Fuel panic!

[royoftherovers]

I`ll drink to that Bernard.

Can you recommend a good Malbec ?

[malcolmw]

We went out on a 20 mile round trip today which took us past 5 filling stations. All had some fuel available (not sure what types) with short queues of about 3 cars.

On the subject of apt names for reporters, the Times had an article some time ago about child abuse in the church. The reporter was Roger Boyes.

[peniole]

3 hours ago, steve2006 said:

Just filled mine up at the airport........engine start check list please....Parking brake...set, electrics....on.....fuel pumps...on....APU start......Bleed air....on.

What's your MPG on that bad boy?! Also, i wouldn't lean in to hear the pump priming if I were you 😀

[Las Palmas]

Here there always are 5 - 10 or more cars waiting in line outside a gas station selling 95 octane at .99€ Litre.

Beside that no gas problems here. Use 98 octane.

[dutchie01]

1 hour ago, royoftherovers said:

I`ll drink to that Bernard.

Can you recommend a good Malbec ?

Try Norton Barrel Select John. Argentina and maybe more a winterwine ( deep red powerful and full of flavor).

Guess i better try to get some boxes before thereś no more glass to bottle them!

[talaipwros]

drove about 80 miles, through numerous gas stations.

Most of them closed ( cones in front of the entrance) the rest had signs "no fuel, only shop is open" or something like that.

There was 1 that said " Only diesel left"

Trip was merseyside to altrincham to stockport and back

[Malc]

I might go out Thursday or Friday to find some E5 ........ and Top Up .........after making 3 trips beforehand to the swimming pool for my weekly exercise regime ........... preparing for a road trip to relations on Sunday for a 1st birthday celebration ........ think the E5 will be available by then at my local Morrisons !

If not then I'll try again Saturday ................ how much fuel do these " hoarders " need to get through till Christmas one wonders 😷

Malc

[royoftherovers]

39 minutes ago, dutchie01 said:

Try Norton Barrel Select John. Argentina and maybe more a winterwine ( deep red powerful and full of flavor).

Guess i better try to get some boxes before thereś no more glass to bottle them!

I will do my best Bernard. Many thanks.

[Boxbrownie]

Thankfully our Son on the run from Colchester to Worcester managed to find a Tesco which had a sign stating “fuel only sold to essential service personnel” he had to show his NHS ID (he is a doctor on critical care presently) and managed to fill up the Disco with smelly stuff, but he said there was no petrol at all, just diesel….they arrived home about an hour ago, his shift starts at 3 am Monday. 

[paulrnx]

Made it back from North Wales today. Plenty of queues at stations all along the route (Llangollen/Shrewsbury/Birmingham/Worcester) and some roped off with no fuel at all. Got home to realise my wife has no fuel in her car and needs it to get to work. She routinely leaves it until the light ha been on for a while so no surprise really… Went out just after 10 and found a local station still selling both petrol and diesel albeit had a bit of a wait in a queue. Won’t need anything for a few weeks now and hopefully the situation will have improved by then. Hope everyone that needs fuel can get it ok.

[ALAW]

7 hours ago, dutchie01 said:

What a world do we live in. No petrol, serious lack of truckdrivers,  lack of raw materials for the plastics industry, no pulp to produce paper, aluminium coils all sold out until 2023, no chips for the electronics industry also affecting the automotive industry, no glass to produce wine and champagnebottles ( noooooo), no shipping containers available, containershipping from China to Europe in one year from 1000 USD to 20.000 USD, no wood available, lack of steel for the buildingindustry.   Did Any of you had a look at leadtimes on new cars??? Everything seems upside down these days! 

Best to open a nice Malbec and wait for better times? 

Better times any idea when that will be Bernard.

[ALAW]

Stanlow oil refinery in Cheshire one ofthe biggest in the country. Been in financial trouble for a long long time have agreed payment with HMRC over tax etc. Today the media have started saying serious talks underway to save Stanlow. Media again eh. Dutchie is right open a bottle of malbec while better times like i say when will that be. Now wheres that Rioja.

[Brian R]

6 hours ago, ALAW said:

Stanlow oil refinery in Cheshire one ofthe biggest in the country. Been in financial trouble for a long long time have agreed payment with HMRC over tax etc. Today the media have started saying serious talks underway to save Stanlow. Media again eh. Dutchie is right open a bottle of malbec while better times like i say when will that be. Now wheres that Rioja.

