THERE’S a great bit in Phoenix Nights where doorman Paddy discovers that far from receiving a paltry £2,000 to bump off someone’s annoying husband – of which he gave him £1,000 – his co-worker, Max, actually received £8,000.

‘Eight grand,’ he says, shaking his head in disbelief. A few minutes later he says it again. And again. And again, throughout the episode.

The reason this works is because we’ve all had that eight grand moment, haven’t we? When a statistic or sum of cash seems almost too astonishing to comprehend.

It was the same with singer Gerry Rafferty. It was shock enough to hear that the composer of Baker Street had gone to the great recording studio in the sky. Even more shocking was the news that for this song alone he reportedly received £80,000 in royalties each year. Eighty grand! Who knew?

And so we come to another eight grand moment, when, in a report about the hosepipe ban, it was revealed that in 2010-2011 Southern Water lost 96 million litres due to leaks EACH DAY. Ninety-six million. Enough to supply five cities the size of Exeter, apparently. Or 1,600,000 bathfuls.

Imagine how long it takes to fill your bathtub and how long it takes to empty the thing. And then imagine having to do that more than 1.5 million times.

And that’s how much just ONE company is reported to be losing every single day.

Thames Water are little better, with a reported leak rate of around one quarter of its supply on a daily basis.

You’d think that with a record like this they’d be working day and night to plug the leaks which allow it to happen.

You’d think they’d be touring with vans and megaphones, imploring their customers to alert them to every leak, puddle and drip that emits from their system.

But no. What Thames Water actually did last summer was to claim that one of the reasons water gets wasted in this country is because... women are shaving their legs in the shower. The implication being that if only ladies were not so vain and selfish and didn’t mind resembling Chewbacca, gardeners could water their carrots and the kiddies would be allowed to play in the paddling pool.

Never mind that we are all forced to pay upfront for water, even before we’ve received a drop out of the tap. Never mind, too, that despite the lack of supply, the profits of these companies never seem to go down.

Never mind, even, the crass scare tactics which are routinely used to frighten us into complying – one which springs to mind was the Environment Agency’s claim that all the rivers and ponds and bogs will dry up, and Ratty and Toad will cop for it if we don’t stop using water. No. What really infuriates me is the fact that I know damn well the water bosses’ Mercedes will not go unwashed, their begonias will not wither and their swimming pool will not be forced to stay empty and resemble a scene from a Quentin Tarantino movie.

So that’s why, if I want to, I intend to water the cabbages, use a hose to clean my motor and fill up the paddling pool if my little niece fancies a splash-around, next time she’s over.

Because faced with the waste of nearly 100 million litres of water a day – and that’s just one of the companies, remember – I know that anything I do won’t make the blindest bit of difference.

And guess what? I bet the water bosses know it too.

• HUGH Grant is reported to have told a newspaper that he ‘likes’ his new baby daughter very much. When asked if she’d changed his life he said: “Not yet, not massively.”

Memo to Hugh: if a new baby doesn’t change your life, you’re probably doing something wrong.