When I first saw this story a few months ago, I mistakenly thought it was a bit of British whimsy, cooked up by the people who brought us Monty Python and Bertram Wilberforce Wooster as a way to poke fun at their Continental counterparts.
It's real. The European Union has banned marketers of bottled water from claiming that their product (water) can fight off dehydration (lack of water). Great Britain's government doesn't like the EU edict, but can't stop it from going into effect in their nation.
The water that the English appreciate most may not be the overpriced stuff that comes in plastic bottles, but the 20 miles of the English Channel that still separate them from their daffy European neighbors.