Just read the story as if it were a current debt and not a paid one. I suppose yet again the main stream media misreporting and hell-bent on making a bad situation worse. The prime culprit is "The Guardian" and as ever I'll choose to be circumspect of anything that rag prints. In practice, it seems a VAT payment is due but what's the betting it will be deferred to a later date, just give me one nanosecond to think about it. Still doesn't stop the "press" from sensationalising the non story.

[royoftherovers]

7 hours ago, ALAW said:

Stanlow oil refinery in Cheshire one ofthe biggest in the country. Been in financial trouble for a long long time have agreed payment with HMRC over tax etc. Today the media have started saying serious talks underway to save Stanlow. Media again eh. Dutchie is right open a bottle of malbec while better times like i say when will that be. Now wheres that Rioja.

Rioja is with me old pal !

Sunday Times had that story almost one month ago.

Stanlow  is just down the road from me.

[First_Lexus]

I’m going to be indulgent and go off at a (slight) tangent.

Back in the early 1990s, as an idealistic student, I went to a Fabian Society lecture about the future of Europe. I had the privilege of seeing Tony Benn speak that day. His words have stuck with me ever since.

He warned that the any expansion of the EC (as was) into the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe, if combined with a proposed expansion of ‘free movement of labour,’ would lead to a two-tier Europe. The poorer nations would lose their best and brightest, thus resigning them to always being economically weaker than the rich nations in Northern Europe. Meanwhile, cheap labour from those nations would simply fuel increased growth in the already rich and powerful members of the European ‘family’ and inevitably lead to reduced pay, conditions and opportunities for their existing populations.

Fast forward to 2021 and the debate about HGV drivers. Sounds spookily familiar to me.

It never fails to amaze me that so many pro-EU liberals can look the other way at the exploitation - because that’s what it is - of cheap labour from Eastern and Southern Europe as well as from other poorer nations outside of the EU. I guess principles are hard to maintain when your comfortable lifestyle is impacted.

Rant over. Sigh.

[Mossypossy]

Switzerland is a microcosm of that. Fabulously wealthy few, loads of people on breadline, and a huge workforce who schlepp over the border everyday from poorer countries.

[Mincey]

I heard on the radio that Roger Daltrey has been arrested after a punch up with another motorist at a filling station. A spokesman for Esso said that he won't get fuelled again.

[Malc]

1 hour ago, Mossypossy said:

and a huge workforce who schlepp over the border everyday from poorer countries.

thought you might have been talking about Gibraltar for one moment too 

Malc

[dutchie01]

9 hours ago, ALAW said:

Better times any idea when that will be Bernard.

I am not too optimistic. There is a huge unbalance between supply and demand with lock downs, postponed factory maintenance leading to force majeures and almost overheating economies in the western world. I am afraid we could be in this roller coaster for another 12 to 18 months.

Better get your Christmas drinks now it could well be impossible in December! 

[dutchie01]

1 hour ago, First_Lexus said:

I’m going to be indulgent and go off at a (slight) tangent.

Back in the early 1990s, as an idealistic student, I went to a Fabian Society lecture about the future of Europe. I had the privilege of seeing Tony Benn speak that day. His words have stuck with me ever since.

He warned that the any expansion of the EC (as was) into the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe, if combined with a proposed expansion of ‘free movement of labour,’ would lead to a two-tier Europe. The poorer nations would lose their best and brightest, thus resigning them to always being economically weaker than the rich nations in Northern Europe. Meanwhile, cheap labour from those nations would simply fuel increased growth in the already rich and powerful members of the European ‘family’ and inevitably lead to reduced pay, conditions and opportunities for their existing populations.

 

 

Mr Benn was a wise man but i guess it is inevitable. Economic immigration has always been there and will always remain. For instance if you have a Polish truck driver in the UK who drives the trucks in Poland? Simple answer is an Ukrainian driver as he gets paid more than in the Ukraine. And so on.

And regarding the role of the press i am convinced if all reporting was 100% factual the same would happen. It is in mans nature we move in groups never alone. If some start to overbuy toilet paper most of us start to do the same without even knowing why. Same with filling up your tank everybody does it because everybody does it.

Telling you all now for the third time, get your wine before it is sold out! Champagne already in short supply as there is not enough glass to produce bottles so be the first in the queue. ( it will happen).

[royoftherovers]

21 minutes ago, dutchie01 said:

Mr Benn was a wise man but i guess it is inevitable. Economic immigration has always been there and will always remain. For instance if you have a Polish truck driver in the UK who drives the trucks in Poland? Simple answer is an Ukrainian driver as he gets paid more than in the Ukraine. And so on.

