Petrol prices creep up on weak pound

RE Steve the (skint) poor garage owner,

Most garages, pubs, offices etc come lock stock and two smoking barrels.

"pumps £14000 each, Tanks £35000 each installed, Till systems £14000 each"
I do not think this came from your pocket.

In the pub trade some things remain in title to the suppliers, barrels, kegs, pumps, tills and maintenance.

Most businesses are the same.

I wholeheartedly agree the food sales keep the doors open each day, not the liquids.

Hi Adrian,

Until I had a pub I had always worked and received a payslip at the end of the week/month. (I think I have told you before about my previous job)

But now it is a massive eye opener trying to find this to pay them and round and round we go.

Over the years it has become increasingly harder, but we have always resisted pumping our own saving into the business. We have always kept the 'pot' as full as possible to pay for building maintenance, singers, stock, and all the usual krap.

When the 'pot' is empty, we will sell the pub and the house and have that move to Wales.

Re 95
Hi there Steve
The petrol station I had in the early 1980's was by todays standards a small concern, that is 2 pumps selling only 4 star petrol, diesel wasn't that popular then and even lpg was still some way off and I was
averaging sales of 1000 gallons per day (12 hours). 24 Hour service stations then were mostly confined to motorways. After all overheads were paid I was left with about £20. day from fuel sales but, then as now the incidentals
sweets, drinks, pies & pasties etc could increase this by about 30% so my take home pay then about £180 per week but my home life was virtually non-existent as it was 12 hour days 7 days a week and after close there were accounts, cashing up etc so I as the owner was barely making £2 per hour so the long explanation but short answer is YES it was hard graft and I don't think it's much if any better nowadays and I left the business in 1986 for the sake of my sanity and health and petrol then was about £1.63 a gallon 36 pence a litre. After that I set up a small engineering company which
I ran myself up until about 3 years ago and I now have a manager in place and I leave it to him to control with Heidi & Hannah as joint M.D's.
The current economic crisis is taking it's toll but I have a good customer base
and when times were good we covered for the bad times so we are living off some of the fat reserves we built up over the years yet, from Monday they'll drop down to a 4 day week for a short period hopefully and the girls tell me
that they have good orders to fill for the end of April, May & June. though they are astute enough to know that things can change daily but I leave everything to them now.
Finally a garage owners comfortable lifestyle well, they wouldn't stay in business if they were losing money but I don't think they'll ever be so comfortably well off enough as to ease or stop the stress that really does go with the job and I'd suggest that the, if possible worry a little less and play a lot more if that makes any sense.

Steve M you asked for it ( all amounts have been averaged throughout the day/night)

Site Rental £ 6.30
Wages per hour (Till staff only) £13.00
Electricity per hour £ 2.75
Business Rates per hour £ 4.20
Credit card costs per hour £ 3.50
-----------
Total £ 29.75 24 hours a day 365 days a year

Not much of the £23.00 profit per hour left !!!
Now consider Bank charges, overdraft fees, interest, waste disposal, water rates, stationary, Bank holidays, equipment maintenance, Telephone line rental (4 analogue 2 digital £600 a month) etc, etc, etc
Cost of equipment - pumps £14000 each, Tanks £35000 each installed, Till systems £14000 each etc, etc, etc

If it wasn't for the humble Mars Bar and its friends there would be no petrol stations, as petrol does not cover the cost of running a site

Reply 96 p,dantic,
£550 / 16 = £34.37
"left with just over £34 per hour to settle other costs plus his wage."(bill)perhaps that was the sentiment??
Anyway, it is all purely conjecture as the only person who matters is Steve the poor garage owner and I would find it fascinating if he or any other garage owner would divulge their income.
Really speaking it would be enlightening if the salary of a garage owner were disclosed.
Question to Adrian John Bell. Would you say there was more profit in petrol-diesel now or when you had a garage? Were you controlled by the company who's fuel you sold or could you add a little to increase your income?
Were you tied to sell their choice of wares only, IE, sandwiches pies pasties confectionery?
Steve the poor garage owner. Are you better off today than when Adrian ran his garage? Is it harder in today's climate to make as much profit?
Are you tied to the price charged for filling up or have you some lee-way?
Would both of you agree the present practise of subsidising petrol with diesel should be scrapped and priced on an individual basis?
Would this be a "fairer" means?

