We got a call a few days ago. Uncle Andy, following his injury in the tanker incident all those weeks ago, has finally been allowed to leave the middle east. He arrives today, but in London Heathrow. Greg, who's been stockpiling his maximum diesel allowance each week now that he's making good money off his solar company, agreed that he'd drive us there.

It's the first time I've been in a car in 10 weeks. The car smells musty and the diesel engine takes a few gos to start. There's dead leaves strewn across the wheel arches of most of the cars along our street. After negotiating with a neighbour who's car was blocking our path (he didn't have any fuel, we had to let go of the handbrake and push), we set off.

The motion of the car felt really unnatural after so long away and I soon felt a little sick. I ignored mum and Greg's talking and sat back to look out the window.

Bristol is actually busier than it used to be, in a way. The pavements on either side of the road are packed with people walking to work, to shop and wherever else they go.

"There's still quite a few cars," I said, surprised at the number passing us on the road. Greg shrugged in the driver seat.

"People still need to get places," he said. "It's only £1.60 a litre. It's more expensive than it used to be but it's not so much people who need to travel can't do it."

"So why haven't you been using your car much then?" I asked him. I still hadn't worked him out. Sometime he seemed so Tory, whilst othertimes he was positively liberal in his approach.

"I don't want to waste money," he said. "If I can do it from home, I'd rather not have to spend 40 quid going to work."

"And all that diesel you bought?"

"It doesn't hurt to save it up," he said. "If prices rise again, the money I spent will be tiny. It's an investment."

We fell silent again as a fire engine's sirens shrieked towards us, heading to a stack of smoke rising over St. Paul's. Greg manoeuvred out of the way - avoiding the pedestrians being harder than avoiding the cars.

Another farmer's market was in full swing in Broadmead as we entered the main shopping district. It had grown since I last saw it, and another set of roads had been closed off to accompany the throngs off people queueing for locally made food. Security checkpoints at every entrance to the market were guarded pretty heavily by the blue shirted security forces that the government's been recruiting heavily for - every other advert now is an offer to join up the security forces and bolster the police.

"Brown's determined to legislate this crisis away, isn't he?" Greg muttered. "making all these new jobs in security for all the unemployed to stop the unemployed causing trouble... pretty clever."

He sounded impressed despite himself. Maybe what he's seen on the news about the US has made him appreciate us not being controlled by ultra conservatives. We drove on. The new developments of shops at the rear of Broadmead have stopped, the cranes flopping down sadly. They looked like tired birds. A couple of places the fences had been broken down and graffiti was all over this part of town.

Then on past the Tesco superstore - heavily guarded at the gates - and onto the motorway. There were a few cars but mostly just lorries, trucking down the first two lanes of the road. A fair few of their number seemed to have police escorts who eyed us nervously as we overtook.

A lot of buses too, packed full of people gawping at any cars that passed - a fair few forlorn faces stared out at me, bags all around them as they retreated where they were going. All the signs on the road had new additions at the bottom: Drive slower and save fuel. H. M. Government.

A lot of people seemed to be following the advice. Most of the outer two lanes were going less than 50. Greg shot past a lot of them with a grin on his face.

"Shouldn't you conserve fuel?" I asked, looking at the needle going past 80 on the speedometer.

"I haven't driven in weeks," he replied. "If I'm on the road I might as well enjoy myself. Besides, the faster we go the sooner we'll get to Uncle Andy."

Motorway driving hasn't changed much, despite all that. It's still very dull, with nothing to see but grass embankments and other bored drivers and passengers. A couple of rich boy racers in cars shot past us way too fast but none of the police escorts seemed to care. I think they were just glad to see their product safe to its destination. I plugged my earphones into my solar-charged phone and started listening to music, fading out from the boredom of the M4.

I was jolted out of it an hour later as we pulled off near reading and headed towards the airport. Things were very different here. Reading's always been a massive place for commuters moving into London every day and I've heard on BBC that a ton have lost their jobs. Smoke rose in several places from the city in the distance and placards littered the side of the road, cardboard taped to fences asking for help from passers by and God. As we turned the roundabout towards the airport junction, I saw something I never expect to see.

A checkpoint had been set up leading to the 4 terminals, complete with barbed wire and temporary hut. The shocking thing as we drew up to the barrier were the two gigantic tanks on either side of us, the soldiers watching us approach and join the queue to enter the airport with mistrust. After twenty minutes slow queueing - Greg cursing the wasted fuel every time we moved forward - we reached the barrier and a soldier leaned in to check our faces.

"ID cards and reason for being here," he said to Greg. They were all armed. greg handed over our ration cards, which were swiped and passed back to us.

"We're here to collect a relative," Mum leaned over and said. "He should have arrived a few hours ago."

The soldier eyed us dubiously then waved us through.

"You've all been charged £10 and six ration credits," he said. He put a hand down to stop our protests. "It's to stop people getting in who just want to sneak onto a plane. You're allowed a free meal whilst you're in the terminal, just show them these."