And regarding the role of the press i am convinced if all reporting was 100% factual the same would happen. It is in mans nature we move in groups never alone. If some start to overbuy toilet paper most of us start to do the same without even knowing why. Same with filling up your tank everybody does it because everybody does it.

Telling you all now for the third time, get your wine before it is sold out! Champagne already in short supply as there is not enough glass to produce bottles so be the first in the queue. ( it will happen).

Our resident Greek philosopher, Phil-(gettit?) has not yet checked in from his hideaway close to Olympus, but I`m beginning to think Bernard that you are either a Genius or a modern day Cassandra.

Time will tell, but for the avoidance of doubt or misunderstanding there can be an IMBALANCE  between Supply and Demand whilst my mind might or might not be UNBALANCED possibly due to an overdose of Rioja.😉

[dutchie01]

53 minutes ago, royoftherovers said:

 

Time will tell, but for the avoidance of doubt or misunderstanding there can be an IMBALANCE  between Supply and Demand whilst my mind might or might not be UNBALANCED possibly due to an overdose of Rioja.😉

You got me there John! On the other hand the current state of affairs could be described as imbalanced as well as unbalanced. Both are pretty messy. ( guess you will load the Merc up with Rioja and the way back?)

[dublet]

3 hours ago, First_Lexus said:

It never fails to amaze me that so many pro-EU liberals can look the other way at the exploitation - because that’s what it is - of cheap labour from Eastern and Southern Europe as well as from other poorer nations outside of the EU. I guess principles are hard to maintain when your comfortable lifestyle is impacted.

Pro EU liberal reporting.

I've got about 80 miles of range left, and local petrol stations are all either out or have huge queues. Managed to get entangled in a traffic dead lock due to everyone forgetting the rules of the road. Hopefully it'll pass, I've got about 7 weeks worth of petrol to get to Waitrose and back.

There are two ways of looking at the union of Europe. One is a purely economic thing, the other is a more philosophical union to prevent future wars. It started out post WW2 as the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) - "make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible". This combined the two trains of thought. Since that time it's grown into something more political, and included economies far more disparate in their GDP per capita. But the pillars under the EU of free movement of goods, money and people are meant as a leveller. In the USA, you never hear people talk about cheap labour from the poorer states, phrasing this as exploitation.

Now, we can talk all day and night and the pros and cons of being inside a single market and a political union, both ideological and practical but that's not really what's at play here.

Exiting a union such as the EU has a lot of implications, moreover as it's not just political but also comes with a lot of other unions such as EURATOM, the Internal Energy Market, etc, etc. Current leadership has decided to sever all such ties, and seemingly without much of a plan as to how to manage such a transition, aside from somehow believing hard enough.

This very much unmanaged transition is causing a lot of spikes in a lot of systems that are "Just In Time", and we are finding there is not enough stretch in these systems to absorb that. Hence there are gaps in some super markets, for instance my local super market hasn't had a full range of cat food since the beginning of the year. Irrespective of whether there was too much choice, or whether it's particularly crucial, it's simply an indicator that things are not running as smoothly as they were.

You will be seeing a lot more of these spikes of demand/supply as things are currently already being prioritised, and some very practical people are having to make hard choices about who gets what goods, and how.

It's somewhat amusing to think people are blaming the media for pushing a narrative here, as if various media haven't pushed past narratives about the EU being at fault for everything. I think it's more that a lot of people simply don't have faith in the government to ensure stability any more. The modern world is very complicated, it's not going to stop being complicated.

In the mean while, we'll go from crisis to crisis, probably for at least another 10 years or so.

 

[Sundance]

Slap an extra 20p per litre tax on fuel and limit each visit to £30, make the hoarders think twice! 🤔

Special dispensation for valid users (ie emergency services, NHS etc). 🙂

[royoftherovers]

50 minutes ago, dutchie01 said:

You got me there John! On the other hand the current state of affairs could be described as imbalanced as well as unbalanced. Both are pretty messy. ( guess you will load the Merc up with Rioja and the way back?)

I`m a little unbalanced now Bernard!

I can only take 18 litres plus 4 litres of Spirits, but I`ve plenty at home.

I only tend to drink wine with a meal or a BBQ, so 24, 70 cl bottles is fine.

Wine is cheap at home now thanks to Aldi and Lidl entering the market.