I hope outdoor activities are permitted here should a lock down come, most certainly where I will be going there will be absolutely no one.
According to some economists, the hoarding behaviour is entirely rational. Governments told their populations to spend more time at home and go out [shopping] less often. So, it’s natural they will want to get in a buffer stock of consumables. Apparently, the empty shelves says more about the fragility of our modern supply chains and fast inventory turnovers. It seems that our systems are getting more complex but less resilient to shocks.
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Just-in-time is the problem. It’s designed for a supply chain that is working. Interrupt the supply chain and JIT becomes a sack of fail. Also means that you don’t hold stock you have to pay for… you push that back onto your supplier instead.
Now you can plan for contingencies and change your definition of JIT. Bad weather etc. can be expected in Winter and so you may change the schedules and stock levels. But if you were planning your supply chain JIT in 2018 say, would you have built in contingency for what to do when we face a possible “extinction event” such as asteroid strike or pandemic such as this? No, you wouldn’t.
What is going to cause big problems for my countrymen, especially in parts of Scotland in the Central Belt here, is that production of Buckfast has been stopped. This will produce a 
zombie apocalypse as the neds will soon run out and will be marauding the streets searching for that elusive last bottle.
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All this reminds me the movie MADMAX.
The toilet paper toilet panic sounds ridiculous to me. Wouldn’t it be more logical being worried for the food supply?
So far, we are not seeing any food supply shortage except for the eggs fully disappearing from time to time from the shelves, but shortly replaced fortunately, so why are they so worried about toilet paper?
Can’t understand it…
Cheers,
Guru
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Wasn’t lack of toilet paper one of the things that helped bring down communist East Germany. The world revolves around toilet paper in ways we are yet to fathom.
73 Matt
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Could be - maybe a PhD thesis to be written on it? I read that another factor why the Soviet communist system collapsed was young people in those countries secretly listening to western music (like The Beatles) for a few decades and realising that the lies told about ‘The West’ couldn’t be true.
It’s much too valuable for that!
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Saw it, used it. Used the whole issue.
Sadly I’ve disposed of my LLBean Catalogs. People keep trying to make off with my QST’s but those are now under lock and key. We’re not THAT desperate
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I meant [jokingly] that a thesis could be written about the link between the collapse of communism and the dearth of toilet paper rather than the thesis actually being written on toilet paper.
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But ya gotta admit that writing it on TP would earn some serious points for style!!
Also if the thesis were rubbish, it would at least be useful rubbish…
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… perhaps this is a start of a commercial plan - we ship eggs to Spain in return for toilet paper and a PhD, or have I got the wrong end of the stick? ( No toilet paper, Soap or Cat Food??? in Durham?)
The supply situation seems to be stabilising a little. There’s plenty of food in my local small Coop. Maybe not what you want, maybe some is not so healthy (frozen pizza etc.), but no reason to go hungry. I don’t see anyone starving yet. They were allowing just 3 people in the shop at a time but there was no queue outside. The chip/kebab shop was open but the Chinese restaurant/takeaway has temporarily closed.
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Same here, no shortage of vegetables, potatoes, meat raw and cooked, bread, salad items and fruit. In fact the added consideration given to feeding ourselves whilst minimising waste and the number of trips out shopping means we’re probably eating better than under more “normal” circumstances!
Supplies of pasta, flour and tinned veg / baked beans seem to be variable and hard to come by - must be the “preppers” hoarding…
The only thing that has proved to be completely unavailable is - you guessed - toilet paper 
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I learned about so many things in that post (JIT supply, Buckfast(??!!), ned culture). I need to drop by the reflector more often.
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The latest shortage here in the supermarkets is yeast (yes we have toilet rolls and the other things that have been in short supply). I can only think while shut in at home people are baking their own bread !
73 Ed.
It’s quite difficult to write on without tearing (at least the nice soft stuff my wife buys - in moderation of course). Izal however was much better - so tough you could reuse it !
Well, I do and I am. And yes, my local supermarket has toilet rolls but no yeast.
Now you’re bringing back awful memories… remember Bronco too? Whoever in their R+D departments thought it was a good idea to make toilet paper that was as abrasive as sandpaper, less absorbent than PVC and add a non-stick coating on one side that put Teflon to shame? Fortunately both seem to have gone the way of Cadbury’s fireguard department 
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… a (very) long time ago at university whilst most of the colleges had become civilised to the extent of having soft toilet paper those lucky enough to be at St Hild / St Bede had the benefits of Izal, indeed their Rugby team had t shirts printed with " the Izal med boys…" I think there might even have been some soft toilet roll relocation taking place…