I spent £196 on fuel last week and never came close to running out. Have a full tank for this week, expect to have to fill up on Thursday. It is bad in London and a few places but I had no concerns about driving to Hull last weekend.
Dearest I saw diesel was £1.58.9 in a two pump forecourt in the New Forest. I did laugh a little at the two mugs buying it. I had just filled up a mile away for £1.34.9. First time in years that I have seen that garage with a car in it.
Fuel is transferred via a national network of pipelines. E69 is one of the busiest and it passes close to my home. There is no shortage of petrol or diesel in the system. Kent and London will have more tankers, but that does not mean that they get more fuel. Tankers supplying retail forecourts operate to tight schedules and routes. For the first time in years, tanker drivers are having to take rest breaks on the roads as delivery times are under pressure but none are moving out of their areas. The south is not getting any more fuel supplied than the north.
Fair enough. I understand that 20% of petrol stations in the South East are dry. That was reported on sky news very recently. Yesterday, I believe. Which if true would suggest a shortage of supply to feed demand. Which logic would suggest may result in more supply taken from other areas to meet demand, but, in truth, I'm only playing devils advocate.
I wouldn’t stop at Sky, any “News” Channels, BBC, ITV, Ch4…. How have our UK News Channels turned into the equivalent to CNN & Fox News? 24 hour News pumped out, with experts rolled out to cover the latest drama unfolding. I’m thinking just over the last 2 years, that I can think of, how they’ve managed to twist things into a way, where, there has been an over reaction by people, then all of a sudden, when they stop reporting it, the problem just, “stops.” Off the top of my head, we had, “toilet roll shortages,” “Racist statues,” “fuel shortages.” I’m sure there’s been more, but as I don’t really watch or listen to the news, I only see the big stories. Can’t wait to see what the next thing will be, that’ll bring an over reaction by people. What are they building up to? Whatever seems to be reported, gets a huge reaction, so IMO, it’ll be something big, perhaps a lack of Christmas toys, leading to people fighting each other in Argos & other well known toy retailers. Maybe they’re saving something up for next year? Who knows? Personally I’m hoping for Aliens or Zombies. However, that might be too big a storyline at this moment in time for the “news” channels.
Well, that's what there's a demand for. The problem isn't the format of the show, it's that people conflate opinion and fact and end up getting offended by the latter. The news is there to provide factual information, which is exactly what it does (as much as people will twist that, it's still very much the case). These opinion segments are designed to get "expert analysis" and viewpoints to create discussions, disagreements mean higher viewing figures, more hits on Youtube etc. The media wants outrage, but at the same time it doesn't, because it's still got to maintain an air of credibility otherwise people won't trust it as a source. Papers like the Daily Mail, the Express, The Sun etc are full of sensationalist bullshit, but they never quite cross the line because they know if they do, they're knackered. I still take small pleasures in putting copies of the i Paper over those papers in shops, just so people can't directly see the crap they spew. Call it individual media regulation from your friendly neighbourhood Spiderman. The media is and always has been driven by demand, so when people claim that the stories are febrile in content, it's only because the most popular talking points are bullshit things on the internet that have garnered a lot of attention. The media now is designed to give you the information you require, before shuffling you onto the next thing before you take pause to actually think about what was said. It's why you get outrage over headlines about immigrants one day, but then by the next day those people have already forgotten about it. The issue I've got with the media at the moment is that the stuff that actually needs reporting on properly, such as humanitarian crises, potential geopolitical disputes, climate change etc, aren't being addressed when these are things people really, really need to know about. The media only has control in so far as people buy it, like anything else, if it's ignored, it'll go away. People actively go out of their way to find things to get pissed off at, so it's easy pickings for them. It's spilled over into social media, people can scroll until they find something they agree with and then dive in so that they get that buzz of feeling like part of something. If you don't agree, instead of reading the other side of the debate, you can just skip it until you find somebody with the same opinion as you. Horrific. Things like Byline Times, (not that I'm bigging it up because I've contributed in the past or anything) report both sides of the political spectrum and absolutely stick to truth, they do a lot of fact checking too. They're much better than any newspaper out there at the moment.
Most media has political bias and people tend to listen to or read those media that 'speaks their language' / favours their own political bias - for instance I wont listen to Jon Craig, Chief Political Journalist for Sky because of his unashamed left wing bias and left wing spin- no doubt people of a left wing persuasion will probably think he's great - I notice when you listed the Mail etc you forgot to mention the Mirror which is the biggest pile of arsewipe of all the newspapers and even omit major stories if they don't fit their bias narrative - at the end of the day you make your own choice but dont pretend any of it is balanced - its not
I just listed the three most notorious for bullshit. The Mirror isn't great either, but like the Sun it's designed to generate money through sensationalism. Any red top paper is guff. I listen to anything as long as it's true and the person speaking is objective; you need to hear both sides otherwise you don't get the whole picture and that's also a big problem in this country. I did a piece on the whole Covid/5G thing, and I had to sit and listen to endless hours of bullshit from vox pops and interviews with ****ing nutters, but if I hadn't, I wouldn't have been able to trace the source of the problem. I also did work on QAnon, same problem. It's unpleasant a lot of the time and it's kinda sad to think that these people have become so twisted, but without listening to them, you don't learn anything.
How do you decide whether the espoused statements are true unless your own opinions are being reflected? Or they change your opinion based on proven facts/evidence that come from perhaps equally less legitimate/proven sources ? Marshall McLuhan all over again? Herd mentality and click-bait still prevails ? Solid debate and proof perfect is hard to achieve given bias which the media exploit, and financially profit from. Part of the reason why democratic elections are held frequently - people can be smart or gullible. All depends on how convincing the position in the argument is.
Because it's very, very easy to verify things. I remember when the mainstream mistrust of all things media related started, it began on web forums and was repurposed not so long ago into the mainstream over in America. Like most American things, it spilled over into the UK and now this "question everything" mentality has become conflated with constant suspicion. If you think the information you are given is wrong, look it up, search for evidence, in 2021 that's really not difficult to do. But when people start questioning things like science, which really isn't up for debate, it creates problems like the 5G scenario I mentioned, or vaccine hesitancy. Or Flat Earth. Evidence is massively important, but facts don't take sides, they don't have a bias. 2 + 2 = 4. It doesn't matter if Youtubeguy301 has made a video explaining why he thinks it's six, and 5000 other people have joined his cult of six and are claiming him to be the new messiah, it's still incorrect, regardless of their beliefs, bias or opinions. The fact that nearly, if not all QAnon followers were Trump supporters is irrelevant to how correct they are; their bias doesn't make them wrong, their bullshit does. Opinion is not a replacement for knowledge, emotion doesn't replace evidence. Your view on the world should be impacted by what you learn and know, not what you think you know or believe.
It is not very easy to verify things. That's why the "scientific method" exists. Question everything and design/implement methods to prove or refute postulation. Logic applied. Media latches onto any bloody "unproven" speculation. Many fall for it. So called "experts" are 10 a penny. Even more fall for such "expertise". Opinion is part of the research discipline/model. Much proves fruitless (i.e. disproves potential avenues), some brings confirmation of ideas. It may be very easy for you to say "I listen to (believe?) anything that's true...". Until someone comes along to counteract that old knowledge. (Newton to Einstein to Quantum mechanics).
