UKH

People are apparently panic-buying bog roll and so on.  Presumably there must be a steady state quite soon where people run of space to store ever more rolls, at which point and shortages disappear?

Not at all.  I'm planning to use 16 rolls in two weeks. 

Must raise the fire risk.  That worked for the Black Plague...

Just went for my weekend shop. Was gonna buy some toilet paper amongst other things. There are no loo rolls available in Tesco where I live. The nice lady working there said people are going bonkers. She had people coming in filling up a trolley with bogroll, soap and Dettol wipes. Totally bizarre panic. She said there is more loo roll coming in today, but as soon as they put it on the shelf it is gone. Bizarre....

Ok, I'm now very concerned.... I started my penultimate roll of paper this morning.

Bog roll is such a weird thing to hoard since there are reasonable alternatives... unlike food.

jk

You could always start stockpiling the Daily Mail or similar. That might see you through this crisis!

Is it panic buying to stockpile at least 2-weeks worth of stuff, or sensible planning?

I was thinking about taking my lunch hour early on Monday morning to make sure I had enough bog roll and whisky.

Our regular Sainsbury’s delivery had quilted toilet paper substituted in for no extra cost because the panic buyers have bought all the regular stuff.

happy days.

I tend to read online newspapers these days. It would make a right mess of my phone screen.

youtube.com/watch?v=DMVv8WmIOqU&

May I just say, it is good to see that you are upholding standards and not using that cheap hand gel.

Yes but that's 4 rolls, not trolleys full!

Unfortunately much loo roll comes in big 9 roll packs or bigger so people are forced to buy more than they need.  The shops should be splitting up those big packs into smaller ones.  Personally we buy ours from WhogivesACrap.co.uk by the 48 roll box so we're fine

Bog roll in shops usually comes in 2, 4, 9 or 12 rolls.  So I don't think that's true.  People aren't panic-buying one pack, either, they're buying loads.

I don't entirely get why bog roll is the thing of choice.  COVID19 doesn't cause the sniffles so it's not to use it as tissues, nor does it cause the sh*ts so it's not for that.  It's bizarre.  Most people already have 2 weeks' bog roll in the cupboard anyway.

I've tried that stuff and it's awful.

We have it. How  can bog roll be awful? It just is. 

Not just bog roll around here that's disappearin fast, tinned Mackerel seems tae be popular around my way too!! Not sure about the combo tho..

I agree with Neil, if there's as much shite on yer fingers as the bog paper....(although he might have had other issues)

This is actually a huge selling feature in times of Coronavirus.

If your fingers smell of sh*te you won't be touching your face.

There is one way bog roll can be awful and I'll leave it to your imagination as to what that is

My no doubt overpampered backside prefers Aldi's quilted

Er, yeah, that.  It falls to bits, basically, unless you use loads of it at which point you start to negate the point.

Well, you'll spend long enough washing your hands repeatedly until they don't!

What else could you do with a 4 month supply!! Thankfully we're near the end of the supply.. I'll just pop down to the shoppies this weekend to.... bugger..

Double whammy if your a carrier of the virus, a user of the aforementioned bog paper and you're into shaking folks hands..

The posh version (which we use now) doesn't. Works out about the same price as normal loo roll from the shop but is more efficiently and ecologically packaged.

Saw a lassie in Sainsbury's this afternoon with two 16-roll packs of Andrex in her trolley.  Despite this, there was a decent supply of loo roll of all brands in most pack sizes.

Items in genuinely short supply were: liquid handwash (though there seemed to be plenty of bar soap, which is what I needed anyway), pasta - particularly penne for some reason, and bread flour.  Although the pasta shelves were half-empty, the shelves opposite were groaning with a wide choice of pasta sauces, so I did wonder what people were putting on all that pasta they were buying.  And it didn't look as if they were making up their own sauces using plain chopped tomatoes, because there was no obvious shortage of any tinned foods (although they only had four-packs of own-brand baked beans - annoyingly, because I only wanted one tin!)

