@LongDriver , Yeah, The great British Public have changed to Lemmings !?
I hope there’s a cliff edge nearby !! 
Donkeyman! 
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After negotiating the long queues to petrol stations blocking the main roads I did manage to get home, eventually,. Something I did notice though was that one garage had increased their price per litre of diesel from £138.9 yesterday to £141.9 today. The panic-buying will only allow that to increase still more – supply and demand will do that!
Speaking to my sister this morning. She is leaving Suffolk for London tomorrow. She will go up to Braintree on Sunday, then on Monday she is off to Devon. I asked her to reconsider, but she said she will take the risk. She is going with daughter, sil and the 2yo. What does she stand to lose? £100. Total value of the caravan (cheap Sun holiday.)
Her son, leaving London to view a property in Suffolk, and who hopes to get to Devon himself to their caravan rental, had to turn back. Said the M11 was mad. He was unable to get diesel. Without that, he can’t go next week.
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Just pinched this to post on another forum.
Love it.
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Been grocery shopping, called in to Tesco’s, not so much queuing for petrol, but more than normal waiting, did I join them, nope.
@Baz46 , l suppose higher prices is a form of rationing ??
Isn’t that how the rich people ensure there is always enough for them and
the best quality is reserved for themm ??
Donkeyman! 
Its like this Gas thing, the regulator (no pun intended) introduced all these small energy companies to create competition, and lower prices, after this weeks crisis, which sector has gone to the wall, leaving the big three or four to carve it up again. 
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You want to see panic buying in Canada. This was last year at my local Costco…
See Canadians are not polite where toilet paper is concerned…lol Hopefully your petrol shortage will be over soon.
@Arachne
That’s the point, sort of, there is no shortage, its just a case that someone with influence said “DON’T PANIC”, that was a Red Rag to a Bull. 
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All caused by the media
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Absolutely correct.
Those blaming Boris (vacuous opportunist though he might be) are conveniently ignoring the fact that it was the BBC’s Laura Keunssberg that harrangued Boris into saying something and everybody must by now realise that our media - and the BBC and C4 especially - are not only desperate to push any doom and gloom news that they can but they are also extremely anti-government.
Then they wonder why the BBC and C4 are facing major government-imposed changes.
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@Donkeyman Could be but it’s also called ‘greed’ I reckon. The heating oil I use is bought on the
‘spot market’, the same as the fuel for our cars. I doubt that will move by that amount so where is the difference going I wonder? It wouldn’t be into the pockets of the petrol station owners would it?
I will be checking the price of heating oil, mainly as I have to fill the oil tank for winter so like to get the time of buying right, but also just to see how much it moves due to what is happening now.
@Baz46 , l can see why you time your moment to buy then Baz !
How big is your tank ?
How does oil fired compare in costs to other methods of heating ??
Donkeyman! 
Yes I certainly do try and buy at the best price. Even more so when the cost went down to 28p a litre at one time, then it went up to around 60p a litre I think it was. For fact it was 37.34p a litre in December 2020 and yesterday it was 48.32p a litre (including 5% tax and delivery). Supply and demand is responsible for this fluctuation, plus of course whatever is going on in oil-producing countries.
The tank holds 1,200 litres, not large as some are double that. Nowadays with the rocketing costs of gas I reckon it’s cheaper to run oil-fired heating. Some years back it used to be the reverse. When working out comparisons allowances have to be made for the fact that with gas it’s there, all users have to do is pay the bills. With oil it has to be checked regularly, the oil tank too and when required delivery has to be arranged and payment made in one go. All in all though now, with me having an almost new central heating system, all computer-controlled so very economical, the oil-fired central heating is far, far cheaper to run than gas.
When we moved into our new build home in 1969 we had oil fired central heating as there was no gas in the area. The whole street was fed from one tank with a meter in each house. I suppose the boilers are more efficient these days but I remember we had to clean out the soot at intervals. When gas became available Esso who had the contract for filling the tank gave each household a lump sum towards installing a gas boiler.
@Baz46 , thanks for the info, very interesting, but l’m afraid lm to old now
to make any big changes, looks like l have to ride the waves as they come ??
Donkeyman! 
Yes, the same as in this village. The main oil tank fed each property via an individual meter. That though all changed when gas came to the village. Each property was supplied with its own oil tank, if gas was not required. The previous owner of my property had an oil tank installed, he didn’t take up the offer of free connection when gas came into the village so my property still has no gas supply. When having the new central heating system I did consider gas but the company supplying the gas pipe connection from the lane outside to the house and another company for the meter, wanted three months lead time to supply that at a cost of £1,000. It was around the beginning of October so that meant possibly no central heating until the latest Christmas. Cold is not good for my health so I decided on keeping oil as first I had the tank and secondly no additional cost for the supply of gas. That made up for the additional cost of an oil boiler compared with the cost of gas boilers.
Now, with the way gas prices have soared I am pleased I made that decision. By the way there’s no real amount of soot that has to be cleared, the boiler is just like the diesel engine in a modern car, all computer-controlled and if serviced annually there should be no problems. It has a ten-year guarantee so that is a good indicator of how good they are. When it’s been serviced there is probably less than a quarter of a cup of soot on the plates above the heating part of the boiler.
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Never too old for anything DM, although it was through necessity that I needed a new central heating system. In all it took two heating engineers and an apprentice just four days to take out the old boiler, all the piping and radiators, also dispense with the cold water tank in the loft and then install everything new. Except the cold water tank that is as the new boiler is similar to a combi boiler. A very good heating company, they had been servicing the old boiler for a number of years. The cost of keeping that going became rather more than I wanted to pay out, that would be better paying towards a new central heating system is how I thought of it, so a new one it was!
