Harry Mount

Harry Mount's latest book is How England Made the English: From Hedgerows to Heathrow. He is also the author of Amo, Amas, Amat and All That: How to Become a Latin Lover and A Lust for Windowsills - a Guide to British Buildings from Portcullis to Pebbledash. A former leader writer for the Telegraph, he writes about politics, buildings and language for lots of British and American newspapers and magazines.

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   The average number of baths per person has gone down from nine a month, a decade ago, to five this year. Developers are increasingly squeezing showers into tiny spaces into new flats and houses. And people modernising their homes are ripping out baths to produce acres of new tiled flooring to pad around in.

   I sense an American influence here. When I lived in New York, four years ago, new apartments were being built that not only didn't have baths; they didn't even have kitchens - their young owners ate out for every meal.

   For a long time now, Americans have been amazed at the concept of a bath without a shower attached – why wallow around in your own dirt, they ask.

   Well, actually, most of the dirt ends up in the bath. And, in any case, a long contemplative bath is one of life's great pleasures. It's not just Archimedes who thought up extraordinary ideas in the bath. There's something about lying in hot water, staring into space, that somehow seems more worthwhile than hanging around doing nothing outside a bath.