turner's torque Is it October already? It’s been a weird year, not as bad as 2020, obviously, but weird nonetheless. When we first started to publish the magazine back in December 2018, from a simple to maintain review website to this, I was constantly asked whether we’d have enough content to fill a few issues, never mind for a whole year. 31 issues later, I’m happy to confirm that not only are Muddy Madam and I kept busy (often too busy), but the whole 4x4 community is still thriving, despite the best efforts of Covid to kill it, and us, off over the last couple of years. Shows are packed, green lanes are being used and companies are doing their upmost to supply us all with the products we want, but it's not easy. Before everything hit the fan, getting products from foreign suppliers was relatively simple - buy the space you need in a container, and wait for it to arrive. These days however, companies have bidding wars just to get their products into a container. Once a container would cost around £1,500, but these days they’re looking at around £20k!
Then there's the ongoing problem of not having enough HGV drivers to move the products once they arrive on these shore. It's a double whammy! So if your favourite 4x4 or outdoor company is struggling to get stock - be patient, it's not their fault. On the subject of companies, please support our advertisers, as without them, and of course our lovely Ko-Fi supporters, you wouldn’t be able to read The Mud Life for free. Being truthful, we wouldn’t be able to afford to create the mag without our wonderful advertisers and businesses who send us products for us to review, so give them a click, and spend some of your hard-earned cash! AND THEN..... More panic buying, only this time it’s dino-juice instead of bog roll! Trouble with this is that you can’t distinguish between the morons who are panic buying, and those who are actually running on fumes. Who is to blame? The media is most definitely to blame, all because of their sensational reports of a few petrol stations that couldn't get fuel because of a localised shortage of HGV drivers. They then gleefully stirred everyone up into a frenzy (and as I am writing this I have the radio news on, and they still are!!) - that’s what they do, isn’t it? Queues stopped traffic, the stations that got fuel hiked up prices, papers created more shocking headlines, TV companies fanned the flames seeing a chance to raise their ratings, and to hell with common sense and consequences. Hey, we're running low on ad space in the mag, anyone fancy a bit of panic buying?
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'til next month… 4
THE MUD LIFE MAGAZINE
