Being off work today, this morning saw me accompanying my wife Michele to the local supermarket on our regular fortnightly trip to stock up. We were neither of us very pleased to see that the world and his wife were there, loading up their trollies like mad.
It appears that everybody's frightened that, as we get nearer to Christmas, the shops will run out of their favourite brand of toothpaste/cornflakes or whatever. To forestall such a catastrophe, they buy two or three times as much as usual - thus making shortages self-fufilling prophesies.
Come on everybody - there's nearly a month to go yet!