Re 95

£550 less £192 wages (2x£6x16) = £358. Divide by 16 hours = £22.37/hour not £34/hour.

Hi,

Yes Adrian, I was 'peak choc', It seemed a better name for the topic.

You mentioned you had a garage some years ago. Was it as hard as some are saying to make a living or are you comfortably well orf?

RE 87 Cortina,

Your assumption that Steve the garage owner is open 24 hrs and only has £11 per hour to cover other costs.

What if he is open from 6:30am till 10:30pm. 16 hours.
If your guess is correct and he employs two staff at above minimum wage then he would be left with just over £34 per hour to settle other costs plus his wage.

Then you must take into account the food side of the business, which is 33% profit. Obviously his profit margin depends on the size of his shop and how well he can maintain a reasonable stock.

Position of his garage is paramount to maximum profit, near a motorway I would imagine to be a better spot opposed to a back street.

Either way, I would imagine a fairly comfortable lifestyle is the order of the day for garage owners.

Hi again Steve.

Pre television days when all we had was a wireless.
Looking back there's loads of things we didn't have but wanted, and now
there's loads of things we have and don't want. Will we ever be content?
I think the mars bars have had a good innings don't you.
Does anyone remember the "dipped flake" very similar to a ripple and I often wondered, if we took an ordinary flake and used it "Jagger" fashion would it become a dipped flake?
Steve M were you peak choc?

Hi Adrian

Times changing indeed.

The Cortina I had was in about '82 and I was still in my teens, gives you an idea of my age now.

I Vaguely recall some steam trains working on a line, pulling cargo's of metals, coal and cars at the rear of an aunts house, I was about four or five. The drivers used to 'toot' to us and wave. Yes, happy days.

91 Hi Steve
No contact yet with Anthony J, he's a fourth cousin I think.
Mars bars M &M's and I'm sure everyone got my drift with Mick Jagger and his practices.
A Tesco's by me still has the 10p difference between petrol & diesel but others have narrowed the gap to about 5p.
My first car: A 1957 Sunbeam Rapier so I remember very well the cars of the 50's and 60's there were Consuls, Morris Oxford, Austin Cambridge I could go on all night but I won't, petrol then less than 5 shillings (25p) a GALLON.
We still had steam trains and all, ah memory lane.
Funny enough most of us had jobs then don't times change.
Seems quiet tonight.

Hi,

Adrian hiya, did you get in touch with your relative?

In Birmingham*, the lowest price for diesel was 96.9 at one garage followed by 97.9 at one garage.

Now its 96.9 at one and 97.9 at FIVE others.

Both garages on Barnes Hill, Weoley Castle* are now at 99.9, be warned. (* all within 20 mile search of my post code)

Just shows how individual to each outlet the pricing actually is.

Two bloggers have great names, Cortina and Capri.

My first car was a Cortina. First gear was non-existent, it only fired on three cylinders and the diff had gone causing back end wobble when you braked a bit harder then usual.

The best thing was the stereo system with these huge speakers in the back.

These days I hear cars passing with loud music (at least that's one description for it) and it brings a smile sometimes.

I sold that and bought a 2.8 Capri in red with a white stripe over the bonnet that split into two on the roof then down between the back lights. Fast car.

All this talk of mars bars has reminded me of a joke, so here goes.

Q: Why don't they make white M&M's?

A: Because they'd enslave the black M&M's,
steal all the red M&Ms' land,
hunt the blue M&M's to extinction,
accuse the yellow M&M's of obstructing trade,
start a panic that the little green M&M's were invading the Earth,
and complain that the brown M&M's were taking all their jobs.

£7.24 for a litre of mars bars.
Probably twice that with supply and demand. Then there could be Peak Mars Bars to contend with as well as un'cocoa'ed which would be around 10p litre less but much more damaging to the environment.
The theft of syphoning from fuel tanks would increase in the run up to Easter. The culprits being easy to spot with chocolate stained mouths.

