On Petrol and Potter.

Do you realise how irritating it is to feel the urge to write but having nothing to write about? Today was tedious and my injured arm precluded any gardening work.

I suppose I could mention the road fuel shortage which is causing much gnashing of teeth in all relevant quarters. Blame is being laid far and wide. The Road Haulage Association, Covid and Brexit are all being held up to be shot at, but my favourite villain is the media. When I saw how the BBC was sensationalising the relatively small problem at a few BP stations on Friday I predicted panic buying and so it has proved to be. According to the body which represents the independent petrol stations, two thirds of their members are now completely dry with the rest due to join them over the next few days. Well, there you are. Let’s blame the panic buyers. It seems there’s plenty of road fuel in the country, but it’s all in the wrong place – at the refineries rather than the filling stations because the filing stations are being swamped by customers crying ‘me, me, me’ and there aren’t enough delivery drivers to cope.

So it seems there are lots of people to blame. OK, that will do. The modern world is becoming amazingly dysfunctional and this is just the latest example. Do I care? Not at the moment because my arm still hurts and I’m still getting bouts of feeling unwell.

I’ll tell you what is odd, though. Last night I developed an unaccustomed urge to watch the Harry Potter movies again. It’s strange because I’ve watched them all so many times that I know the stories, the scripts, the plot holes and the continuity errors backwards. It’s just that I felt a sense that I’ve missed something in them somewhere, some unintentional message which can tell me something I need to know. I thought a tree said as much to me when I was standing under its branches last night, but I might have misheard it.