4 rolls for 2 weeks? I wish. I swear my Mrs makes "shit mittens" with the amount we go though. Its a roll every 2 days in our house. 

Yeah sure, non bogroll eater.

Weirdo.

Shittens 

Not too much of a shortage of anything here in a north wales town. I’ve got 9 rolls of Aldi basic and two kitchen rolls. The anti bac hand wash had gone in Aldi but the people that buy it deserve the Darwin Award in this instance.

The government needs to act and outlaw sales of more than, say, two of anything (except beer). Panic buying is really selfishness writ large. 

I agree. At least people can’t hog all the paracetamol in one go which is probably the best first aid item for flu in any shop.

Beers a sore point. Being in Wales my Galahad has gone up by £1.30 with the new unit law. Tomorrow, whilst the rugby is on, I’m going to Chester Aldi to panic buy a few crates.

Ah, maybe I should try that version, it was the bog-standard (!) version I tried.

Sadly they have.  Went to Asda this evening, almost no bog roll left (what for?!) and no generic paracetamol or ibuprofen either (I usually pick up one of each when I do a shop).  I almost laughed out loud when I passed the bog roll aisle.

It doesn't give you the sniffles, it doesn't give you the sh*ts and it doesn't give you a headache.  What on earth are people playing at?

(The only thing I'd expect a run on would be asthma inhalers if they were over the counter!)

Crikey.  I reckon I get through one a week at most.

We have the bog standard version.. it's not so bad.. people thinking otherwise are just spoilt or very clumsy. At least these days we never see the grease-proof paper that used to mascarade as toliet paper in public places when I was a kid.

paracetomol is used to reduce fever when temperature reaches dangerous levels - can be a life saver.

bog roll etc is to avoid running out when self isolating for a week or two I would expect as people are anticipating not getting to the shops for a while..

can you still get surgical spirit?

I’m employed as a home shopping delivery driver by a well known supermarket. I won’t mind if people bulk buy toilet rolls for home delivery as they fill the baskets quickly and don’t weigh anything like a basket full of tinned tomatoes (or beer). An average van load of non panic buy shopping weighs in at nearly 700kg so if it were just loo roll it would make my life easier.  

Alternatively, they could pass a law which says that anybody who has stockpiled crazy amounts of bog roll must now wipe other people's arses.

I don't tend to regret much, but there's a part of me wishing I had held off for a few months before removing our Bidet. Oh the missed opportunity for sparkle arsed smugness....

I must have a hairier arse than you.

Save the planet, shave your arse

No sign of hoard buying here (just n. of Derby.) I had just about run out of loo paper, so went to Poundland and found there was tons of it. Plus kitchen rolls.

Shave the planet, save your arse.

It’s a very different story in Weston-super-mare, no bog roll in Waitrose today - one would think that those of us who frequent the posh shops would not panic at the thought of a viral infection, but evidently standards are slipping.

Now then, have people started hoarding sugar yet?

I'm thinking about salt too, useful stuff.

Fair enough, didn't know it did that.

How much do people use?!  People are literally buying trolleys full, not a week or two's supply (which is the amount I buy as a matter of course).

black marketeers?  Apparently some people are selling hand cleansing gel from the big supermarkets at ten times the price on line.  They should be locked up permanently

Morally they should be , however there's probably not a law against it so it can't really be a black market - we'd have to declare some kind of state of emergency , which even though we probably should will never happen due to no-one else doing so and most importantly needing to give the impression that "everything is alright" and that the "government is in control"

One older friend told us shops were selling tiny bottles of alcohol hand rub for extortionate prices (where still available). He jokingly reckoned it would be cheaper to buy whisky etc and use that.  Better get your booze before the mad rush. 