Interesting conversations this week.
How did mars bars find their way in? A litre of mars bars £7.24.
Garages also sell condoms so I wonder how many mars bars you could get in a condom, perhaps we should ask Mick Jagger I hear he does strange (but interesting) things with mars bars.
Steve back in the 80's I used to have my own garage but I wouldn't want to go back to that now; and then I was only making 5 pence per GALLON before paying staff and it was the sweets and things that helped me out, so I know
first hand how hard it can be.
Steve M mentioned that the pub may be open tonight so I'll check in later.

I doubt Steve is making that much on diesel, try 5-7p and maybe 1p or breakeven on unl. After today's increase might even be a small loss on unl.

So yes your very correct Cortina that Stations have to have a convenince store bolted on to survive. Most filling stations would not cover there expenses and trade at a loss if they relied solely on the fuel margins.

What a lot of people do not see is how much of a 'buffer' the petrol stations act as. When the price of started to go down end of last year, it was reported by the AA that the prices should drop by 20p, well the only problem with that was prices hadnt increased by 20p.

The fuel price will change daily for a filling station, if it goes up 2ppl, i doubt the station will put it up 2p the same day, they will wait to see if it goes back down, if it goes up the next day they will maybe put it up 1p and carry on watching the price, So when the price does go down 2pp they might not put it down the same day either.

You then might ask as to why petrol stations do this, well its quite simple, if the garage reflected the true cost variences every day on the polesign, then insted of Steve doing 15k of fuel a day he would likely do 5k one day and 25 day another depending on which day was cheap, this would cause a lot of problems not only for the garage in staff planning and deliveries but also for the supply chain in general. It would be difficult to run a distribtion sysytem were you need 200 tanker drops one day and 1000 the next.

Sorry now that I opened the can of worms that is a Mars Bar.
I was only trying to establish that there's a good profit to be made on sweets and other goodies and 33.3% is not bad.
It's been reported in the media of late that diesel drivers are subsidising petrol drivers so Steve re 84 is the 15000 litres petrol or total fuel sales (petrol & diesel) I'm guessing maybe 5000 litres diesel and so 10000 litres of petrol
and the mark up on diesel must be around 10 pence per litre to enable it to subsidise the petrol sales so 5000 10 pences is £500. and 10000 .5 pences is £50, total £550. or just under £23 an hour over 24 hours. if we further assume that there's always 2 staff on duty at £6.00 per hour that leaves just £11 an hour to pay all the overheads so it's plain to see that Steve really is "the poor garage owner" and without shop sales our fuel would be
20 pence? a litre dearer. So Steve why don't you reduce the cost of diesel by
say 2 pence a litre and up the petrol price by 3 pence per litre and give a free Mars Bar (rounded up to 50p per bar) with every £15 spent as suggested by Capri?

I followed your advise and told the garage "thanks for being lower than the one down the road"
Within an hour his price had gone up!!
Poor garage owners? don't make me laugh.

Reply to 84
Promotion, free mars bar with every £15 of fuel.
Holidays this year Steve.. ;-)

Sorry Cortina

Mark up is 48.96% (Don't forget the VAT)
Profit on Return is 32.87% (That VAT Again)

The 16p (minus vat) profit is on 48p not the cost price of 32p so P.Dantic is correct

I sell 15,000 litres a day and I am still poor

Re 82
No, not arguing. Just pointing out that it is 33.3% profit. Profit is based on selling price, not cost. 16p profit is 33.3% of 48p.

Are we arguing? 81,
If you buy something for 32p and sell it for 48p that's 16p more
or 16p profit 50% of 32p=16p so you've made 50% profit.
Like I said I don't grudge Steve making such a profit on goodies and I appreciate that the profit margin on fuel is small but then he might sell 1500 litres a day or more but I doubt he sells 1500 Mars Bars.

Re 80
33.3% profit. 50% mark-up. Not the same thing.

Re 79
Mars bar @ cash & carry =32p
In Steve's garage =48p so 50% profit.
Moral:-
Shut garage down and sell Mars Bars on the street corner. lol
with no overheads.

I know it's hard Steve for fuel retailers and I myself love the sweets etc and good luck on the profits you make from the goodies.

RE 75

A Litre of Mars Bars would cost you £7.24

Deduction

A Litre of fuel is still very cheap in comparison

How many more miles-per-gallon do you expect to get from a transition from petrol to diesel? Is the net effect that you're still spending less?

