Panic buying

[rockershovel]

1 hour ago, ejstubbs said:

 

Not whether it is actually the most followed (does MoneySavingExpert.com publish details about the number of users it has?) but it notably does not indulge in annoying adverts mostly seeming to involve the inexplicable use of animated or CGI animals (comparethemarket.com and MoneySuperMarket.com, I'm looking at you).  And yes, I know that MSE has been a subsidiary of MSM since 2012 but the MSE brand is not mentioned anywhere in the MSM adverts (I am often surprised at apparently well-informed people who've never heard of MSE).

To be fair, "compare the meerkat" was originally a fairly simple joke which has caught the public imagination. MoneySupermarket defies explanation. 

[57xx]

On 06/10/2021 at 12:38, PhilJ W said:

And to save fuel and protect the environment have only a single power unit at the front. And then to prevent the trailers from wandering all over the road put the whole lot on two parallel metal bars.

 

It'll never catch on.

[PhilJ W]

2 hours ago, rockershovel said:

Ambient-temperature coca-cola is still common in the ME. Absolutely foul. 

Its absolutely foul at any temperature.

[30801]

4 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Its absolutely foul at any temperature.

 

The colder it is, the less you taste it...

[andytrains]

I like it.

Half Caffeine Free and Three Quarters Vodka.

Does that equate!

[monkeysarefun]

7 hours ago, woodenhead said:

MSM was reporting on the panic buying across the UK, kept showing people with piles of toilet rolls coming out of costco in Manchester.

 

Is it also possible MSM, that some people use Costco for business supplies and need a lot of toilet rolls and water.  I went to my local supermarket expecting the worst, but I did my normal weekly shop, nothing I couldn't get and when I popped over to Aldi for the rest of the shop I was faced with piles of fresh produce on a Saturday afternoon.  Plenty of tissues, toilet roll and kitchen roll to be seen.

 

The MSM is in it's absolute element at the moment reporting:

• Food shortages
• Panic buying
• Gas prices
• Petrol prices
• Wind - or lack of it impacting power generation across the world
• Migrant issues
• Chinese going to war

It's headlines are driving behaviours because it's web site is so popular, using celeb gossip to draw people in then generally sh*tting them up about the state of the world around them.

 

 

Down here our media, annoyed  that due to our foreign travel  restrictions they can't send reporters to the UK to stand outside supermarkets and send back stories about "how bad everything is"  have taken to broadcasting stories with reporters standing outside our local supermarkets declaring we will possibly shortly have shortages too.  They never state clearly exactly  why we will, other than highlight specific cases like Melbourne currently facing local difficulties due to their supermarkets closing whenever a COVID case pops up in one.  Their argument seems to be that because the UK is having issues we will too because thats how stuff works.

 

Given that apart from difficulties with harvesting certain crops due to labour shortage we have few supply chain issues (other than  the one mentioned in the next paragraph!) and produce vastly more food than we consume locally (over 70% of our food is exported)  if we do have shortages due to panic buying it'll be solely down to these  media stories.

 

In other news, ,  Australia joins Afghanistan Mongolia Sudan Syria Tajikistan Turkmenistan and Yemen on the list of places the US Postal Service won't deliver to right now.  Reason given is lack of flights to here, but other carriers have no issues and the ban was little publicised so no one knows anything about it until that item bought on Ebay  never shows up. 

 

Maybe they've been watching Australian news stories on youtube. 

Edited October 9, 2021 by monkeysarefun

[Nick C]

I filled up with Diesel on the way back from Alton this afternoon - no problem whatsoever, no queue, no limit, straight in and out. Seems like that at least is getting back to normal...

[Ron Ron Ron]

After the difficulties over the last 2 weeks, the 3 nearest filling stations to us are now all operating normally, with no queues.

 

Mrs Ron did a big Sainsbury's shop yesterday.

No empty shelves.

No signs of any particular items being in short supply.

She said she couldn't see any evidence of products being spread out to cover any vacant areas.

Fully stocked.

 

As we prefer to get most of our fruit and veg from our local, independent, family run greengrocers, I nipped down there at lunchtime today.

Fully stocked. 

No problems getting any specific item on my shopping list.

 

I popped into the Co-op across the road next, to get some milk and a couple of other items she'd forgotten yesterday.

No evidence of empty, or lightly loaded shelves.

The crap bread section was low on stock, but it always is from around lunchtime onwards.

We don't buy that stuff anyway.

 

 

Ron, reporting from the sunny south coast.

 

 

 

 

 

[MarkC]

11 hours ago, 30801 said:

 

The colder it is, the less you taste it...

