The Three Pence Famine
Diary Log 699b….21st September 2026
Back Home.
Back in Liverpool. Our kitchen. Rain on the window, kettle clicking off, and me sat at the table with a bowl of cornflakes and the box propped up against the milk. Gobbolino was on the windowsill, tuxedo-black coat against the grey light, white chest and paws tucked neat, watching the rain like it owed him money. Dave was under the table, muscular white-and-brown bulk spread across my feet, chewing something he definitely shouldn't have.
I turned the box around and read the back. Then I started doing sums on the corner of a newspaper.
"Right, Gob. Listen to this."
I drew a little lorry. "One artic. Full of cornflakes. London to Liverpool. That's about two hundred and thirty-five miles by road."
Gobbolino's ear twitched. Dave stopped chewing.
"That trailer takes twenty-two pallets on the bottom deck and twenty-two on top. Forty-four pallets. Five hundred boxes each. That's twenty-two thousand boxes of cornflakes on one wagon."
I took a bite.
"Now. That wagon does about eight miles to the gallon. Two hundred and thirty-five miles means about a hundred and thirty-four litres of diesel. At today's bulk price, call it a hundred and eighty-seven quid for the whole run."
I wrote it out and circled it.
"Divide that across the forty-four pallets. That's four pound twenty-five a pallet. Per box? Less than a penny. Fuel costs you less than a penny per box of cornflakes to get it from London to Liverpool."
Dave's tail thumped once against the lino.
"Now here's the bit they're setting up for us. They're telling us fuel is going to quadruple. So let's quadruple it. Diesel goes from a hundred and eighty-seven quid to seven hundred and forty-eight. Cost per pallet goes from four pound twenty-five to seventeen quid."
I leaned over and showed Gobbolino the newspaper.
"Extra cost per pallet? Twelve pounds seventy-five. Per box? Two point seven pence."
I held up a single cornflake.
"Two and a half pence. That's the real cost of the crisis. On a box you buy for two quid, the fuel shock is worth less than three pence."
Gobbolino blinked slowly. He understood. He always does.
"So what will they actually charge? They'll stand on the telly and tell you the shelves are empty, the ships aren't sailing, the wagons can't move. And they'll put that box up by sixty pence. Maybe more. Because the crisis is the best excuse they've ever been handed. They don't need to raise prices to cover costs. They need a story to hide behind while they raise them anyway."
Dave let out a low rumble. He knows a bluff when he smells one.
"Two point seven pence," I said, tapping the cornflake. "That's the truth of it. Everything above that is a decision. And the decision belongs to a boardroom, not a fuel tank."
"Question everything," I said. "Especially a price rise with a story attached."
The Three Travellers 🐾
