With apologies to Edward Hopper [www.johnsadlerillustration.com]

• HOW quick we are to point the finger of blame at the poor frustrated souls queueing up outside service stations as ministers and other assorted smart-arses keep saying there is no shortage of petrol; there just aren’t enough HGV drivers!

This must be among the least helpful of responses to people who rely on their cars to get them to fulfil the obligations of their working and family lives where public transport and Shanks’s pony is simply no help.

That’s like telling someone as they sit on the toilet desperately calling out that there’s no paper: “There’s plenty of paper! It’s in the shop down the road!”

Mind you, these days it probably isn’t.

D WARD, NW1