Stop Queuing Already!

I got up to go out late last night for cold remedy. I have a virulent horrid cold that is causing me to sweat like a menopausal woman. I decided it easier and closer to go to my village petrol station. It was like a scene from War of the Worlds, I queued for half an hour; confused and sniffling, yet couldn't be bothered to get out of the car to go and investigate so awaited my turn.

Upon finally reaching the shop to pay for my fuel which I decided to get whilst I was there and get cold remedy along with the chocolate, bag of wine gums and copy of Auto Trader that had mysteriously appeared in my clutches I pumped my local petrol attendant (a 60 year old semi retired chap) for information. He thought I must have been in a coma for the past 24 hours (I almost was - it was duvet induced) and filled me in on the proposed oil refinery blockades this coming Wednesday.

It's the good ole British public panic buying, next we'll have no bread on the supermarket shelves or milk in our fridges.

It was bound to happen with prices per litre creeping over the £1 mark for high octane brands.

So Gordon Brown says it's a supply problem and not taxes that's driving petrol prices up. They're even blaming Hurricane Katrina, but that happened long after prices per litre began to creep up and the wholesale price for petrol is now back down after a peak because of supply problems with the Katrina aftermath.

Would the Government cut fuel tax? Not bloody likely, it's currently 47p per litre, where else would they get the money from so easily. Suppliers are making huge profits and they're not willing to budge.

The motorist is an easy target.

I remember the petrol crisis last time round, I was working in construction at the time and went through 3 pool cars as along with colleagues we car shared until there was little else to do but stay at home (which sadly came far later than we had envisioned). The longest I queued for petrol was 3 hours.

I even know people who are resorting to companies like this http://www.petroldirect.com
who are selling petrol over the internet at 60 p per litre. An acquaintence of mine got 60 litres of super unleaded in plastic return to be reused bottles for the grand sum of £45.67 delivered to his door.

My LPG running friends are happy, but it's an expensive thing to convert your car to run on it, and guess what? There's no longer a Government subsidy incentive to do it. What happened to encouraging alternative fuels and forms of transport?

So, is this what we're going to be reduced to? Moonshine petrol from the interweb? I surely hope not, for one I don't have anywhere to store the stuff. Something's got to give and I really hope it's not us, the humble motorist.