Make No Mistake
Petrol (and what it's derived from) is going to be in our lives for quite a bit longer. For one thing, where do you think plastics come from? Conrad fondly remembers this salient point being mentioned in Alan Dean Foster's novelisation of "Alien" a good forty-odd years ago. Art!
Ha! There you go, an entirely legit use of click-baity pictures.
Naturally, this involvement with what everyone's favourite Gallifreyan called a 'thin mineral slime' inevitably leads to "Mad Max 2", which has been bubbling under in the septic sewage tank constituting my mind. Sorry if you can't unsee that image. Art!
Here you see the Settler's oil drilling and pumping operation. Who knew that there was crude oil-bearing strata in the wild Ocker outback! Let us ignore how, exactly, our gallant band of drillers knew that there was oil here, because petrogeology is a bit of a niche blog subject.
As you might expect, there are gangs of marauding ne'er-do-wells infesting this future wasteland, who all swan around on motorbikes or bespoke dune buggies or pick-ups. Art!
Ignore matey in the aluminium mask
These rascals are out to get the oil that the settlers have acquired, and lay a somewhat holey siege to the site, which leads Conrad to ask the question that arose in his mind <disgusting analogy redacted>, to wit: where do these marauders get the fuel to propel their vehicles in the first place? Hmmmm?
There aren't any petrol stations in the vicinity. In point of fact, 'The Vicinity' is in the middle of nowhere and requires strenuous efforts to reach by all involved - burning up a whole lot of that most rare and precious commodity, fuel. Scavenged from other, derelict vehicles abandoned on the roads, perhaps? Well, perhaps, yet this would be a tenuous and unreliable source, because everyone else with a vehicle will be siphoning off fuel from cars with a cargo of skeletons. Art!
CAUTINON! Doing this will seriously impact fuel consumption and mileage
Also, it seems to be taken as a given, yet nobody happens to mention how the raw crude is refined into a distillate capable of powering vehicles. Or is that function what all the other buildings at the settlement perform? What an amazing coincidence that the settlers happen to number oil drillers and refiners amongst their number!
Then there's the grim reality of petrol as it ages. You may not know it, because after all you don't get petrol stocked on supermarket shelves with a "Best By Date" (I wonder why not?), but petrol has a limited lifespan as far as functionality goes. I believe - don't quote me on this - that after nine months or so it will no longer power an engine. You can still set fire to things with it <pyromaniacs make happy face> just not rev up your post-apocalyptic banger and screech off into the sunset. Art!
Perfectly acceptable A bit dodgy
It's a minor plot point in the background that's never explicitly addressed, but you can see an ex-police car there and several of the marauders appear to be ex-police officers, too. A symbol of civilisation's breakdown?
Why, Slovakia, Why?
Perhaps it's because I've confused Youtube's algorithm by subscribing to that Slovak channel that lists all sorts of transport infrastructure improvements in their fair country. They may be cherry-picking their moments, admittedly, yet there isn't a single one with grey skies or torrential rain. Art!
This is what I'm talking about in the item title. For any number of bizarre reasons, this advert on Youtube always comes up with Slovak subtitles. It's an advert for a British financial service, with British actors, filmed in the lands of This Sceptred Isle - so WHY does it default to an attack of Slovak?
And Now - Pre-Apocalypse Petroleum Problems!
Yes, another transliteration and transcription from Joe Blogs and his regular vlogs about how terminal the Ruffian economy is proving. This one concentrated on oil, which directly affects the Puffy-Phaced Petrol Pimp, and especially OPEC+. Art!
Chipmunk Cheeks himself
OPEC+: Oil prices being a barometer of international business and trade, OPEC+ (Organisation of Oil Producing & Exporting Countries) are going to cut the amount of oil they produce. Saudi Arabia and the UAE can both sustain this, as they are what is known as 'cash rich' and will cope with any short-term fall in revenue.
Ruffia is what is known as an 'economic basket case' and cannot sustain or cope with equivalent cuts. They are already down by 800,000 barrels per day, at $56 per barrel. Art!
For those of you not gifted with mathematical ability, that's a loss of about $45 million per diem, or $16 billion per annum. Oooops.
