. Come on Maggie, you're surely not that self-effacing! Now look here Chris, do you realise that in the US no self-respecting journalist ever writes 'I'? What do they write then? 'A visitor' third person, if they absolutely have to. Shall I write: 'A guest editor'? No, certainly not, this is where we reveal ourselves, show NI behind the scenes. Why can't you [Chris, production] be revealed, and Alan [design], and Kate [typesetting]. We could all be revealed together. No, this is the letter from the Editor. Anything except your sex life. I see. OK.

Hallo Punters. (That's what you're sometimes called around here. I'm not an American but I just came back from living there for a number of years, and no-one's heard of punters there. To me a punter is a person with a pole in the back of a boat on the Cherwell River.) No good! Culture-centric! Come on Maggie, please get on with it, you're wasting space.

While I was putting together this magazine, I became so fascinated by the way our entire language is infused with liquid metaphors and watery words that I saved them up on my Wordstar diskette (I hate WordStar but that's what the NI uses), and I was just going to pour enough of them out onto the page to fill up the Editor's Letter, and that would have been it. No no, quite unsuitable. Jug of cold water.

What shall I write about then? Tell them about what it used to be like being an editor here. After all you were the first woman editor, say what it's like to come back and how it's all changed. Heart sinks. Are you sure the punters want to know? Anyway it hasn't changed, not much. Still a bunch of bruisable egos, intellectual rapiers, overwork, frantic deadlines, furrowed brows, radical fervour, Nicaraguan coffee, Tanzanian tea. Time flows by. Well, not quite true, Somoza was still in power then so the coffee was Tanzanian and the tea, well never mind about the tea. Soaking up the ambience.

That was 1977. The first NI issue about women. My co-editor, unreconstructed from a gender point of view, wrote an editorial, left it on my desk, and went off on holiday. It never occurred to me to protest. Wet blanket. I simply omitted to use it. Water under the bridge. That wouldn't happen today. Not now we are person-conscientized. On the whole it's a great improvement, but I did protest about 'handypeople'. Against the stream. Chris, I'm not having handypeople in this issue. Maggie, this Editor's letter isn't at all what it should be, and mankind is not mankind, it's co-operative policy. Ah. There is a tide in the affairs of person.

I'd forgotten what it takes to be an NI editor. It's quite tough you know. Breasting the waves. You have to learn your stuff (I knew water and sanitation from writing about it for UNICEF, but this was different). And then you have to get the best people to write it and draw it the best way at rates, well, there's another thing that doesn't change much. Drop in the bucket. I hope you enjoy it. I did. Swimmingly.

Letters
Letter from La Paz
Update
Endpiece: by Dinyar Godrej
Reviews: including Thomas Hardy classic
Country profile: Trinidad and Tobago

FRONT COVER PHOTO FROM INDIA :
Philip Jones-Griffiths / Magnum
ONLINE MAG MAINTAINED BY SIMON LOFFLER