Be Excellent To Each Other

I've got two dogs and a cat that we could eat in a time of hardship, although Lady T isn't keen on the idea.

We’ve got a chest freezer and two fridges full of stuff as well as well stocked cupboards but that won’t last long if supplies go titsup. We’ve not considered stocking up with additional food in anticipation of post-Brexit food shortages or drastic price increases, but if we did we’d need to clear out some of the garage to make room.

Then I’d need to see if I could reapply for my shotgun certificate so I could shoot looters.

When I worked for the Dept of Employment in the 70’s there was a rather eccentric Disablement Resettlement Officer at our office who used to talk to his lunch in the staff canteen. Well, it LOOKED like he was talking to his lunch but I suspect he was just muttering to himself while on his break. He came in one day with a cut on his forehead. When we asked him about it he said he was doing a stock check in his loft and a can of corned beef had fallen on him. He also told us he had a tank under his garage with an unspecified volume of petrol (highly illegal, apparently). This was all part of his preparation for World War III. This doesn’t seem so eccentric now.

Christ, I'd be nervy about the amount of weight a decent canned goods stockpile would put on my loft floor.

Hmmm. A quick Google suggests humans eat around 2.5 kg of food per day, and drink 2 kg of water. So a month's worth for a family of three would be 225 kg for food plus 180 kg if you were being _really_ serious and wanted drinking water as well. (Water purification tablets would be a better idea, but never mind.) I suspect your loft floor could take that, as long as you spread it out a bit.

No-one said anything about Brexit affecting my water supply!

Also, I totally thought that post above said "Disablement Resentment Officer" which is arguably a more reflective job title for someone in the current DWP.

They did, though:
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politic ... 99491.html
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/u ... king-water

Cans are not massless.

The fact that something could fall and hit the dude on the head suggests it wasn't being spread out, though.

They don't weigh much, though; the packaging is less than 5% of the weight of the contents. And if you're doing bulk storage many things (flour, pasta) will be in paper or plastic, which is even lighter, relative to storage volume. Overall you're better nit-picking at the value of 2.5 kg per person per day than you are at packaging.

Motherfuckers.

Ok imagine I did that instead

too late mofo

I bet that guy would have water purification tabs as well! However, I reckon bottled water is cheaper, and even purification tablets aren't going to get rid of the dirty bomb fallout, gross ash from all the mass funeral pyres and diesel run-off after the lorry tail back turns nasty that will be polluting the environment 3 days after Brexit.

Hmm, probably not actually, looking at the prices. Although an additional water tank somewhere might be a better bet, but those aren't cheap either. However, the bigger the tank you get, the cheaper per litre you can be - a 2000 litre tank behind the shed could keep you going for months!

Sod the cans on heads, what about the massive petrol bomb under the garage?

During the petrol shortage of whenever (possibly late 90's?) the guy who cleaned our windows at work was ever so pleased with himself as he had filled his bath with petrol that he reckoned would last him months.

He did mention that his wife wasn't very pleased with it though. Apparently the smell was 'a bit much'

I It’s probably still there and he will have died a few years ago, I imagine, so it’s just waiting to be plundered. I wonder if I can check the 1972 census or something to see where he used to live. Deffo in the Manchester area.

Whilst arguably being bonkers, he was very popular with his clients, many of whom were bonkers as well. He genuinely tried his best to place them in work or training, although he had a daily battle of attrition with his deputy.

In those days, before email was even a glint in Shiva Ayyadurai‘s eye, the daily post was separated out into the relevant sections and dropped into the in-tray of the manager of each section. John, the DRO, would habitually take it and drop it in Brian (his deputy’s) in-tray on his way to the gents for his regular morning bowel evacuation and reading the local morning paper. Brian would skim through the items, select a couple that were easy to deal with, and put the rest back in John’s tray before he got back from the crapper. John would pick out a couple more to deal with, then wait for Brian to go for his tea break and put the rest back in Brian’s tray. Brian would deal with a couple more, then drop the rest back in John’s tray when he went to the canteen to talk to his lunch. This process continued for the rest of the day until all items had finally been dealt with. They both knew what was going on, but it was never spoken of.

It was 2000. I remember that because I’d just started to drive and the queues at the pumps were ridiculous. It was because fuel had gone up to 80p a litre.

