AIBU to think my friend is overdoing emergency stockpiling?

[bagpuss90]

I get that we have been advised to stock up on essentials, though I think it will encourage panic buying. I will probably get a few days worth of stuff at some point . My friend however has, at least in my opinion gone ott about it. She’s stocking up a six month supply of food. She’s bought head torches, a camping gas stove and various other stuff. She thinks I’m being naive …Am I missing something here ?

France in particular is sitting on a lot of diesel. Germany has quite a lot too.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/eus-emergency-diesel-stocks-are-mainly-germany-france-2026-10-01/

It's October though. That diesel will be more important in future months over the winter...

It doesn't serve Europe to bail out Trump either .

UK cut out of European diesel crisis talks

in today's telegraph. Not good since we don't keep a big stock of it in the UK and we don't produce enough either.

Well I think I am just about done with my stockpiling. Fireblanket and extinguisher arrived today in case camping stove explodes.

I wonder if there will be lots of fires in the event of power cuts as people use candles. I know the advice is to use torches but I'm sure some will use candles.

I'm now skint and the house is a complete mess but I shouldn't need to do hardly any supermarket shopping for 6 months. I stocked up on tinned mackeral/sardines and oatcakes cos I would eat them anyway. Also tinned soup and cheese oatcakes are good and I would eat them anyway. Cereal and long life milk. I'll do a small shop each month to get some fruit, yogurt, fresh stuff in but can live without it if it all goes to shit.

Food, check
water, check
hot water bottle, check
camping stove, check
fire blanket and extinguisher, check
battery kettle, check
powerbank, check
radio, check,
first aid stuff, check
dog food, check

I was looking at buying a camping toilet/comode in case we can't use our toilets but I think I am going to hold off on that as like I say I am a bit skint. I have plenty of dog poo bags which in dire straits could be used for human waste (sorry TMI I know). Can't imagine how bad it will be if we can't use the toilet because the sewars aren't working

Can't help feeling that just now while the weather is still mild and sunny it is not too scary. I think in a few weeks once the clocks go back and it gets colder it will all seem much more worrying.

30 year bonds hit 6% yesterday (although they have dropped below that today). The markets are clearly not feeling confident in how AB is handling the running of the country. A winter of increasing interest rates (good if you are a saver and mortgage free I suppose), increasing food prices (inflation, shortages), increasing fuel bills.

I stocked up on Lindt chocolate as Tesco had it on special. Unfortunately the hazelnut stuff is too yummy and I've already eaten a bar of it. Gotta weight up the chances of getting nuked versus not having the chocolate eaten by then (still have my sense of humour at least)

Best case scenario - nothing happens and at least I have bought alot of my staples at hopefully a lower price than they will be in 3 or 6 months.

You can get some bladders that blow up and block your loo/s so that any sewage backflow is plugged. Apparently this can happen..

I was going to post about this.

Telegraph
Emmanuel Macron spoke to Donald Trump and Mark Carney on Thursday night about the White House’s demands for a massive European drawdown of its diesel reserves.

EU countries then met to discuss a proposal drawn up by Macron to release 50 million barrels of diesel and 50 million of crude oil.

Britain appears to have been absent from the rapidly developing talks overnight, and will now be playing catch-up at a potential emergency meeting of G7 leaders this afternoon

Note Carney...

The UK have next to no diesel to release so it's all rather irrelevant that we've been left out. Note Trump has fuck all to gain from playing brinkmanship with us. I don't know that Trump has anything lose by ultimately exempting us from an export ban (for long reasons about keeping production higher in the longer term which allows for more petrol to be produced which keeps petrol prices down otherwise the US would have to cap production because they wouldn't be able to store all the diesel they are no longer exporting).

I find this article nuts:
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/andy-burnham-government-speaks-out-34705112.amp

The British government has said that the public should 'not be concerned' about potential diesel shortages, as its US counterpart urges European leaders to use their reserve supplies. Britain joined crisis talks with Brussels on Thursday as they discussed whether to release fuel stocks amid rocketing prices that has seen the average cost of diesel soar to £2 a litre.

This is contradictory nonsense. There's a bloody crisis meeting and ridiculously high prices which we are all feeling but hey let's pat everyone on the head and tell us there's nothing to be concerned about. I mean, are you having a laugh? Seriously?!

But it continues:
Mr Mather told Sky News on Friday: “I want to reassure people this morning that the United Kingdom has got a diverse range of supply when it comes to diesel. We have resilience built into our system for that reason.

“We are working very closely with our US counterparts to stress the importance of that relationship, and the importance of sustaining flows of diesel around the world, but also working through international fora in the International Energy Agency and partners in Europe from whom we get a proportion of our diesel imports as well.”

He added: “Although prices have gone up at the pump, the Government is aware of that and the freeze in fuel duty is still in place. People shouldn’t be concerned about shortages because of the inherent resilience that is built into that system.”

I kinda feel we are in a position currently where having fuck all diesel means we might dodge a US export ban (because there's benefit to the US) but we'd not lose from an EU release of diesel at this point at least. Further down the line we might be really up shit creek but at this point since we ultimately have no stakes in the argument we just have to be nice to both the US and EU and feign greater importance than we actually have on the subject in political terms and ride on the coat tails of both where we can.

So in addition to eyes on Canada's role, I'd say eyes on the budget and fuel duty.

Another note here of importance
Israeli election (Netanyahu looks like he will lose) 27th Oct
UK budget 28th Oct
US mid terms (Trump looks set for big loses) 2nd Nov.

That week could get crazy for all kinds of reasons.

