The One Where We All Panic

To quote The Smiths - Panic on the streets of London, Panic on the streets of Birmingham, I wonder to myself....



What I wonder to myself is firstly who are all these people queuing for fuel and panic buying the pumps dry?

If social media networks are to be believed everyone is deriding those who are queuing around the block for fuel, but someone must be doing it because there are long queues everywhere.


Yesterday I had lunch with Ken. As I drove over to my old place of work I stopped at the traffic lights. I looked across to a BP garage and idly commented to the boy,


"Oh look there's no queues at that petrol station. Maybe people aren't being too silly about it anymore?"


On closer inspection I realised that all the pumps were covered and they had no fuel left!


I turned the corner to be greeted by an enormous queue for the Shell garage instead. So huge in fact that I had trouble passing it and when I left Ken after lunch I couldn't get out of the end of the road and had to turn round and go another way!


So if everyone you talk to and everywhere you read about it, people are saying these panic buyers are irresponsible, reactionary, selfish idiots - who are they?


Or are we in fact all closet panic buyers?


After all there's nothing we like better than a good old crisis in the UK. Stock up, hunker down, put that light out and dig for victory. The Dunkirk spirit. We'll show them, we'll buy all the fuel we can carry now and then let them strike. We don't care. We're British! If we can get our upper lip to really stiffen we can hang our jerrycan of petrol off it on our way home from the forecourt!


And it's not just petrol. With the massive hike in stamps prices in April the great British public are stockpiling those too.


And for god's sake don't get the man on the street started on the Pasty Tax!


I put out a little tip on Facebook and Twitter yesterday


Buy a cold pastry. But it on the bonnet of your car. Queue for petrol. By the time you reach the pumps it'll be hot. The money you saved in VAT on the pasty means you can put an extra millilitre of petrol in your car. 


I also had a theory that even if we could afford the stamps to send letters to each other, the posties won't be able to get the petrol to drive the vans to deliver them! 


If you've got anymore interesting panic buying tips then pop them on a postcard and send them to a friend. Don't forget a stamp. If you can afford one.......


Keep Calm. Carry On. And as Jones always said in Dad's Army......