Beat the Apocalyptic panic buyers by hoarding the gin now - Susan Morrison
Beans have featured heavily in our recent conversations. Current world events have led even my unflappable Yorkshire husband to become concerned about the possibility of spiralling war-related living costs leading to riots, chaos, total societal collapse and eventual Apocalypse.
He could be right. The doughball in the White House is doing nothing to ease anxieties on that score.
Prepping, that’s the name of the game. We need to be geared up with adequate supplies. Food, toilet roll and gin must be secured in case of shortages caused by an invasion by either zombies or Americans.
This, I am told, is neither hoarding nor panic buying. Hoarding is refusing to throw out old Christmas cards from people you’ve forgotten, collecting random bits of electrical equipment that ‘might come in handy one day’ and/or piling up knickers with snapped elastic because one day you’ll take a course on how to fix dud undies. He’s been looking in my drawers again, and not in a good way.
Panic buying, apparently, is what you do when the zombies are lumbering around the corner and you have to clear the shelves of loo roll in a hurry. Also seen the night afore Hogmanay, when the supermarkets are ritually cleared, because a sliced loaf will not be available from a major retailer for, oh, at least one day.
We should be prepared, he announced. Hence the beans, of which he is very fond. I have reservations. They mainly centre around the possible scenario of me and him hunkered down in a bunker after he’s eaten all the beans.
A Yorkshireman can generate an astonishing amount of methane under ordinary circumstances. The toxic mix of beans, hastily consumed while under enemy fire, combined with adrenaline could create a potentially explosive situation. Which might come in handy, come to think of it.
The beans, of course, are not just the usual baked variety. He’s keen on kidney, butter and mixed. There was a brief debate on dried or tinned, but I pointed out that a chucked tin makes a fearsome weapon.
I think I would be good at that. My childhood was saturated by Commando comics, which were bung fu’ of images illustrating the grenade tossing technique employed by the British Armed forces, 1939 -1945. I could easily clench the ring pull between my teeth for maximum effect.
The tricky question of bog roll came up and we both agreed that a hefty supplies of toilet paper was just the thing to build a final redoubt. Clearly, the quality stuff would be needed, since yer average tank would just bulldoze two ply.
Yorkshiremen have slightly different priorities when it comes to survival supplies. Tea features highly and not just any old tea. We’re talking gold standard Yorkshire Tea here, the sort of beverage that saw off Kaisers and Fuhrers, although we don’t talk about that now, since we might soon be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with our German friends in Greenland's icy mountains.
Tea is all very well, but gin's the stuff to feed the troops. Should Leith fall under siege (again) and the women of the Republic forced to run under gunfire to the Water of Leith for the daily drinking supply, you bet I’ll be fuelled on mother’s finest ruin.
Best get to the shops sharpish and start hoarding the gin before the panic buying starts.