No working today, I've managed to knacker my back. I went into town to get some painkillers, and remembered that we're having a fuel crisis at the moment..

The one refinery in the country is closing due to strike action, but this isn't a problem. What is a problem is that everyone seems to have decided to fill their tanks (and every other available receptacle), for, err, some reason. Not surprisingly, the supply chain can't cope with this and everywhere's run out, or is rationing fuel or applying silly prices.

At the supermarket there was petrol station which still had fuel, with very long queues, and it had a sign telling customers that their vehicles had to be "checked by staff" before buying. This may be because of what I heard earlier, that some people were found filling open plastic storage containers in the back of cars with fuel. Not very clever.

Other places have rationing, £10 maximum sale. To translate that for any Americans reading, fuel costs about £1.20 per litre, $9 per gallon, so that's about 2.2 gallons per customer.