Panic Buying

He's on the streets of London. Or Birmingham.

 

I had to focus so bloody hard on reading that.

 

As Corporal Jones would say........................................

DON'T PANIC!!!​

 

I just bought a Twix Xtra, instead of a normal sized one.

Every man for himself I say.

 

On the couple of occasions that I’ve braved the supermarket this last week it seems that as long as you’re up for eating fresh fruit and veg you’ll be absolutely fine.

Maybe scurvy will get the hoarders before Coronavirus does. They won’t need the bloody bog rolls they’ve been hoarding, quite opposite if they’re living off a diet of rice and dried pasta.

 

I have experienced the pure ****wittery that is the panic buying after vising the local sainsburgs today to purchase lunch.

It's the pensioners I feel sorry for who can't stock up. More than a few looking confused because they can't get anything other than the cheap electrical goods and clothing that has taken up more and more shelf space in outr local food purpevors over the years.

Ocado have implemented a queuing system to get on to their www site. My aged parents rely on deliveries for heavy and bulky items and a simple query on a pre-booked order could not be handled. I dread to think how much of their essential shop due for delivery Thursday just won't turn up.

 

I had a delivery from Ocado yesterday only missing one item from 60 odd and it wasn't essential. Was pretty surprised. Hope it's the same for them.

 

I have a sainburys slot at 5.30 on Sunday that I'm prepared to sell for £150.

 

I bought some bread, two little gem lettuces, 4 pint of milk and some spring onions yesterday. Was amazed I was able to get some bread to be honest. Got to wait until Thursday to do my usual weekly shop. A big sign to me that things werent normal was some woman buying about 20 pot noodles, all the same flavour by the look of it, where I live this could be her usual diet though so who knows.

Went to sign on yesterday also and they arent allowed to write the next appointment date in our books anymore but we are expected to use the electronic pad to sign with, I politely refused which Gwyn was ok with and understood, also the automatic doors werent working at the Job Centre either so had to stick my hand in my coat to open it.

 

I couldn't buy 2 tubes of lockets and a pack of lemsip this morning. Only 2 pharmaceutical items per customer. A little OTT imho as I could have run through as many packets of lockets at the self checkout as I'd wanted.

Sainsburys were trying to prevent peoplee panic buying. Although one couple got round the loo roll rationing by splitting up and taking 2 trolleys.
This was at 7:30 this morning.

Managed to get a few bits that my mum wanted as I really don't want her going out. Fresh veg seemed to have been restocked, pasta and tinned goods were pretty much dead. Seemed to be plenty of milk.

Going back at lunch time to pick up some milk for the office I expect it to be carnage.

 

My show also probably now won't happen. We were due to go on stage last week of April, but there's no way there will be people buying tickets for an am dram production during this climate.

I have stocked up on herbs and spices. Cleared the shelves of Schwarz. People will get bored of pasta and tinned tomatoes and trade me 3 toilet rolls for a pinch of basil or oregano.

 

Are you ok ?

 

When this is rolled out to other stores and you want to hire an ASD adolescent (at very reasonable rates*) to gain access please contact me by PM. Discretion guaranteed (probably).

*Except for moog - you get very unreasonable rates.

 

Try the smaller stores. I went into Tesco amersham yesterday and there was no poultry in sight. The tesco local in Little Chalfont had thighs and whole birds though.

 

Just got back from One Stop.

No Marathons, Starbars or Opal Fruits, just a load of foreign muck.

We voted leave ffs!!!

 

"Alas, poor Rookerydad! I knew him, Moog, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times (easy now !), and now, ...

 

It was Far From the Madding Crowd.

 

An urgent Government Message.
Please take heed ..

 

I think all the panic buying will start to slow down a bit in the next week or so. Noticed it was not so bad tonight when I did a big shop. Got most of what I wanted. People have panic bought crisps for some reason. That shelf was a bit bare.

Maybe it's chance but I've noticed the big supermarkets are better stocked in the evenings currently. Getting extra deliveries PM so there is stock for the morning is perhaps the reason.

 

Obviously last week people picked up the essentials that have long shelf life such as pasta & rice as well as cleaning products and tissue. Then came Fridays's statement from BJ which precipitated another rush, then came yesterday's statement which led to another rush. I guess once people have got used to the new arrangements things may settle, there's only so much bog roll and pasta anyone really needs to have in their home.

 

Presumably freight will still be moving round the world? So there shouldn’t be any interruption to supply lines?

Hopefully things will go back to relative normal when people realise they can still go to Tesco when they want to

 

But they can’t if they are socially distancing....Surely that’s the (rational) reason for stockpiling?

 

Social distancing is different is isolating I believe. Those doing the former can still go out to the shops.

 

I read today physiologists think there will be a spike of divorce in the next year with all the couples now having to spend day & night together.

All the married's on here, what do you think?

 

After having a chat with my wife today, I found out she no longer works for Woolworths.




* Taken from Twitter somewhere

 

The imperial college report was based on reducing most things down to 25%, not the whole population being locked in their homes 24/7. Even the countries with the most severe measures in place still have the food shops open. Of course the elderly and vulnerable should be isolating as much as possible, but for their own safety. They can still go to the shops if they want.

 

“If they want” isn’t quite the same as “when they want” in your first post. I would suggest that the government guidance is intended to reduce all types of social activity, including shopping. That doesn’t mean stopping it, but it does perhaps mean one visit to the supermarket per week rather than three. And that means buying more goods on that one visit.

That said, I don’t disagree with your essential point. As this becomes more “normal” to people, the irrationality should diminish.

Still no toilet rolls or dried pasta round these parts.

 

I think it’ll just mean that the people who were initially selfish enough to buy hundreds of toilet rolls and more pasta than they’d ordinarily eat in a year will just make daily visits to the supermarkets, regardless of what social distancing rules recommend. Probably first thing in the morning to hoover up more for themselves. I’ve spoken to a couple of people who have actually been excited at the prospect of panic buying, like it’s a game to see how much they can fit in their cupboards and the freezer.

Social media seems to be at its absolute worst at the minute too. I deleted all of mine last year but the stories being shared on there do nobody any good in the panic stakes. My other half told me that an angry mob marched up to the school she teaches in at home time on Monday. Rumours of a kid getting back from Spain at the weekend and going straight to class had circulated on Facebook which was of course utter ********.

 

The latest run on the supermarkets is nothing more complicated than selfishness. Once you get beneath the veneer humans are basically a despicable species.