IT is pretty obvious after seeing all the queues outside filling stations and the subsequent closed signs that we are entering silly season.

This week we include a short note from the leader of the district council imploring residents to only fuel up your vehicle as you normally would. That way we can get supplies to the filling stations back to normal and we can carry on with our lives.

As if we haven’t had enough to deal with over the past 18 months of chop and change, lockdowns, restrictions and rules without all this.

And so unnecessary, too.

What began as a statement from BP saying it was struggling with getting some supplies to its forecourts and may have to ‘ration’ deliveries, set off a stampede of panic. As the majority of us understood, there was no need to squeeze every last drop into your tank and fill every Jerry can you own. All it did was make sure someone - several of them in fact - would have to go without. Someone who needed their vehicle for work or to collect a child or do a good turn and who was put at a disadvantage by someone else’s greed or ignorance.

It was back to the toilet roll scrums we saw over a year ago. I expect most of those toilet rolls are still piled high in someone’s back bedroom. Sadly you can’t run a car on toilet rolls.