The same can be said for certain nations' so-called beers... 

[Chris hndrsn]

On 06/10/2021 at 20:51, Michael Hodgson said:

 

New Tesco or DHL delivery vans?

 

 

That road train from here in Oz, really should be on a train.  To minimise unnecessary handling, ideally those trailers should ride in drive-on drive-off pocket wagons like those used on some European routes.  As we run freight trains 1800m and longer across the Nullabor, you cut out all the prime movers/drivers used getting loads like this across the country.

[30801]

1 hour ago, MarkC said:

The same can be said for certain nations' so-called beers... 

I think this is deliberate. Marketing plus a fridge means you can skimp on the brewing. 

[hayfield]

16 hours ago, Jol Wilkinson said:

The comparison with French facilities and attitudes to truck drivers is very informative. It isn't just about HGV facilities however, the French have a much more "socially aware" attitude to many things .

 

The UK population is much more "me, me, me", wanting more for less all the time while disparaging those who provide the services and products which provide what they want so badly.

 

However, commercial vehicle drivers from white van man to HGV pilots haven't done much to enhance their image in recent rears. HGVs tailgating cars, taking miles to overtake another truck, etc.etc. Delivery vans being driven without any respect for other road users, double parking while making deliveries and causing delays to other road users, etc.

 

It doesn't help that many motorists don't understand the need to keep an HGV rolling at the highest possible speed to keep delivery times down, etc., nor that internet shopping deliveries have increased dramatically, so the public could be blamed for exacerbating the problem. It'll take an injection of common sense to fix that, but a suitable vaccine has yet to be developed.

 

 

The advantage the French have is space, am I correct in thinking that with a similar sized population they have twice the space

 

I went to Battle on Friday, a tiny very old town trying to cope with modern transport, even the A roads after a time become HGV unfriendly.

[Jol Wilkinson]

8 minutes ago, hayfield said:

 

 

The advantage the French have is space, am I correct in thinking that with a similar sized population they have twice the space

 

I went to Battle on Friday, a tiny very old town trying to cope with modern transport, even the A roads after a time become HGV unfriendly.

The French certainly have more land to play with. Comparing France with England though shows that the French seem to have more major routes serving their country, especially away from the capital. Perhaps because they have a less centralised government system whereas ours has been too London centric for centuries.

 

The French also have about 12000 kms of Autoroutes, the Germans 13000kms of Autobahns and the UK 3700kms of motorways When I last traveled any distance in France we also found the secondary roads very good and much less crowded than their UK counterparts.

[MarkC]

1 hour ago, 30801 said:

I think this is deliberate. Marketing plus a fridge means you can skimp on the brewing. 

They're taking the **** out of a lot of folk then - PT Barnum would be proud 

[SamThomas]

On 06/10/2021 at 08:24, Neil said:

I'm intrigued by the economics behind all this.

 

We're told that industry has relied for too long on cheap labour and that where there is a shortage of workers wages will have to rise to attract the extra staff required. Hang on but won't this mean that these extra wage costs are passed onto the consumer and the cycle of inflation starts? Oh no, businesses will have to invest so that they become more productive and the extra cost of the wages is offset by the greater efficiency.

 

I'm intrigued by how you can squeeze more efficiency out of driving an HGV. As far as I can see the only way of doing this would be for the driver to work longer hours or drive significantly faster.

 

You can "double man" & keep the truck on the move for (up to) 20 hours in a "day" - HGV drivers will understand the "whys & therefores".

However, not always practicable when you factor in the 15 hour duty spread & daily rests.

 

HGV drivers often have a 15 hour duty spread (in fact I did a 14 hour one yesterday), but combined with a 03:00H start I need a "me" day off the following day.

 

[Michael Hodgson]

21 hours ago, JohnDMJ said:

There are tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of licence holders just like me, who will no longer tolerate the conditions. So the ball is firmly in the court of the councils to solve this problem.

 

Unfortunately not.  There was a time when local councils provided a lot of services such as public toilets and places to park etc.

 

We had Urban District Councils for every piffling little town and the councillors were usually local shopkeepers who tended to look after the interests of local business, so woe betide anybody thinking they'll approve a planning application for something that would interfere with the attractiveness to potential customers of their town centre.  They needed deliveries and wouldn't approve parking restrictions that stopped them from getting their supplies.  

 

That was seen as inefficient and now we have much larger councils with career politicians who follow party lines.  Central Government took away many of their powers, and particularly their discretion over how much local tax would be and what they were allowed to spend it on.  They can't afford to provide public toilets any more; they had to do something about undesirables dealing drugs and leaving used hypodermics around the place.  Local corporations ran the buses and and provided a decent standard of rented housing.  All that has been taken from them by central government.