I was Santa Ponsa with my girlfriend at the time for 2 weeks. It rained for 3 days when petrol strikes were happening I rmemeber from BBC news so we didn't leave the hotel room except to buy more beer from the vending machine when housekeeping came to change the bed. We had our photos taken by the pool for the holiday brochure.

I was in the police at the time, so had no problem getting fuel.
Several friends wanted me to take their cars to fill up for them.

Yes that does sound just a teeny tiny touch dangerous. IIRC petrol degrades if not properly stored (although I'm not sure when it goes from 'a bit worse' to 'almost useless'), so stockpiling it is seems to be a bad idea for a couple of pretty good reasons.

I remember those queues. My mum was really panicked about it and kept hassling me to fill up my car as often as I could. To be fair though, when I was younger I was quite careless about it and ran out of fuel completely a couple of times.

I did mention that he was bonkers. IIRC, he didn't have electric lighting either, as he didn't want to be in the dark in the event of failures of the power grid for any reason.

Labour and their creepy old communist leader seem just as complicit in all this unfolding chaos as the Tories. Brexit could’ve been neutered or even ended months or year ago if Corbyn hadn’t aided the Conservatives on Brexit at every step.

Not food (except for crisps and beer, and that's nothing to do with Brexit, that's just normal), but already started stockpiling insulin. Yes, I know we're not supposed to, but the poor old chief pharmacist bloke who the government shoved onto BBC Breakfast to say that, looked as though he didn't believe what he was saying at all, so I'm not taking any chances.

https://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/fp/d ... led-pasta/

well..

The only thing more lunatic than pasta guy is the people who refuse to bring it indoors because the Mafia might have put it there.

Why would dry pasta expire?

It wouldn't if kept cool and dry. Best before dates are stupid on a lot of things.

No they ain’t, they give you a guide to when the food is “best”. It isn’t like the “Use By” date.

That's quite like what I said.

That may be the case, but would you be happy to eat a bag of pasta that had been left on your doorstep?

Even if I was in date, I might be reluctant.

(Redraws plans)

What if it had been cooked? A nice, beige flabby mass in a pan on your doorstep.

Title.

Guardian readers with stockpiles of food are clearly a good target for my Post-Brexit gang of roving scavangers and raiders. Sacks of nutrion-rich quinoa coupled with a liberal-lefty-snowflake aversion to violence means they'll be rich pickings. Sadly their organic vegan bodies will not be up to the task of pulling the DeathWagon once the diesel runs out.

*adds more spikes to car and shoulder pads*

Business idea!

*Stockpiles shoulder pads and spikes*

*Stockpiles razors, hair dye and ultra-hold hairspray*

Because it isn't a proper apocalypse without mohawks.

Doesn't it seem strange to anyone that a relatively prosperous country has citizens who are (or are considering) stockpiling food?

Does that make sense to anyone?

It sure doesn't make any sense to me. It's insanity.

May and her government, along with the right wing press and a handful of extremely rich people, are to blame for this nonsense. Oh yes, and that tit Farage, as well as Johnson, Gove and those who backed them.

Oh, it's utterly crazy. If this was happening in some other country we'd be rolling our eyes and sniggering and laughing at the whacky foreigns.

Can we not just get the list of all the leave voters and give them half rations?

Don't be snide.

They can have 52% rations.

Isn't it only 37% of eligible voters, and more like 25% of the population.
Wouldn't want them to overdo it.

Anyone reconsidering this after last night in the Commons? Or stepping up existing plans?

Imagine actual food shortages in the UK, in peace time, no natural disaster, no malign foreign intervention - but entirely of our own creation.

Someone posted the letter from the food company CEOs/Chairmen warning of empty shelves on Facebook yesterday, with the tagline PROJECT FEAR 2. One person responded 'Aldi isn't on the list so I'll be fine' and someone else posted this:

I was waiting until yesterday in Parliament shook out before starting. I think I'll start now as IMO the risk of an "accidental" no deal has increased to uncomfortable levels. I need to sort out some storage room on the weekend.

I was instructed to clear a bigger space in our garage yesterday for more food.

Hearthy, your correspondent might want to know that in recent years I can't be said to be losing "lb's and oz's"....