We got four tickets of entry and entered the compound. The army was everywhere. I shrank down in my seat to avoid the stares of the helmeted soldiers looking at us pass. We rose over a crest and into one of the car parks.

"My god," Mum said. Greg slowed down. Nearly all the car park, and the ones we could see beyond it, had been fenced away and within them lay scores of prefabricated buildings. Guards patrolled the gates. Inside, thousands of people in ragged clothes hugged the fence, tramped across the damp asphalt, looking completely miserable.

"What are they all doing there?" I said, horrified. A girl not much older than me stared at our car passing, her eyes wide and desperate.

"Illegal Immigrants," Greg said. "I heard they were shipping them out from here."

He accelerated past the makeshift prisons and into the terminal proper. I stared, not wanting to see what I was seeing. I felt sickened. Not because they looked that mistreated - I could see a table of people being served hot food, and a tv was on in one of the buildings with everyone clustered around it. I was sickened, mainly because I found myself unable to say that they shouldn't be sent home. I was horrified to find that I didn't entirely disagree.

Greg parked and we passed another checkpoint into Heathrow. There were a few businessmen looking harried and queues of poor immigrants being herded into various destination queues, arguing with the officials in many languages. possessions and coats were piled up everywhere around families with tired, forlorn expressions on their faces. There were no normal looking passengers, no one looking excited to be getting on a plane to go spend days in the sun or visiting some foreign city. The scene looked like an airport but different.

Most of the desks were closed and many were staffed by guards rather than chirpy hostesses. We filed past the queues and into the food court. Aside from a handful of cheaper looking restaurants, everything was closed. We sat in a pizza restaurant, jostling to sit down amidst a ton of depressed Africans demanding more food for their rations from a harrassed waitress with greasy hair.

We exchanged our coupons for an order whilst mum called uncle Andy. The pizzas were small and uninviting but the strong flavoured cheese and pepperoni reminded me of cheap fast food that made me part-nostalgic and part-disgusted. I wolfed it down anyway.

Uncle Andy appeared a few minutes later, pulling a airport trolley full of luggage. He'd aged so much. His once-brown hair was greying and burn scars and bandages lined the skin on one side of his neck. One of his eyebrows had a thick gash slowly healing, barely missing his eye. One leg was still bandaged and he limped as he walked. More than that, he just looked completely drained of the enthusiasm and exuberance I associated with my favourite relative.

He saw us and his eyes lit up with that familiar sparkle. Greg came forward and shook his hand and took the trolley, whilst mum leapt on her brother to give him a concerned hug. Then he looked at me and the tiredness lifted off his face.

"Hello kiddo," he said. "Fancy seeing you here."

I launched myself at him and he folded his arms around me in a bear hug. Then he straightened, looking around the restaurant complex at the hordes of hunched-over figures shuffling towards their exit. His eyes took it all in and looked full of many sadnesses. He smiled slightly and looked at us.

"I've had enough of it," he said, watching as the African family got pulled away by one of the guards and a social worker, screaming. "Let's get out of here."

I've never been so glad to leave a place.

-Mia





[Author's note: week 19. A much more prose based entry after yesterdays mega linkage. I wanted to show some more of the UK without getting too histrionic. Uncle Andy's reappearance gave me that opportunity. I don't agree with deportation but it's chillingly realistic. I'm still trying to carve a sense of tense but managed calm in Britain.


A bit disappointed with the last few days of coverage. Things are getting far too dark considering fuel hasn't changed in price much for a long time. It got to $6.50 and stabilised - similar to modern day european prices. Whilst there's definitely going to be chaos as a result (and chaos makes for better reading) I've felt things are getting too dark too quickly lately. It's conceivable that such results could happen, but surely not so fast. I'm going to keep my writing a little bit more slow-paced until I see some major event that could change things in my part of the UK - I certainly haven't seen it yet. There's still plenty of hope that with organisation everyone can come out of this bruised and poorer but with some sense of a normal life. A lot of major companies will crash and burn and a lot of people will go bankrupt. That's not the same as an apocalypse. Even at $6, it's not so expensive that food can't arrive or fuel is prohibitive. If it was over $10, then maybe. At the moment, most of what's causing the problems seems to be panic. We can get through this, as long as we are prepared to adapt.

As I said in some of the comments, I'd love to see what's happening in the US congress and Senate about this crisis. It's looking like shaky ground for Bush even without any oil crisis - with the bunglings in America I'd be amazed if there wasn't a motion to Impeach him by now. Whilst the administration aren't perfect, there's a few senators and congressmen/women who would have tried to pass motions to make this better - and would probably have got fed up of Bush's oil-company-induced vetos. So I'm offering a challenge to American writers of wwo: show me what you're government's doing. Let's see some political reaction to all this.

UPDATE:here's a great example.]