Difficult to do by law unless supermarkets can themselves sue for use of their brand by a third party seller (though you do often see small local shops who aren't in the likes of the NISA/SPAR supply chains stocking from supermarkets, so maybe not even that - my local one often has Morrisons branded stuff in the fresh bit as they only need small quantities so they just pop over there to buy it and mark it up a bit).

That said, people just need to rein in the panic and wash their hands with soap and water, it's more effective anyway.  There is no need for paranoia and overdoing it every 2 minutes, either.  I read a story of a child whose hands were raw from repeated washing and gelling at a school, which is not only a safeguarding issue but also someone ridiculously overdoing it.  Precautions are necessary, but someone needs the sack for specifying overdoing it to the extent of injury.

You need at least 70% alcohol to kill viruses, so unless you've got a bottle of Stroh 80 in the cupboard (conveniently I have!) that won't work

Presume a bottle of meths would do the trick just as well? I got plenty of meths

or surgical spirit?

I'd imagine so.

My neighbour has bought so many toilet rolls and he has nowhere to keep them so he is now panic buying laxatives.

Thanks. I would emphasize the whisky was a joke. Incidentally I have read that 60% should work. There's so much much misinformation and misinterpretation around. Doubtless some people are using gels that don't contain alcohol and are not effective against viruses. 

Talking of the throat infection I mentioned on the other thread that could have been it or probably wasn't, I was trying to cure that with mouthwash that wasn't antibacterial for a week until I read the bottle and realised my error!  (I did think all Listerine was antibacterial, but in fact only the foul-tasting purple stuff is).

IOW it's an easy mistake to make.

Either way, you should only use gel if the use of soap and water is impractical.  And that generally speaking, not just for coronavirus.  Some people mistakenly seem to think gel is better (these are the ones who you see carrying it round all the time) - it's not, not even nearly as good.

There have been some deaths in Iran due to alcohol poisoning from moonshine due to rumours saying drinking it would help. Do wonder if it was some confusion around the way to apply it.

All the more extraordinary, when you bear in mind the political allegiances of the majority of the inhabitants of W-S-M. Probably the first to call others 'snowflakes', now behaving like snowflakes of the worst kind. It's not just that their standards are slipping, their phoney mask (persona) of resilience has slipped. 

As I said earlier, I'm not seeing any of this (so far) where I live in Derbyshire.

Joking to a fair extent, but I reckon your typical Aldi shopper will panic buy if they are concerned, whereas Waitrose land is more about keeping up appearances and school gate chatter, i.e. "how could you put Tarquin at risk of having to wipe his backside on the Daily Mail[1]?"

[1] Choice of newspaper deliberate.

I'm not in 'Waitrose land' at all (nearest miles away), and would not be at all averse to using the Daily Mail as an undesirable substitute, if necessary. Failing that, the Express.

Got a link?

I'm wondering if this is literally true, or if it's just press hyperbole. (In which case: which press outlets are reporting it?)

Easy feller - that seems like a nasty caricature to me.

On 'the hill' I have been known to use dock leaves etc. in extremis.   

I apologise for perhaps not making clear enough that I was talking about the 40,000 in W-S-M who voted Conservative as opposed to the 30,000 who didn't. Such is our cripplingly flawed FPTP system.

But how can it be 'nasty' for me to use a term that the right-wing have invented, not me, and ask how it might not equally apply to a Conservative majority such as that in W-S-M?

I'm just sticking to the facts here, of who voted for what, and what the majority of their parties subscribe to, and trying to understand them.

To write "... the majority of the inhabitants of W-S-M. Probably the first to call others 'snowflakes', now behaving like snowflakes of the worst kind" seems thoroughly nasty and sour to me. But if you're happy to go on record like that, fair enough.

By the way, on this:

I can report that the doughty and phlegmatic Scots seem to be at it - trolleys piled high with bog roll, tinned food, and such like when I went food shopping earlier today. Never seen anything like it.

