Should we be taking notice of the stocking up for 72hours here or is it just Scaremongering?

No water in Ireland? If you have a bucket you'll always find enough water to fill it. Good job a lot of you didn't live in the 50's and 60's

During the freeze a few years ago, there was NO flowing water where I lived. Septic tank had totally frozen up. No tap water and no water to fill the cistern, not that it would have mattered as I couldn't flush it anyway. . Neighbours who were on their own well had no water either.

Good job you didn't live where I live.

If everyone just sat tight and not rush out panic buying then the prices wont shoot up.

I'm not worried about it, I'm just stating, I know it wont work without electricity. Which is why I have alternatives.

The UK wouldn't have a great culture of planning meals in advance. When I was there some logistics company went bust which affected chicken deliveries to KFC. Some people went nuts to the point that the police had to ask the public to stop ringing them about it.

"For those who contacted the police about KFC being out of chicken...please STOP" officers in Manchester pleaded.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-43140836

It's probably a legacy of factory culture where fast food was often the main meal.

It was really interesting in north England to see that the chippers on traditional red brick factory terraces would do most of their business at lunch and tea and then close by 7.30-8pm.

You have to go to a kabab shop after that.

One day while eating in a proper Napolitano pizza restaurant in manchester I overheard an English family complain that it wasn't real pizza as it was floppy and needed a knife and fork to eat it, whereas freezer to oven pizza like they buy in Tesco was better cause you can just eat it with your hand.

England, never a food bastion. Although I must say up north England they had some fine Cumberland sausages.

Again though, that's just more hand to mouth convenience fair.

Funnily enough I spent a week in Naples in around 2018, and I got a series of what I would call absolutely terrible pizzas. My mother used to make pizzas from scratch, so Im fully aware what a "real" pizza is like, but these were all absolutely terrible. That whole trip to Naples/Napoli was a disaster from start to finish.

Sat at the gate waiting for the flight home, sat behind me was an under-16 football team flying back to dublin, one of the lads turned to the other and said "I cant wait to get back to dublin to have a decent pizza". I thought, yeah, my sentiments exactly. I wasn't referring to a dominos, or a goodfellas, there's a decent pizzaria near me that do traditional type pizzas, but what I got over there were just awful. Service was terrible. Napoli taxis don't have a meter they have a random number generator. I could go on but I wont.

Interesting. I've yet to stay in Naples but did stay in Pompeii for half week while exploring all the archeaology sites in the middle of winter. Where ever I saw the local cops eating that's where I went and they were great, and cheap. The menus for the "pack them in" venues were twice the price.

I do the same everytime in Italy, look for a police car or cops, see where they hang out.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_856

Promoting Population Preparedness:

• Encourage the public to adopt practical measures, such as maintaining essential supplies for a minimum of 72 hours in emergencies.
• Integrate preparedness lessons into school curricula and introduce an EU Preparedness Day.

Thanks. Well I'm usually stocked up for a week, but maybe it's because we came from a frugal background with a few bags of spuds, carrots and onions always in the shed I really don't get why people aren't mostly already prepared.

The lock downs were a good training.

We're totally off topic, but I hear you. I only passed through and it was chaos. Pompeii was sleepy, cheaper and quiet, which is why I picked it as a base.

The one thing I will brave Naples for is the Archeaology Museum on my next trip to that part of the world.

Pompeii is a good reminder that everything we know can change very suddenly.

BTW, I actually hired a car in Sicily and that broke me, they're crazy.

I load the checkout so that when packing, bags are already lined up for fridge/freezer/cupboard.