Shopping Mad
Empty shelves in Asda, Swansea
I don’t know how widespread scenes like that pictured above actually are, but there seems to be a lot of panic buying and/or stockpiling going on.
Worse still are scenes like this:
Social distancing doesn’t seem to be a priority among these people.
It all seems a bit ironic to see this demonstrable lack of public-spiritedness alongside the usual rhetoric about the “Dunkirk Spirit”. With the latter in mind I’ve updated Winston Churchill’s famous wartime peroration from 1940 in a manner more suitable for the 2020s:
We shall fight in Tesco, we shall fight in Aldi and Asda, we shall fight with growing panic and growing stupidity in the aisles, we shall defend our toilet rolls, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight for the pasta, we shall fight for the hand-wash…(continued, page 94)
Anyway for what it’s worth I still haven’t noticed any shortages of food or household goods where I’m living. It may be different elsewhere of course but Maynooth is doing fine in that regard.
This is not to say I haven’t changed my shopping habits at all. I’ve never been in the habit of doing big shopping trips. I live alone, don’t have a freezer and my fridge is quite small. I tend therefore to buy bits and pieces as I need them. I prefer fresh food and, usually eating lunch in the College when I’m at work, I don’t need a main meal in the evening.
Now I’m having lunch at home every day I need to buy a bit more, which is one change. Mindful that a stricter lock down might be coming soon, I have also begun buying a few things I wouldn’t normally buy. To my usual shopping I’ve added the odd item of tinned food but never more than a can or two at a time. I also bought some powdered milk in case fresh milk becomes unavailable.
I haven’t eaten any of the tinned goods I’ve bought yet: I am still eating fresh things as they seem to be readily available. Who knows when or if that will change.
I realise my personal situation makes coping with this social distancing malarkey rather easier than most but I think certain individuals are making it even more difficult for the others with their selfish behaviour. I suppose there will always be some.
Anyway, do feel free to share your own experiences of shortages or lack thereof through the comments box.
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In the Dark 
March 22, 2020 at 11:45 am
It seems to be happening more in Britain than in Ireland. I haven’t seen any panic buying here. Where was that pic taken?
March 22, 2020 at 11:59 am
In Asda in Swansea.
March 22, 2020 at 7:21 pm
Cormack: like it or not, I believe you’ll find that Ireland is one of the British Isles.
March 24, 2020 at 8:42 pm
Yes, so it is, geographically speaking. Did I say somewhere it wasn’t?
March 24, 2020 at 8:44 pm
So it is, geographically speaking. Did I say otherwise? perhaps you are referring to the British aisles ho ho..
March 22, 2020 at 4:31 pm
It seems that here in the states there is no panic shopping for: perfume, sunscreen, pet toys and veggie party platters.
March 22, 2020 at 7:02 pm
Love the Churchill adaptation!
March 22, 2020 at 8:07 pm
I’ve still got my emergency supplies for a no-deal Brexit crashout.
March 23, 2020 at 12:02 am
The Germans are not going to be interested in bailing out everybody else in the eurozone now, and borders are already closed… what is left of the EU to crash out of?
March 23, 2020 at 12:19 am
An association of democracies working together for their mutual benefit.
March 23, 2020 at 7:14 am
From what I can see it’s Britain that is crashing and I don’t mean just the pound.
March 23, 2020 at 11:48 am
I’m not sure whether it is true that Macron threatened to block entry into France from the UK, but it is widely reported that this is the only thing that made Johnson get off his arse (and then only partially).
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-macron/frances-macron-threatened-uk-entry-ban-without-more-stringent-measures-report-idUSKBN218133
March 23, 2020 at 12:13 pm
Ireland was several decades later than Britain in removing institutional religion form their national life. That is why the British behave like a rabble in supermarkets compared to 1940. Give the Irish time…
March 23, 2020 at 12:16 pm
There was rationing in 1940. Also crime went up by 57% during the Blitz. Not sure what religion has to do with anything. Religious people in my experience behave as badly as anyone else, except with added hypocrisy. Just look at the state of the Evangelical Right in America.
March 24, 2020 at 12:07 am
The Evangelical Right in America are obsessed with political power, which is a mistake that gives God a bad name. They have every right to campaign as citizens of a democracy for the laws they would like to see in their country, but no right to use God’s name to tell other people how to behave.
Gospel Christianity is not about advocating laws governing morality. It is about being changed by Christ so as to be capable of keeping a set of laws, given by God and written down in the Old Testament. Some of those laws were obviously specific to agrarian Israel in the ancient Near East. Evangelicals consider that the subset of laws governing interpersonal morality are still appropriate today, because human nature hasn’t changed, and they campaign for them. Too many self-defining evangelicals do that instead of living lives that conform to those laws (rather than as well as). You are right that that is hypocrisy. They might be in for an awful shock one day.
It is my dislike of politicised, institutional Christianity that causes me not to be an Anglican or a Catholic, and to be in a congregation that has no hierarchy above and outside it, only a governing internal council of elders. That is, non-coincidentally, the pattern described in the New Testament – a good precedent, if departed from grotesquely in church history. Institutional Christianity is much more about law than about being changed for the better (cf gospel Christianity), but it underpinned the moral behaviour of people in Britain until the 1960s, and Ireland for 40 years after that. The rabble in that British supermarket would have contempt for the moral rules advocated by the Dunkirkers. There’s a correlation for you, and that is why I said Ireland is simply a few decades behind. You are seeing a snapshot of the Republic, but its society is in a state of change on that timescale, not in a stable state.
March 23, 2020 at 10:47 pm
Are you perhaps unaware, Phillip, that Frederick Douglass was a deeply committed Christian?
Perhaps also you would set out the argument by which you consider the Bible justifies slavery of the “sons of Ham”? I would gladly debate it with you.
March 24, 2020 at 10:07 am
In short, Phillip, you are not able to use the Bible to derive slavery of Africans. I am well aware of the argument used and also of the obvious error in it (used, clearly, by slaveowners who dared to call themselves Christian – but Christ gave clear warnings that he would deny some who called themselves Christian, and told people to treat others as you would wish to be treated in their shoes). You, it seems, are aware of neither their basic argument nor its error. I suggest you stop using it to tar the Bible until you have educated yourself further.
March 24, 2020 at 12:45 pm
But you say “this argument”. You can’t say what it is.
It is impossible to prevent people misusing your words. Even if you are God. It might be convenient for those who dislike biblical religion to mention a misuse of scripture without saying or checking it is misuse, but it is hardly commendable rhetoric.
March 24, 2020 at 8:49 pm
Evidence that you understand what you are citing.
March 23, 2020 at 12:56 pm
I thought it was only the external border of Schengen that was closed, though I admit I haven’t been keeping up with the news!
Ireland has a Common Travel Area with the UK which remains open. I think that may change soon.