I can only assume people are reacting to scenes of panic buying bog roll buy buying more in case all the panic buyers buy it. I'm panicking I haven't started panic buying yet.

I try to minimise supermarket shops so buy quite a lot when we go - usually manage with 2x6 packs of bog roll (the 5ply good stuff mind). We're down to some budget sh*t spreader that we bought thinking it was an eco alternative once and I'm going to go to the supermarket tonight - will see if the French have succumbed to the hysteria. I haven't been to the supermarket in a few weeks but mainly because its full of tourists stocking up for their self-catered skiing holiday at the moment.

Our local farmer just called to say the yoghurts he's made are ready to collect so that will see us through another week. There also doesn't seem to be a cheese shortage yet - there will be troops on the streets when that happens.

At least we have sacks of oats, flour and loads of dried chickpeas - and booze - that's what you want in a pandemic but also just happens to be what we normally have in.

Where in Scotland was that? My partner and I have been in shops in Central region (Falkirk), Fife, and Edinburgh over the last 4 days, including today and haven't seen that. And no shortages.

The sophisticated (?) capital city.

I tend to do an occasional largish online shop for anything heavy or bulky because I get serious trolley rage and I loathe having to cart one round the supermarket. I got one in at the start of last week because we were almost out of tinned tomatoes, bog roll and pasta. I must've looked like a proper panic buyer as my usual 3kg bag of pasta was sold out so I ended up with 6 500g bags instead, as well as the 8 tins of tomatoes, 24 pack of loo roll and 5kg bag of Tilda basmati rice! It did look a bit excessive but it's something I've been doing regularly since we moved further away from a cheap supermarket. I saw on UKB that my town was out of loo roll the other day so at least I haven't needed to fight anyone in Aldi and I can feel smug about my plentiful supply.

TBF to the Weston Waitrose, it was only bog roll - everything else was fine. 

Thinking about it a little bog roll is such high volume stuff that the number of packs on a shelf is fairly small when compared to things like baked beans, and its one of the few things normal supermarkets stock in massive packs, so picking up an extra packet just in case could easily lead to shelves being emptied and kicking off a splurge of panicky shoppers.

Is that a different capital from the official one and the real one?

To spell it out: Edinburgh.

Ah, the official capital...

I bought a bag of 12 bog rolls about a month ago and am only about half way in, if that.  Clearly I must dump more cleanly than many people

Or less often,  

You may be right though, sorry to be basic, but now I'm getting older I use far more paper.

That's made me wonder how long loo roll actually lasts in this house. I've just checked when I last did a big online order and it turns out I bought 18 rolls of Andrex at the end of November last year. I probably still had some left from the last time I'd bought it though, and I also had to pick up a 4 roll pack a fortnight ago. So I reckon we've gone through maybe 3 rolls a week between 2 of us? That might underestimate it slightly as we were away for a week over xmas and away for a week skiing during that time. I have no idea whether that's a normal amount of bog roll to use or whether we use excessive amounts!

I'd say it's about one roll for a single person every 2-3 weeks at the very most, so that sounds about right.

I don't go to pubs much so I report what I read.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-hand-sanitiser-ebay-s...

snow works too

Cool!   

Yes, no problem - I was really just curious to know if such reported listings were for real, but I have now found one myself: Ebay item 283809674046

Asking £19.50 for something which costs a quid or so. Fucking weird!

'Dispatched with Royal Mail 2nd Class recorded delivery.'

Hahahaha, possibly not the ideal method of delivery

yes.  Yesterday I ordered a litre of lab quality Isopropanol (not for anti-virus use) and related items like "rubbing alcohol" popped up at absurd prices.  There were some items priced at £1000!!!

I can only think they were there in case anyone clicked buy first and didn't notice the price.

Still not seeing panic buying. Just been to my local tiny Tesco and the shelves were fully stocked.

