'Running tap' artist to try again :: BBC

HE: Water is too precious. No one should own water.

ME: Allowing prices to balance demand and supply of water will encourage conservation of water. Something as simple as fixing a leaky tag will save a lot of water. You have more incentive to fix the leak if price increases. Unfortunately, many publicly owned utilities price water below cost.

HE: To prove my point I "left a tap running in a south London gallery, but bowed to pressure to turn it off after a month. That stunt used 800,000 litres of water, and angered many Thames Water customers and gallery visitors - some of whom turned off the tap themselves. This time [I] intends [heh] to keep the taps running at secret London addresses, sending an estimated 100 million litres down the drain."

ME: I rest my case.

Can you say publicity whore?

McGowan has previously made a name for himself by rolling a monkey nut across London with his nose to highlight student debt, and pulling a bus with his big toe in protest against bus lanes and mayor Ken Livingstone's "ridiculous traffic strategy".

You can attract a lot of attention by ridiculing markets. But you'd still be wrong.

Via Fark, of course. The comments there (after you get past the confusion between "six taps" and "sex tapes") demonstrates the public, or at least the farkpublic sees this guy as clown but agree with him that water should not be privatized. Farkonomists have a long way to go in convincing our public.

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TAGS: farkonomics, performance art, sex tapes, privatization, water rationing