ALL LIFE FORMS, from pro basketball players to the flu virus, should have certain inalienable rights, such as liberty, the pursuit of happiness and the freedom to despise French cooking. At the top of that list should be the right not to have to pay for water.

A few days ago, I took my wife Elizabeth to her birthday lunch at the delightful Whyte Hart pub in Preston Bissett. The prawn brochettes and fish and chips wrapped in the Financial Times were unbeatable.

But very beatable was a single item on the bill - the $3.15 equivalent they charged for the bottle of mineral water Elizabeth insisted she could not do without. Would that she had stuck with the booze. It's cheaper, and it doesn't even run down the hillside in streams.

Just why they call the stuff "mineral" water is totally beyond me. All water contains minerals to a greater or lesser degree, except maybe for the distilled stuff, which has less taste than cardboard, tofu and a lot of French cooking, particularly in Calais.

Elizabeth has a thing about ordering up mineral water (still, not fizzy) at every restaurant meal out of a conviction that somehow it is "cleaner," despite the fact that test after test in this country has shown the mineral variety has just as many impurities - bacteria and the rest - as plain old tap water.

(This hang-up on water continues at home, where before drinking it she filters the stuff from the tap, presumably to remove the bacteria. I've tried to convince her that a tennis net would do the job just as well, but to no avail.)

Anyway, the point is that mineral water is a con, and an expensive one at that, and I see no reason why I should have to pay for something that comes free at the nearest babbling brook. The cash so spent would do just as much good being thrown into the next open sewer.

Nevertheless, in an unholy alliance with the nutritionists who insist that we need to drink eight, count 'em, eight glasses of water a day to stay this side of the grave (quick, when's the last time you drank eight glasses of water a week, let alone in a day?), the mineral water business is a non-stop growth industry.

At least it has been. Now, in Britain, sanity may be about to rear up on hind legs. The British Nutritional Foundation is about to throw a conference that will tell the world that the alleged health miracles of "pure" water have been greatly exaggerated. Do tell.

What about all those watery "nutrients" that movie and TV stars and spotty-faced pop singers are forever telling us are necessary for healthy hair and strong nails and clear skin, which many of them so clearly lack?

Forget it, say the foundation's experts. A cup of coffee or tea, or a fizzy drink, or a glass of milk, or even a pint of Barney's Old Rabbit Wee or any other beer of your choice will do the job just as well. And at least you'll rest easy in the knowledge that you've consumed something that fish haven't been doing naughty things in.

The foundation's Dr. Gail Goldberg has an attitude that is healthily questioning. "For instance," she says, "this common acceptance that we need eight glasses (of water) a day - where does this number come from?"

Where indeed? It's one of those great folk myths we've all grown up with, accepting without question and honoring only in the breach, like wearing the same smelly sneakers when you are on a three-match tennis winning streak, or always walking on sidewalk lines and not the squares (or maybe the other way round).

"We can work out how much liquid the body needs on a normal day - and more in hot weather or after exercise," says the gorgeous Gail, "but we get liquid from all sources. It's in our food, our cups of tea, coffee, milk, fruit juice and even a pint of beer."

A lady named Helen Birtwhistle says she drinks beer because it appears to reach parts of her that water and even wine could never approach. Three pints of beer each evening, she says, has helped her breasts go up three cup sizes, from 34B to 36DD.

The rest of her, Helen insists, hasn't gained an ounce. "It's an amazing transformation. I thought the rest of me would become bigger, but I'm still a size 12." (I think that's size 10 in the U.S., but I may be wrong.)

"I'm cutting down now," she says, now that 36DD is safely in hand. "I don't want to end up with a monster chest."

That last does leave me a bit thankful that I quit drinking beer eight years ago. Otherwise, it could have been embarrassing, particularly down at the lingerie shop.

But back to mineral water, the extent of the con can be seen in the fact that in Britain, at least, it represents the fastest-growing area of the soft drinks market, with sales topping a billion bucks last year - the big bucks that make promoting the stuff worthwhile from a stockholder's point of view.

Richard Hall, who is in the business of analyzing such business trends, has one explanation: "The huge increase in sales comes from our ability to afford it now, whereas years ago it would have seemed laughable to pay for water."

Yeah, well, I'm a creature of the past, but I still do not find paying $3.15 for a couple of glasses of eau naturel with a fancy name anything to laugh about. Besides which, the stuff tastes salty. I think my tears are adding to the impurities.

Thought for the Week: Consciousness is that annoying time between naps.

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