How this page works, and what will never appear on itNo action
Most weeks, the honest answer is that nothing has changed. We will keep saying that, in plain words, and we will not invent an item to fill the page.
The Brief
Keeping up, without being wound up.
We follow this so you do not have to read it twice. Every item says what happened, what it changes for your household, and what to do. Most weeks that is nothing, and we will keep saying so.
Our rule
Nothing goes on this page until an official or on-the-record source has said it. No predictions, no countdowns, no maps on fire. If we do not know, we say we do not know.
Britain confirms a national campaign asking households to keep supplies at homeNo action
That this is now ordinary. It is the same advice Finland, Sweden, Germany and the United States have given for years, and the same advice we give here. If you have a cupboard with a few tins, some bottled water and a flashlight, you are already doing what the campaign will ask.
A deliberate fire cut power to about 40,000 Berlin households for four daysOne small thing
This is the honest reason we say three days is a floor and not a ceiling. Not because a war is coming to your street, but because a single act of sabotage in a large European capital produced a four day outage in ordinary flats, in January, with no warning.
The American number is still three days minimum, two weeks to aim forOne small thing
The gap between three days and two weeks is where a lot of American households give up, because two weeks sounds like a garage full of buckets. It is not. It is the food you already eat, one shelf deeper.
The European Commission asks every household to be able to cope alone for 72 hoursNo action
It gives every household in Europe a clear number to aim at, and it is a modest one. Seventy two hours is a long weekend, not a siege.