Firstly, great site and comments all of which have helped me save money.

Is it just me, or are we ignoring something regarding petrol costs? In May 2007 I switched from an unleaded to a diesel car in an effort to reduce costs and reduce emissions. At that time (being the sad person I am) I did a comparison of the likely costs using the then current petrol & diesel prices. In May 2007 diesel was 1p per litre higher than unleaded, now we're looking at around 6p-12p per litre. Even allowing for the comments regarding the falling pound etc, how can this disparity be justifiable?

Depending upon which "expert" you believe, diesel is (agruably) better for the environment due to more miles per gallon and lower emissions. If this is true, then why isn't something being done to stop this rip-off?

As I said, is it just me or am I missing something?!?

Cortina, as diesel is proven to be greener than petrol then surely it should be promoted as such. Instead diesel users are penalised for not only using less oil (more MPG) but also not for killing the planet. While petrol users can fill for less and burn more inefficiently so adding much faster to pollution.
Odd times.
Steve the poor garage owner, in Spars' they charge what they feel like charging, in Asda you buy one get one free and if you have an ASBO you just nick it....... d;-D

My Mars Bars are 48p

Diesel is proven to be cleaner than unleaded petrol so the price difference should be narrower if not on parity. I'm not suggesting making diesel 90.9ppl
although that would be appreciated but what I am saying is make petrol and diesel 95 ppl each and forget this stupid .9 business, then neither would be subsidising the other and "the poor garage owners" should then make a fair and acceptable profit.
Incidentally nobody has mentioned that if you go into your local small shop and buy for instance a Mars bar it'll cost about 48 pence +- but if you go into a garage shop you'll pay 65 pence for one, and I don't grudge them making
such a mark up as this on their sweets crisps pies and pasties etc etc as long as they don't try to have us believe that they are just breaking even.
A friend of mine actually runs a small shop and I've been to a "cash & carry
warehouse with him and when he buys boxes of Mars bars they work out at 32 pence per bar so 100% profit for the garages isn't bad.

M, as your findings are correct, is it a case of who is scratching who's back?
Even a case of who is fooling who?
It is not just this country, as questions are being asked in several areas. Even in Asia and the U.S.A.
Perhaps the unleaded is set lower to attract more customers and let the diesel users pay for their privilege. Are they relying on diesel and LPG to maximise profit?
As you rightly point out it was the other way round some time previously.
With more diesel engines in cars now the practise is being magnified.
We keep buying the fuel, they continue to reap the profit.

To the people posting that the gap between the grades has fallen, yes it has.

However having unl at 98 and diesel at 99 the gap has closed very much in the garages favour. In the least few weeks the gap between the grades has indeed fallen but there is still a high degree of diesel customers paying more for there fuel and substituting a cheaper unleaded. This is only the reverse of what was happening last year though when the gap increased and unl customers were paying for a cheaper diesel.

To give you a rough guide to the difference at todays price, there is about 3-4ppl in the diesel price paying for the unl price. so a fair price should be somwere in the region of 90.9/91.9 for unl and 94.9/95.9 for diesel.

I also wanted to support the op post, steve the garage owner, he is correct when he states garages are making 0.5ppl on unl at the moment, hopefully my explaination above gives you a guide to why.

Of course if you drive an unl car then you are likely to disagree with what i say, if you drive a diesel then you will probably agree, the only sentiment correct in most of the previous posts is that the gap has indeed decreased.

Hi,

The Beaumont filling station on the Pershore road in Birmingham is cheapest for diesel at 96.9ppl and the Petrol force on the Handsworth New Road is selling at exactly 98ppl (I only mention this as the point something has 'gone' (hooray))
Lichfield also has several stations at 96.9ppl for diesel.

The Tesco's on Church St. Lichfield has unleaded at 86.9ppl and the cheapest in Birmingham it is 88.9 at Esso and Snax 24 both on Barnes Hill, Weoley Castle.

Anthony J,
Adrian came up with an idea some time ago to have a cyber pub where we could 'meet' at set times and chew the fat.

Anybody can contribute, its a free world and it is not a select club, just a way of having some of us on line at the same time so the responses are quicker.

