Jon wrote:
My preferred method is a sprinkling of firelighters in the base of the
tray, a covering of lumpwood charcoal, and then charcoal briquettes
over that. Pour half a cup of petrol over it all, leave for 2 mins to
soak in, wash hands (to remove any petrol) and then chuck a match on.

The theory behind it is that the lumpwood is easy to light but doesn't
burn for very long, so the lumpwood effectively "lights" the
briquettes, which burn for about 2 hours.

What does everyone else do?

couple of sheets of newspaper, few small sticks very thin, made itno a small
fire with lumpwood charcoal on top, no accelerants of any kind, unless you
like the taste of wax / oil / residues etc.
Leave for 5 mins until a few pieces of charcoal are caught, then fan with a
piece of carboard so that it becomes like a blast furnace, then add
remainder of charcoal and wait until it's ready...from start to cooking
takes around 30 mins.

Another BBQ essential which appears never to have caught on in this country,
presumably because;
A) we are all lousy cooks, or B) we are all still new to barbecuing, is the
use of a water spray gun, this is used to fine mist the coals so as to cool
them down and therby increase the cooking time and avoid the black
exterior/bloody interior of most British BBQ food, as a society we seem to
have this bizzare notion that something is done, 'when it looks done' - it
isn't - a burger 'looks' done after about 20 seconds on each side, this is
always because the heat is too high.