The countryside asks permission to stay warm. Once it asked nothing

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                        __________
                       | oil tank | <- the guest
                       |__________|    arrangement
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        the pile never breached a contract

Hear the state of things: 1.5 million rural households, the last people in Britain who live beyond the pipes, must now petition a regulator for the right to fair dealing on the oil that warms their children. The CMA has recommended protections. The village awaits the city's paperwork. Our ancestors are looking away.

Yet within the softness, sparks of the old iron. A man of Claverdon, shorted 500 litres and offered his own fuel back at ransom, did not tweet his despair. He wrote to every director by name and held the line until the contract was honoured. Then he taught the village how. That is how a parish defends itself: one stubborn man with correspondence.

And a woman of Hanley Swan, tank filled before the trouble, household of four, waste cut to the bone, coins set aside. She keeps a home the way a captain keeps a ship. No committee taught her. None could.

Still — mark the lesson under it all. Warmth that arrives by lorry is warmth on loan. The woodpile never breached a contract. Stack it high. Then rest.