Several weeks ago we reported that amid Europe's mindblowing gas and electricity prices, Deutsche Bank predicted that a growing number of German households will be using firewood for heating, a forecast which appears to have become self-fulfilling as German google searches for firewood ("brennholz") had since exploded off the charts:

But while Germans are still "searching" merely in the virtual realm, for countless Poles the search is all too real.

According to Reuters, with Poland still basking in the late summer heat, hundreds of cars and trucks have already lined up at the Lubelski Wegiel Bogdanka coal mine, as householders fearful of winter shortages wait for days and nights to stock up on heating fuel ahead of the coming cold winter in queues reminiscent of communist times.

Artur, 57, a pensioner, drove up from Swidnik, some 30 km (18 miles) from the mine in eastern Poland on Tuesday, hoping to buy several tonnes of coal for himself and his family.

"Toilets were put up today, but there's no running water," he said, after three nights of sleeping in his small red hatchback in a crawling queue of trucks, tractors towing trailers and private cars. "This is beyond imagination, people are sleeping in their cars. I remember the communist times but it didn't cross my mind that we could return to something even worse."