Supermarkets - empty shelves therein

[admiles]

2 hours ago, DY444 said:

 

I guess it depends on whether your financial model is predicated on there being more drivers than work thus keeping pay rates low.  If it is and it turns out, as it might, that those days are gone for good then your financial mortality may be limited anyway.

 

What's that got to do with sending containers via rail instead of road? Cost doesn't come into it. Reliability of service does. If one service provider consistently fails you'd be wise to look elsewhere. 

 

 

[Nick C]

3 hours ago, asa said:

The usual media scaremongering creating a problem that most of us probably didn't even notice.

Oh it's also just about time for the annual Arctic winter scaremongering from the Express ,Daily Mail and all the other trash red tops.

Exactly - had the media not hyped it up out of all proportion, there would never have been a problem. A handful of BP stations would have had a sign outside saying "sorry, waiting for delivery", their customers would have gone to another petrol station, and that would have been the end of it.

 

Instead, we have chaos again. We passed our local petrol station on our lunchtime walk, and there must have been 30-odd cars queuing, backing out on to the road. I bet less than half of them actually *needed* to fill up.

[InterCitySpud]

37 minutes ago, admiles said:

 

What's that got to do with sending containers via rail instead of road? Cost doesn't come into it. Reliability of service does. If one service provider consistently fails you'd be wise to look elsewhere. 

 

 

I'm all in favour of containers to reduce road time but what happens at the terminal. I have worked at DIRFT collecting containers and this is why Tesco and Sainsburys RDCs are based nearby and why Eddie Stobart got his snout into the DIRFT trough early.

 

The 20 odd ton containers still need moving to the destination or RDC to be broken down, they don't go to the  stores. They are also manually intensive as sometimes packed without pallets, you can often find thousands of tins of something that need hand balling and stacking taking a team up to 4 hours for a 20 foot container.

 

More EU staff or less tinned tomatoes?

[Nearholmer]

A fact or two would be interesting, things like:

 

- what % of U.K. petrol stations closed yesterday due to non-delivery;

 

- for how long;

 

- how far were they from other petrol stations (my bet is that BP prioritised remote sites, and let a few urban ones drop).

 

My gut feel is that if those facts were to hand, it would be readily apparent that this is a non-story.

 

It would also be interesting to know what proportion of HGV driver hours are currently devoted to shifting around stuff that we could all perfectly well manage without. Shops seem full of “optional items”, which suggests to me that if things get seriously tight there is still the capacity to shift necessities, if effort was to be tightly focused on doing that.

 

In short, this feels to me more like threat to the rate of recovery of economic activity, but not a genuine threat to the necessities of life.

[rab]

Ok, I confess; I filled up today.

But only because the low fuel warning

came on just as I pulled out of the drive.

With hindsight I guess I could have just put

£20 worth in instead of filling the tank,

but I'm afraid habit kicked in.

Stuff the nozzle in the tank, press the trigger,

and wait for it to cut out.

So yes I've done my bit to contribute to

the so called fuel shortage.

Edited September 24, 2021 by rab

[Bulleidboy100]

It's always the media who stir things up. Just read that Halogen Bulbs are being "Banned" - there not being banned, there just stopping the sale of halogen bulbs - in future you will need LED bulbs. It's often the "wording" and "tone" of the person reading the news that promotes doom and gloom.

[spikey]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

... The obvious answer is to turn the bike upside down and whirl the front wheel round by hand.

And if your only experience of bicycle dynamos is the dreadful old bottle type which rubbed the sidewall off your rear tyre, the output from a modern one even at not-many-at-all RPM will be a bit of an eye-opener.

[adb968008]

We are all out of fuel in our little part of zone 5.. local Facebook groups have been going frantic.

 

ive got 3/4 tank enough to get me to Loughborough and back on Sunday.

 

I don’t understand how last week we had fuel this week we suddenly don’t… it’s not as if anything changed in the last few weeks.

