Draymen to Strike… (and other funny tweets)

I know it’s not quite April Fool’s Day but, as I read through the myriad of news stories, Facebook status updates and Twitter feeds I trawl through each morning in an effort to avoid getting out of bed and helping my wife get the children ready for school, the announcement that draymen are to go on strike did make me laugh out loud. Or LOL, as the youngsters might put it…

It’s a bit difficult to work out which story is taking precedence at the moment, but one thing is clear: you can’t beat the British sense of humour when faced with adversity.

The Social Media networks have been on fire with sarcasm, satire and downright hilarious commentary about panic buying fuel, first class stamps and the Pasty Tax. There are lots of news stories surrounding NHS reforms being David Cameron’s ‘Poll Tax’, but I suspect he’s really hiding under his desk at the moment worrying about when the Pasty Tax Riots are going to begin…

But it was Steve Wilson’s (licensee, The Kings Head, Wells) tweet that really caught my attention: “Going to start a rumour about a dray lorry drivers' strike; then wait for the queues of panic-punters wanting an ale :o)”

Judging by the queues of people at my local petrol station, which ran out of fuel by 6pm yesterday after taking twice what its normal daily take would be, the opportunity to be so much busier than anticipated that we actually run out of beer would be a problem many of us would be happy to have to deal with, rather than the humdrum issues of beer duty, minimum pricing and binge drinking…

Like shoppers in a supermarket days before Christmas, panic buying in case they haven’t got enough milk to see them through the one day they might struggle to buy some, car drivers have been filling up left, right and centre despite the fact that no actual date has yet been announced for the fuel tanker drivers strike, if it goes ahead at all.

This means that the local stations are tight on fuel and, as a result, the price is only going to get pushed up. What do you want to bet it won’t come back down again? Pretty soon, it will only be the tanker drivers who’ll be able to actually afford the petrol. Or pasties. Or, indeed, beer.

And, despite Steve’s tongue-in-cheek humour, if fuel does become restricted where are the dray lorries going to get their diesel from?

My dray is due today: bring on the panic buying…