Same at my local Co-op.  The panic buyers have (probably sensibly) gone for the big shops with theoretically larger stocks, not a couple of packs of 4 from the corner shop.

someone had taken their pick of the tinned soups in Morrison's   whole shelves cleared of anything with beef.  I wanted to buy a selection but it turned out to be not as balanced as I'd wanted.

Haven't seen any hand cleansers left lately but am using up an old bottle of surgical spirit whilst out "in the field".

again saw people coming out of cubicles and leaving with unwashed hands

I had all change and receipts dropped into a bag for subsequent decon

It's weird round here, talking to a mate yesterday the shelves at the Tesco down the road are apparently empty. 20 minutes ago I was standing outside of our local Asda with the dog whilst the Mrs went in to get a couple of spuds to bake for tea and the shelves were full from what I could see through the window but a lady I was talking to (everyone stops to fuss the dog) was talking me she had just walked up from the Coop that is only 1/4 mile away because the shelves were empty. 

Big 'death star' sized Tesco near us has empty shelves for bog roll, pasta and rice.

Local Aldi fully stocked except for hand gel which I won’t buy anymore. 
Till lady says she hopes they have no more in as people are so nasty.

No loo roll in Kendal Sainsbury's but plenty of kitchen roll for the bigger-bottomed.

Why won't you buy hand gel? I have heard people recently saying it doesn't work but I use loads of the stuff, working in waste water on remote sites with no facilities alcohol gel is my go to hand cleanser, it's a rare day I don't come in to contact with human and rat waste and 20 odd years in its only about once every 5 years or so that I get the squits. 

It may herald the start of a new property boom. There is no point in owning lots of loo rolls unless you've got the loos to display them in, and that means bigger houses.

I use alcohol gel at work as we have no access to facilities between visits.

At home it’s just soap and water now.

Cant be arsed trying to find ant bac now. It will be good to move away from the plastic use too.

Just done all the door handles and stair rails in a 50 50 bleach water solution.

Worst case we have to wash our arses in the shower each time.

Ahh, that makes sense. I too don't see the point of using alcohol gel when you have access to perfectly good soap and water. 

My mum struggled to find normal paracetamol the other day and is considering getting a prescription of it for my dad just incase they can't get it sometime. My dad has asbestos cancer and needs paracetamol at night to allow him to sleep (oddly the Morphine doesn't work as well as the paracetamol). They don't want to buy extra when they can find it at the moment, as they don't want to buy into the panic buying, but you can see how people would be tempted. At least the Dr will give them a prescription as back up, but they are aware how much things like that cost the NHS so don't want to do it unless they need to

I think that would count as a normal and sensible level of preparation if he has a condition where he knows he will definitely need it. If they don't want to cause a problem then just buy an extra packet each time and build up a reserve that way rather than emptying an entire shelf in one go.

I remember that stuff ! "Izal Medicated".

I lived 9 months in India back in the 90s. Never used loo roll. Jug of water and left hand only. That's why Indians never eat with their left hand. And of course, long, soapy handwash afterwards. Two birds, one stone: fight loo roll shortage and keep hands clean 😀

Under the circumstances, she should get a prescription with no hesitation. There is definitely panic buying of the stuff going on.

She has got (or ordered at least) the prescription but will hold off actually using it unless they need it. Morrisons yesterday had mountains of it in, so I guess they have reacted to the shortage from the other day. As you are limited to 2 packs at a time anyway, it's not going to sell out quite as fast as some other things

Cooking oil now gone in my Tesco, people must have realised that you can make chips from potato’s. 

I went to a large Morrisons at 2pm today, same one that was in the Leeds paper yesterday saying that the shelves were empty. I was passing and nipped in for a pint of milk and morbid curiosity. 

There was no bread, no flour and no liquid soap but other than that it was stocked as usual.

Loads of tinned stuff and loads of frozen ready meals. From what I could see most people were either using baskets or one of those high up mini trollies.

Bit of an anti climax to be honest. I was expecting to be battling in the Isle for the last pint of milk.