 

There used to be lay-bys along all our main roads before the motorways were built.  Even as an ordinary motorist I notice how many of those have been closed.  That's Whitehall not the local authority.  All the old A roads had plenty of locally managed rather ordinary establishments where you could stop a truck and get an inexpensive if rather basic meal.  They were called a Transport Caff - but you just don't see them any more.  Motorways have their services of course - but the Government sold them a monopoly for 30 miles to the next one, and are all run by nationally run businesses who will exploit the lack of competition and charge for everything they can get away with.

 

No, the blame lies not at the Town Hall but in Westminster.  For anything to be done, it needs a change in attitude from national politicians.

 

 

[PaulCheffus]

14 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

I popped into the Co-op across the road next, to get some milk and a couple of other items she'd forgotten yesterday.

No evidence of empty, or lightly loaded shelves.

Hi 

 

What was the frozen section like as our local coop has had very little since before the summer. Every thing else is ok.

 

I noticed yesterday that Morrisons in Lincoln had very empty shelves for raw meat not that we get ours from the supermarkets anyway. Apart from that the shelves were well stocked.

 

Cheers

 

Paul

[woodenhead]

22 minutes ago, PaulCheffus said:

Hi 

 

What was the frozen section like as our local coop has had very little since before the summer. Every thing else is ok.

 

I noticed yesterday that Morrisons in Lincoln had very empty shelves for raw meat not that we get ours from the supermarkets anyway. Apart from that the shelves were well stocked.

 

Cheers

 

Paul

I imagine what is actually happening is the localised shortages are being spun by the likes of the MSM into national shortages, just like with the fuel issue.

 

Can't help but think it is part of some concerted campaign by the MSM to get rid of Boris, they don't appear to like him and creating national panic serves their objective as well as bringing in readership and therefore advertising revenue.

 

It is quite clear that there are challenges in supply chains caused by a mix of Brexit, lockdowns and the general disruption around the world from Covid that will take time to recover.  Internationally, Russia does appear to be using gas supply restriction as a means to get a new pipeline agreed which has rather exposed our dependence on gas and that the only way is up when it comes to the cost of powering and heating our country.

[Gibbo675]

38 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

I imagine what is actually happening is the localised shortages are being spun by the likes of the MSM into national shortages, just like with the fuel issue.

 

Can't help but think it is part of some concerted campaign by the MSM to get rid of Boris, they don't appear to like him and creating national panic serves their objective as well as bringing in readership and therefore advertising revenue.

 

It is quite clear that there are challenges in supply chains caused by a mix of Brexit, lockdowns and the general disruption around the world from Covid that will take time to recover.  Internationally, Russia does appear to be using gas supply restriction as a means to get a new pipeline agreed which has rather exposed our dependence on gas and that the only way is up when it comes to the cost of powering and heating our country.

Hi Woodenhead,

 

The long term contract gas prices for Nordsteam II were considerably lower than spot prices are currently, however the USA insisted upon sanctions upon its building which the Russians did not challenge. The result effectively terminating the contracts at the original lower prices with non completion through third party as the reason. The pipeline was not finished in time because of the USA and the supply contracts fell through as a result.

 

Should Europe now wish to buy gas from Russia it will have to do so at the new spot prices set via the exchange in St Petersburg at approximately four times the price of the long term contacts that Nordsteam II promised before the sanctions imposed by the USA. Conveniently even Gazprom's own storage facilities in Europe have been run down.

 

Additionally, high gas prices make sending LNG from the USA to Europe, including Britain cost effective which is something that the MSM very rarely mentions for some reason.

 

Снова обманули !

 

Гиббо.

[Ron Ron Ron]

2 hours ago, PaulCheffus said:

......What was the frozen section like as our local coop has had very little since before the summer. Every thing else is ok.

 

 

Hi Paul,

It's a smaller Coop mini-market, rather than a full blown supermarket, so their frozen food and chilled sections are quite limited anyway.

Mrs Ron says that the Sainsburys frozen section was fairly full on Friday and that is a very large supermarket.

No.1 daughter has also said she's not noticed any empty frozen food sections in recent weeks when she's been shopping.

 

The only thing I've noticed personally, is low stocks of sheet wood materials at our B&Q mega store.

Various sizes of sheet Plywood, MDF etc, have been missing (empty shelves) on the last 2 occasions I was in there, in September.

