Fizzless

Where have all the bubbles gone? Gone, gone, every one!

When I do one of these little spells off alcohol (usually once or twice a year), I mostly drink soda water when I go out - because it's inexpensive, no-cal (the abstinence is more about trying to shed a little weight than anything else!), and universally available.

Lately, though, there's been a problem: the stuff seems to be flat as a turd, all the fizz in it dies within a few seconds.

I had thought at first that my local, 12 Square Metres, had just been unfortunate in getting a bad batch in; but I've encountered exactly similar problems at a number of other venues around town - Paddy O'Shea's, Salud, The Bookworm.

Is it just that the distributor is trying to palm off some very old stock? Or has some ingenious counterfeiter found a worthwhile margin in producing fake soft drinks??

Or is it something even more sinister? The other day, I suffered a disappointingly unbubbly ginger ale as well - and this got me to thinking that perhaps it's an atmospheric phenomenon, that there's something in Beijing's chemical-rich air that's killing the carbonation in our drinks...