 

I wonder if the Dft will capitalise on this as a way to get people back into trains

[InterCitySpud]

9 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

 

In short, this feels to me more like threat to the rate of recovery of economic activity, but not a genuine threat to the necessities of life.

The simple bare necessities of  life?

 

As long as the model shops keep well stocked and we have SPAM, whats more to need?

[Nearholmer]

Modern bike dynamos:
 

They still aren’t all that powerful (c3W?), even the best of the latest; the thing that has really changed is lighting, because LEDs will ‘fire up’ to incredible brightness with, as you say, the wheel barely turning. Mine what must be a decent-sized ‘stay alive’ capacitor in circuit too, so that the lights remain fully bright for a good ten minutes when stationary after even a short ride - a great contrast to the old ‘stop at a junction and become invisible’ arrangement.

 

Have got OT here?

 

 

Edited September 24, 2021 by Nearholmer

[black and decker boy]

16 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

A fact or two would be interesting, things like:

 

- what % of U.K. petrol stations closed yesterday due to non-delivery;

 

- for how long;

 

- how far were they from other petrol stations (my bet is that BP prioritised remote sites, and let a few urban ones drop).

 

My gut feel is that if those facts were to hand, it would be readily apparent that this is a non-story.

 

It would also be interesting to know what proportion of HGV driver hours are currently devoted to shifting around stuff that we could all perfectly well manage without. Shops seem full of “optional items”, which suggests to me that if things get seriously tight there is still the capacity to shift necessities, if effort was to be tightly focused on doing that.

 

In short, this feels to me more like threat to the rate of recovery of economic activity, but not a genuine threat to the necessities of life.

The bbc article that’s been running today quotes the trade body statistic that only 1% of filling stations were closed yesterday out of 8000+. Mind  you it also says that around 100 BP forecourts plus several Esso/Tesco ones were shut (which is perhaps closer to 2%).

 

social media feeding frenzies don’t much care of facts though, probably just endless posts & reposts about queues for petrol & photos & vlogs  of frantic school mums waiting & stressing about buying 10 litres in case they can’t pick little Johnny / Joanne up and take them to McDs for tea

[Michael Hodgson]

10 minutes ago, rab said:

Ok, I confess; I filled up today.

But only because the low fuel warning

came on just ad I pulled out of the drive.

With hindsight I guess I could have just put

£20 worth in instead of filling the tank,

but I'm afraid habit kicked in.

Stuff the nozzle in the tank, press the trigger,

and wait for it to cut out.

So yes I've done my bit to contribute to

the so called fuel shortage.

Me too.  With the red fuel light on, I would have had enough to get to Cambridge today, but not back again.  I could have topped up with just enough to come back but I actually did what what the Prime Minister urged us all to do - just buy fuel as normal.  Filling the tank when it's empty is exactly what I normally do.  Buying diesel at Tesco (usually the cheapest locally) is a slight detour and an unnecessary number of trips to buy one gallon at a time when I need it would therefore be a minor waste of fuel.  I didn't have to queue, although I did notice a long queue outside an (expensive) BP station on my normal route.

 

Nearholmer is right - there wouldn't be a fuel shortage if the media hadn't announced one - it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, and from the point of view of the press it does create something to fill the newspaper on a slow news day. 

[John M Upton]

How many of the lemmings queueing at petrol stations are a) having the engine running the entire time they are in the queue and b) made a special fuel guzzling detour to get there in the first place?

 

Needless to say my contempt for the printed media has once again been reinforced.  Newspaper editors and their bosses are now on the passenger manifest for the next Golgafrincham B Ark....

[Michael Hodgson]

26 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

 

It would also be interesting to know what proportion of HGV driver hours are currently devoted to shifting around stuff that we could all perfectly well manage without. Shops seem full of “optional items”, which suggests to me that if things get seriously tight there is still the capacity to shift necessities, if effort was to be tightly focused on doing that.