My understanding is there are supposed to be global shortages of certain construction materials, including timber, affecting both America and Europe.

I've read one report that says that global timber prices have risen by nearly 700%, since the start of the year.

 

 

.

Edited October 10, 2021 by Ron Ron Ron

[Ron Ron Ron]

An excerpt from today's Frankfurter Allgemeine (One of Germany's leading newspapers)

 

Quote

Under Price Pressure

It was to be expected that energy prices would still skyrocket with the end of the Corona crisis.

More Europe and intervention in the market, as some are now calling for, is the wrong answer to this.

The increase is breathtaking: day after day, the exchanges report gas and electricity price records.

There is growing concern in the EU about a cold winter and freezing people.

The crisis is now dominating all political stages.

The environment and finance ministers are arguing about it, the European Parliament debating it, and the EU summit is due to deal with it at the end of October.

At best, the force of the rise is surprising.

It was to be expected that (global) demand and energy prices would skyrocket with the end of the Corona crisis.

Prices are unlikely to fall again quickly. 

Experts expect that the price level will not settle at the pre-Corona level until 2024. 

It shows once again how right those who warned at the beginning of the Corona crisis were..........

 

 

.

Edited October 10, 2021 by Ron Ron Ron

[PaulCheffus]

5 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

 

Hi Paul,

It's a smaller Coop mini-market, rather than a full blown supermarket, so their frozen food and chilled sections are quite limited anyway.

Hi 

 

Thanks and that’s the size of ours. It used to be a Spar then a Londis and is now a Coop. As mentioned the frozen food section is quite small but there has been very little in it since before the summer. Not noticed any issues in the large supermarkets other than that I mentioned earlier.

 

Cheers

 

Paul

[hayfield]

On 09/10/2021 at 16:13, Jol Wilkinson said:

The comparison with French facilities and attitudes to truck drivers is very informative. It isn't just about HGV facilities however, the French have a much more "socially aware" attitude to many things .

 

The UK population is much more "me, me, me", wanting more for less all the time while disparaging those who provide the services and products which provide what they want so badly.

 

However, commercial vehicle drivers from white van man to HGV pilots haven't done much to enhance their image in recent rears. HGVs tailgating cars, taking miles to overtake another truck, etc.etc. Delivery vans being driven without any respect for other road users, double parking while making deliveries and causing delays to other road users, etc.

 

It doesn't help that many motorists don't understand the need to keep an HGV rolling at the highest possible speed to keep delivery times down, etc., nor that internet shopping deliveries have increased dramatically, so the public could be blamed for exacerbating the problem. It'll take an injection of common sense to fix that, but a suitable vaccine has yet to be developed.

 

About 3 years ago our local Coop along with other local ones were having an awful time getting stocks from the local depot, this lasted several months and made the regional TV news

 

The other critical thing with stocks is the time you shop, especially with late and overnight refill in larger supermarkets, if you go in early evenings these areas will be very low. The stock will be out the back waiting for the evening and night shifts to start. Modern logistics is very complicated, it works 24 hours and can be susceptible to items being delivered out of sequence if it misses a connection. In theory the day staff should be the back up in these cases, quite often though they don't have the time. and the just in time system may in fact stretch to being a day late getting on to the shelves

 

[RJS1977]

A friend who was involved in building part of the oil pipeline network gave me an interesting perspective on the situation this morning. He feels it's not entirely coincidental that the shortages are happening after the introduction of E10 petrol.

 

For one thing, as E10 is less efficient than E5, motorists are having to top up more often.

 

For another, refined petrol is transferred from the refineries to a number of distribution centres around the UK by pipeline, where the different grades of petrol are made up and the ethanol is added. As the ethanol does not travel by pipeline but by tanker, switching from E5 to E10 means more tankers need to be used to take the ethanol to the distribution centres, meaning fewer tankers are available to distribute the petrol.

[APOLLO]

6 minutes ago, RJS1977 said:

A friend who was involved in building part of the oil pipeline network gave me an interesting perspective on the situation this morning. He feels it's not entirely coincidental that the shortages are happening after the introduction of E10 petrol.

 

For one thing, as E10 is less efficient than E5, motorists are having to top up more often.

 

For another, refined petrol is transferred from the refineries to a number of distribution centres around the UK by pipeline, where the different grades of petrol are made up and the ethanol is added. As the ethanol does not travel by pipeline but by tanker, switching from E5 to E10 means more tankers need to be used to take the ethanol to the distribution centres, meaning fewer tankers are available to distribute the petrol.

 

Also I think petrol stations were running down stocks of E5 before filling with E10 which did not help.

 

Brit15