The death of the bath: another casualty of the pace of modern life

Reports of the end of the bath mark a significant change in the way the British live.

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.

And it is then, with your body relaxed, and your mind free from guilt at its complete leisure, that inspiration arrives; well, sometimes it arrives. And, if it doesn't, a book or a newspaper in the bath brings a new heightened pleasure to reading.

As well as being a casualty of property developers, the bath is also a casualty of the quickened pace of modern life; of people feeling the need to do something useful the whole time. Or, if they're not doing something useful, they feel they should at least be texting someone; and people are understandably nervous about dropping their mobiles in the bath.

As the last bathwater dribbles down the plughole, a lot of great ideas and thoughts will disappear with it, too.