PICTURE the scene, if you will. It's mid-Sunday afternoon about 2.55pm and I'm still festering in bed thanks to a particularly busy week and an even busier Saturday which began at work at 6.30am and ended with me mercilessly panning my closest friends at Monopoly 18 hours later, in the wee small hours of the night.

The telly's on in the corner of my bedroom and I don't know what the weather is like I'm afraid because I can't even be bothered to poke my head out from under the duvet and in between the closed curtains to see.

It could be raining, snowing, sunshining like a summer's day or, to be honest, a nuclear bomb could have dropped on Rossendale for all I know.

Only I don't care either at this precise moment in time, I must admit.

You see, I'm having a monumental, record-breaking, marathon lie in to match the monumental, record-breaking, marathon stay up I had yesterday.

And it's absolutely great.

Norris McWhirter may be about to leap out from the wardrobe or under the bed with a stopwatch and a copy of the Guinness Book of World Records tucked under his arm, yes, but who cares? My grandma would be horrified too, but, what the hell? John and Yoko have nothing on me.

It's then, as I'm savouring every single, solitary moment half--watching the last episode in the triple bill of Dawson's Creek Day Two and basking in the satisfying afterglow of two ginormous bacon and cheese butties and an individual cherry cheesecake, when the 'phone rings.

Nightmare.

I think my phone must have the shrillest, most annoying, jump-out-of-your skin house music style digital beeping ring tune I've ever come across.

Honestly, it's like a World War Two air raid warning in the middle of a winter night. But I answer it, like you do. Well, it might be important, you know.

And it was, I suppose, looking back.

"Have you got any petrol?" said the near-hysterical voice at the other end.

And so it began, the Great Petrol Drought. The start of a week that looks certain to go down in history alongside such great national events as the General Strike, the Great Plague or the Blitz.

At least I will know the answer when people in years to come ask me where I was when it began -- like they do over things like the death of Princess Diana or JFK.

But, honestly, I've never seen anything like it. Have you?

People queuing at the pumps, panic buying bread and milk in bulk like a hurricane is about to sweep into town, cutting off roads, electricity and telephone lines.

I mean, yes, the lack of petrol has caused me some problems of my own but surely one of the most frightening things is the speed in which it gripped the area, threatening to cripple businesses and bring the entire country grinding to a halt.

You see I thought we had moved on from 1926 -- only after this week I'm too sure.

It seems that even in the virtual, interactive, internet age, where you can order pizza through your TV and get practically anything delivered to your door at the flick of a switch, we still need certain, basic things to keep the real world turning around.

Fuel is obviously one -- and I'd go with food as the other. I don't need to ask the audience or 'phone a friend.

Personally, after that, my bed would make up the top three.

Lets just hope nobody except my grandma protests about that eh? Then there really will be trouble, let me tell you.