The OPEC+ 'scissors plan' is to cut 2,000,000 barrels per day from 2024. The Saudis and Putin are attempting to prod other members into making cuts by co-ordinating their own reductions. This hasn't been especially successful, as other countries can be quite spitefully selfish. Iran, for one, is not cutting production. Rather, they are increasing it, which will tend to drive prices down, when Chipmunk Cheeks needs them as high as possible. Another Ooops moment. Art!
Unity sadly lacking. Tee hee!
OIL PRICES: One of the flagships oil prices is that of 'Brent', which is produced in BRITISH OIL FIELDS in the BRITISH PART OF THE NORTH SEA, and which is now $76 per barrel or £59.28 IN BRITISH POUNDS. This price is approximately what it was before the Special Idiotic Operation. As for the Urals brand that Ruffia exports, this has dropped from a high of $83 p.b. in September 2023 to a current $56 p.b. (dangerously close to the cost of extraction). From $83 to $56 million per day is a loss of $135 million per diem, or another $50 billion per annum. These are not good figures for Chipmunk Cheeks. Art!
Ruffia's entire oil production facilities in 2025
THE BOTTOM LINE: For Ruffia, a drop of $1 per barrel means an instant loss of $5 million per day. The global economy is faltering at present, which means there is less demand for oil, a problem for Tsar Putin because he needs as much ₽₽₽ as possible. Except he has to also comply with OPEC+ production cuts, too, which means he needs to square the circle. The nightmare scenario for the Ruffians is that Saudi Arabia decides to flood the market in order to drive down prices and hammer the South Canadians, which they have done before. Oil went down to $37 per barrel, a price reduction that would Titanic the Ruffian economy, at which Youtube vlogger Jake Broe was sniggering when he explained this history. If he'd had a moustache he'd be tweaking it Art!
Grovel, Dimya, grovel
"City In The Sky"
This one's post-apocalyptic, as well, because you can never have too much of people living in miserable desperation, in Conrad's opinion, because that's a lot more dramatic than lovely fluffy bunnies.
‘Oh! Miss Persson! Miss Persson!
I’m so sorry! I don’t know – what
– I don’t know -’ he began, then burst out crying.
To egg an already over-rich pudding, Alex paced onto the stage, dropping
his linen-clad bundle and toolbox.
‘Like I said, if you bunch of - ’ and here he demonstrated his quick
adoption of Australian slang and swear-words for the space of ten seconds ‘ –
want to kill the Doctor, make sure he really killed someone in the first
place.’
‘He chopped up old Ben,’ came the low reply from Mike, dealing with a
nosebleed. Now that the fervent
bloodlust had dimmed, his actions appeared less than rational and more than
rabid.
‘Really. You think the Doctor
killed Ben with an axe? Idiot! Those beds were chopped to bits the night
before. The Doctor warned me that we
might be targets, so we slept in a different room. I thought it was silly, until we looked in
the next morning.’
A thousand different permutations of puzzled glances ran between the
audience.
‘Where’s the blood!’ asked Alex.
‘You kill someone with an axe, there’s going to be litres of blood. Where’s Ben’s internal organs? You know, his heart and lungs and intestines
and liver and kidneys.’
Mike stared back, bereft of any inspiration.
Note the lack of lovely fluffy bunnies.
What's In A Name?
Please bear in mind that many English surnames come from occupations - Miller, Cooper, Wright - or physical descriptions - Armstrong - or locations - Walmsley. The government thus expected a serious response when they were due to begin sea trials of an Arctic patrol ship, and were naive enough to ask the Great British Public to suggest a name for it. Art!
O dearie me! This did not sit well with the humourless civil servant twods who'd been daft enough to ask in the first place, and an official replacement name was hurriedly applied. Art!
Let us abruptly shift focus and tracks to a rather repellent South Canadian politician, who goes by the handle of Marjory Taylor Green, or, as Jake Broe has it, Marjory Traitor Green. She basically regurgitates Putin's propaganda line, and for free, which has put her in the unenviable position of being in Conrad's bad books. Art!
Not going to enlarge because eye-scorch is a real thing
Well, Waugh or Swift or Orwell might not think it terribly clever, but I have now decided to dub her 'Bloaty McBloatface'. Conrad has spoken.
Finally -
I think I'll be taking a stroll into Rochdale this weekend, principally because I've not been there for an age, and we'll see if I can resist the temptation of many charity shops selling books.
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