 

Probably not to any great degree.  If the lorry shifting essential items from the distribution hub to your local hypermarket anyway the otherwise spare space might as well carry non-essentials.  Before you suggest they could save a few trips by leaving the bulk deliveries of non-essentials on the dockside I suspect that Felixstowe would soon seize up with heaps of containers full of low priority goods on the quayside.  And even if they can cope with such storage, it does nothing to get those containers emptied and back into circulation to alleviate that shortage.

[MarkC]

1 hour ago, rab said:

Ok, I confess; I filled up today.

But only because the low fuel warning

came on just as I pulled out of the drive.

With hindsight I guess I could have just put

£20 worth in instead of filling the tank,

but I'm afraid habit kicked in.

Stuff the nozzle in the tank, press the trigger,

and wait for it to cut out.

So yes I've done my bit to contribute to

the so called fuel shortage.

Actually, no you haven't. You'll still use the fuel; what you won't be doing is having to go & bunker again for a few days, so you won't be adding to the queues.

 

I would have done the same 

[Nearholmer]

Well, either stuff we don't need spontaneously materialises in shops all over Britain, or it gets to them by a combination of ships, trains, and lorries.

 

Non-essentials occupying lorry and driver time?

 

Perhaps I had a more radical solution, appropriate for more desperate times, in mind:

 

(1) turn off the tap at the "manufacture things we can manage without" end of the flow;

 

(2) if there are then genuinely not enough containers in circulation to cope with essentials, empty-out the non-essentials, and if there genuinely isnt room to store them in the dry, put them outside with tarps over them, then , later, if some of that stuff has got damaged in storage, recycle it.

 

We aren't at that place yet, and hopefully never will be but, given the circumstances, an imports-heavy, non-essentials-heavy economic recovery, when there is a constraint (shortage of drivers) in the supply chain isn't going to work very well at a practical level, and will lead to even more serious price inflation as too much "stored money" (cash that would have gone on fancier holidays, more eating out, stuff people didnt need but would have bought in the winter etc) chases too few goods.

 

I'm sure I actually heard a government minister call it a "market failure" yesterday, which made my ears prick-up, given the colour of the present government, and their ideological discomfort with anything that smacks of centralised planning and/or government intervention in markets.

 

The only moderating tool available seems to be to raise interest rates, but I'm not convinced that will work fantastically well, because a lot of the "stored money" probably sits with people who don't have a lot of consumer dredit or mortgage debt - it is likely to hit people who don't have spare money, thereby creating greater inflationary pressures on wages.

 

Feels to me as if are in for "a period of readjustment", which is another way of saying higher energy bills, higher mortgage bills, discontent as people find that their wages can't stretch to it, people having to re-train to fill gaps in the job-market that are created by reduction in EU labour etc etc. Such periods are seldom fun!

[phil-b259]

1 hour ago, rab said:

Ok, I confess; I filled up today.

But only because the low fuel warning

came on just as I pulled out of the drive.

With hindsight I guess I could have just put

£20 worth in instead of filling the tank,

but I'm afraid habit kicked in.

Stuff the nozzle in the tank, press the trigger,

and wait for it to cut out.

So yes I've done my bit to contribute to

the so called fuel shortage.

What you did was ‘purchasing fuel as normal’. This is what the Government and fuel companies have been telling the public to do - and had they complied there wouldn’t be a problem.

 

The real issue is all those drivers with half or three quarters of a tank left who have been clogging up petrol stations panic buying!

[adb968008]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

A fact or two would be interesting, things like:

 

- what % of U.K. petrol stations closed yesterday due to non-delivery;

 

- for how long;

 

 

Careful, theres lies, damn lies and Grant Shapps…

 

weve 5 petrol stations around us… all are open.. but non have fuel.