A large plastic bag filled with water and sealed tightly like a balloon put on the open toilet seat apparently has the same effect

(I was reading lots of tweets about recent flooding in Japan in the last fornight and loads of warnings to do this because they have had problems with poo explosions in bathrooms due to the way in which flash flooding affects pressure in the sewer system there).

I read a lot of crap (pun intended) on twitter.

I stocked up on Lindt chocolate as Tesco had it on special. Unfortunately the hazelnut stuff is too yummy and I've already eaten a bar of it. Gotta weight up the chances of getting nuked versus not having the chocolate eaten by then (still have my sense of humour at least)

Chocolate is a great stress relief from reading about the imminent impending apocalypse online.

It therefore has substantial value now. Plus if we are all going to face food storages, you are just storing reserves by another method.

This is my excuse and I'm sticking by it this week.

Its good to have fat reserves in a time of food scarcity.. Hurley on Lost was fine for years

Our vet calls it padding against sickness for our chonky boy.

Im going to follow in his steps so as long as the zombies don’t also come I’ll be good 😂

I need to look into this toilet blocking stuff. It’s not something I ever thought about although one of our toilets is not accessible. We don’t use it but didn’t want to remove it so built a fake room around it 😬🫣

G7 leaders have agreed to work "in a coordinated manner" to help bring down diesel prices.
They have agreed to:

• Make production "more flexible" to maximise production at refineries
• Release strategic reserves of "up to 100 million barrels" within four months, "with our partners", under the coordination of the International Energy Agency
• Avoid measures which would restrict the exchange of energy and petroleum products between partner countries

Within four months...

BBC are running a live feed on diesel today. Here's one post on it

Mark Means, whose family have run a farm in Norfolk which grows crops for over 50 years, says he is "frightened to death" by the rising costs of diesel.
He says red diesel - used by farm vehicles - has gone up by 70 to 80% since the war in Iran started, while diesel sold at petrol stations has gone up by "about 40%".
As a result, his farm spent £50,000 on new diesel tanks in March, after the war began, as he was concerned he would not have be able to secure enough supply to harvest the crops he had grown.
Means finished his potato harvesting yesterday but is now worried about having enough fuel supply to get next year's harvest in the ground.
He tells the BBC the increase in diesel prices has taken about 30% off the farm's yearly margin, with the increased price of fertiliser - also due to the war - driving down the margin even further.
"It feels like it’s an assault, and you're just trying to make decisions every day," he adds.

And we are back to food security...

I feel deeply, deeply sorry for farmers.
And I hope those diesel tanks are secure and well-hidden.

Omg the stuff coming out about the Omani pilot.

He was sacked by Oman Air for frequently visiting extremist Islamic websites and his social media was full of extremist content. Oman Air warned Flydubai about his views. This included the promotion of suicide attacks.

His colleagues described him as a religious extremist who refused to shake hands with women.

He was linked to Al-Qaeda on 7 different occasions and was known to have spent significant time in Syria.

Israel want the pilot handed over to them. Saudi Arabia transferred him back to UAE pretty much immediately. UAE is refusing to hand him over. It looks like he's potentially being protected at this point and that other people must have known about these security concerns in UAE. There was an agreement that pilots flying to Israel had to be from countries which have diplomatic relations with Israel. Oman does not. He shouldn't have been flying the plane under that rule but he was. Someone made that decision that he not only should have a job but should be allowed to fly on a sensitive route.

But not only this but crew lists aren't secret material. Israel would have had his name. And this didn't trigger any red flags.

It's nuts to read just how bad this security failure looks.

Anyway today's weird story of the day is the outbreak of plague in Russia after a scientist broke a test tube at their super secretive biological weapons lab, infected herself and then caused an outbreak which is now being overseen by the FSB who have forcibly made any contacts be quarantined. The woman died and nearly 200 have been infected....

Completely normal everyday story this one.

We also have Goldman Sachs warning that no one wants to buy US government bonds. Which is highly worrying given all the noise about the bond market breaking. Trump has made noises about understanding this and how it's not a problem - but his comments suggest he is happy to devalue the dollar and cause massive inflation issues. Aka a significant economic crash. Trump has TWICE now said "if the Democrats get in, we will end up in a financial depression — it'll be 1929". All the economic signals suggest this isn't unrealistic.

France is looking particularly fragile ATM because it's debt is higher than it's GDP. This is a good explanation:
The setup is textbook. Government debt is 119% of GDP, the most since 1978, the deficit is running over 5%, and a paralyzed political system cannot pass the 54 billion euros of cuts needed to slow it. So France has to sell a record pile of new debt next year while refinancing cheap pandemic-era bonds at much higher rates. Interest costs compound from here.

France matters. That's France that's spent the last couple of days with riots. France spends more on interest payments than defence and education put together. France can't reduce it's spending because every French prime minister that has attempted to has been unable to pass the necessary legislation and gets sacked. The far left and far right parties are both proposing expensive fiscal policies. There's starting to be comparisons with the Greek financial crisis. And that's France that had that emergency meeting with Macron just over a week ago. That's France that links to the Channel Tunnel which brings us lots of our food and other essential supplies.

The UK budget at the end of the month will be fascinating. We aren't in much better shape than France.

Anyway I'm off out to try and do something normal to preserve my sanity and gently talk some sense into DH. If I repeat 'im not going crazy, I'm not going crazy, I'm not going crazy' enough it will make it all seem better?

This is absolutely crazy. He is building a bunker in the mountain and has all the fresh food and water he needs. All done in secret.

fortune.com/2026/09/30/palantir-ceo-alex-karp-purchased-37000-acres-of-forests-in-sweden-locals-hunting-banned-billionaire-landownership/