I was walking along the Danube this morning, watching as tons of sweaty men and woman hauled sandbags to bolster up the flood defences. The Danube is at a record high, and already many roads are under water, which at least has the benefit of reducing congestion on those roads.
It struck me that this seemed to be a terribly labour intensive way of fighting the floods, and it doesn’t address the fundamental problem: the level of water.
Fortunately, there is another way. Instead of sand bags, use tea bags.
Now, the immediate advantage of the tea bags is that they are lighter, thus reducing back sprains, etc, but the real beauty comes in the method of reducing the water level.
If the Danube is stocked with lots of tea bags, it will immediately become not a murky, polluted river, but a giant source of tastiness, and let’s face it: the ‘Blue’ Danube is already brown, so a few tea bags won’t make a big difference.
All the government has to do is equip every citizen with a teapot and let them fill up from the river. The water level will drop very quickly, and sales of biscuits will shoot up, boosting the local economy.
I will kick off this process by symbolically dropping a box of PG Tips off the Chain Bridge at 5pm this evening. I urge you to join me and save our historic city.