 

I refueled on Monday, late night I went out to video a NRTT at Banstead at 1am… really on your own in the wild side there, stopped for fuel on the way back, They had nothing but diesel then, and he said that was nearly sold out… so its been a brewing issue all week…

 

tbh it feels more like an unofficial strike or coordinated targetting of one industry to me…it doesnt add up, weve already survived pingdemic and there was plenty of fuel then, why now, why this week ?.. is it because Boris is out of town, so any sneeze sends ministers running like chickens ?

Edited September 24, 2021 by adb968008

[Nearholmer]

10 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

weve already survived pingdemic and there was plenty of fuel then, why now, why this week ?

That baffles me too. I thought the number of people in isolation had fallen, not risen.

 

 

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

A fact or two would be interesting, things like:

 

- what % of U.K. petrol stations closed yesterday due to non-delivery;

 

- for how long;

 

 

There were 300 petrol stations without fuel out of a total of 8000 ( according to industry sources)

 

I make that 3.75%

[adb968008]

1 minute ago, melmerby said:

There were 300 petrol stations without fuel out of a total of 8000 ( according to industry sources)

 

I make that 3.75%

Thats getting closer to the truth.. be interesting to see where that is by sunday.

[alastairq]

Well, I got called out this afternoon on a Dad's taxi run.....actually son fancied a coffee at a nearby [10+ miles away] Maccydees [best value coffee].

So I went into town to fetch him.

Passing two petrol stations [Esso & Jet]...both with longish queues out onto the roads...Friday afternoon flappers? Or weekend cumfitz?

 

Anyway, having coffee'd and sat in a quiet spot for a chatter, then home to put tea on, and take his lordship back home..I decided to pop twenty pensionquids' worth of petrol in. Seeing as I've been 'booked' for a Uni run next week as well [cheaper than getting a bus pass, sharing taxi chores with his Mum, my Ex]]...ANyway, still a bit of queueing, but turns out the queues are caused by a preponderance of Diesel Dorises!  The Esso spot had run out of diesel for cars, with only the LGV pump still running [and Adbloo....whatever that is?} 

I just wanted a dose of E10, so had zero problems getting fuel.

Garageman said they'd had a run on diesel [media again] but had plenty of petrol.

Plus, the tanker was due to arrive around 10 PM!

 

So the answer is, use petrol!

If I had my Daihatsu 4trak on the road, I might have been tempted to pop a gallon or two of petrol in it to tide me over...seeing as it'll run on anything...ulike today's technology!

 

Shortage of drivers? What shortage of drivers!

[Andy Hayter]

1 hour ago, adb968008 said:

…it doesnt add up, weve already survived pingdemic and there was plenty of fuel then, why now, why this week ?.. is it because Boris is out of town, so any sneeze sends ministers running like chickens ?

 

But during the pingdemic, people were stuck at home and not travelling and so not consuming the fuel that was probably not being filled up with the normal regularity because tanker drivers were also pinged.   Simply put: you don't run out of things that people aren't buying no matter how ropey the supply chain. 

[lapford34102]

Had a run back home from Hants to Kent with a zig off  the M25 and a zag  back on  to the M20 to  get to south London for a family visit. Queues large and small at every station we passed from there to here,  anyhow at least those that were open. Passed 5 that were shut with only 2 of them BP, others Shell and Esso.  Some really dire panic manouveres from those trying to get in leading to all sorts of chaos.

 

Stu

 

 

[melmerby]

34 minutes ago, lapford34102 said:

Had a run back home from Hants to Kent with a zig off  the M25 and a zag  back on  to the M20 to  get to south London for a family visit. Queues large and small at every station we passed from there to here,  anyhow at least those that were open. Passed 5 that were shut with only 2 of them BP, others Shell and Esso.  Some really dire panic manouveres from those trying to get in leading to all sorts of chaos.

 

Stu

 

 

That's utterly ridiculous as the fuel companies are saying that the amount of fuel available hasn't reduced one iota, it's just spread around 4% or so fewer filling stations.

I bet 75% or more of those filling up are no where near empty and could go for days without having to fill up.

They are creating their own shortage.