I only suggest a Friday as it has been fairly popular in the past although there have been plenty of dead nights too.

please feel free to pop in the 'pub' and have a beer or two.

Update Pen-y-fai service station Tondu Road Bridgend now selling diesel @96.5ppl Well done to them it's much appreciated.
Any local people reading please support them.

Adrian J Bell, it seems you are right we are related. Mum is busy searching for you're phone number/address. It's a small world. Be in touch soon.

Steve M. What happens on a Friday of any significance? (Blog 68).
May I join in.

I read in the press and on T V that the price of oil is now $39 a barral. It's gone way down as of summer last year but why is it not reflected in the price we pay @ the pumps

Hi,

Adrian, its funny you mentioned "I am legend" I watched it again last night.

The end of civilization scenerio has been portrayed in many films but the best in my opinion is a Stephen King book, The Stand.

It was also made into a film in the 90's. It's on a double DVD and is around six hours long. (Best place to buy a copy is on e bay)

It was first broadcast as a mini series in the US and shown on SKY 1 some years ago.

If you have time I would suggest reading the book first (the complete and uncut edition)

Catch you on Friday evening.

Hi to all and a big hello to Steve M.
All is on the mend with me just a little stiffness leaving me to do a passable impression of Hopalong Cassidy.
Anthony J a fellow Welshman and a possible relation of mine (I have a cousin
named Anthony J****** living in Coychurch Bridgend and he has/had a mk4 V.W.Golf) however I have no phone numbers so a clue perhaps.
Anyway a good Idea "Name & Praise" the garages, I can't drive for a while
but I think it's a better idea than "Name & Shame" and the more free publicity we give the good garages the better it could be for us all.
You could be onto a winner and we've nothing to lose by trying.

Capri, I think you'll prove an interesting asset to these postings.
Brahms, I can't quite pin you down as yet, maybe middle of the road
with some militant tendencies?

Anybody else when they read A is for A's verses think of the film
"I Am Legend"

Hi,

Adrian, I hope you are OK. A/A's poem is certainly very hot topic. And very well written.

Nice one.

Anthony J has an interesting idea, post the cheapest outlet and tell them too.

If enough of us do the same thing then it just might make a difference.

Perhaps the dream Capri is chasing might be found in a different way to protesting with placards and walking around in circles.

A concerted effort by as many as possible to let the garages know we will only fill up at the cheaper forecourts.

Who knows, it could happen.

Hello all
No long posting from me this time.
Just to say post @ 59 very, very poignant.
Good posting A is for A.

With reference to the garage I mentioned in post 43:
That same outlet is now selling diesel at 98.2 & the unleaded remains at 97.4
That's Pen-y-fai service station (Texaco) Tondu road Bridgend. Good on them.
Steve M post 63, we live in hope.
This has been requested before on the other blogs but if we all post the cheapest fuel stations in our respective areas rather than the dearest
it might have a more positive impact in the hope that more patrons means the prices will remain just that fraction cheaper.
Come on people wherever you live give the details of the CHEAPEST in your area and tell the staff that they are getting a favorable mention on the internet.
We've tried it in a negative way so lets be more positive.

Hi,

A garage in South Birmingham is charging 93.9ppl for unleaded and 99.9ppl for diesel.

The gap between the fuels has fallen to just 6p.

Hopefully this will be the norm rather than the exception and soon greener, kinder to the environment, cheaper to produce, more MPG diesel will be cheaper than petrol.

A is for Andbrake
The poem could be a very real scenario in years to come.
We all know oil soon will have been extracted to the point of non-profitability and the remains will stay mainly underground.
Until then Brahms is quite correct in pointing out the defeatist attitude amongst car users.
OK, I will agree we need to use the car less, only for work purposes (and I could accept holidays/vacations) but as the poem points out, to waste fuel popping to the local store to purchase a pie is to the detriment of life as we know it.
A little 'over the top'? maybe, but Joe public needs to desist from an inbuilt urge to use something just because it is there.
When it's gone, it's gone.

Hiya again Capri
Yes the British way, accept whatever is thrown at us, accept other country's cast offs. The one thing I like about all the various blogs is that they give like minded people a forum with which to debate. I know that we'll never put the
wrongs to right (I don't mean to sound defeatist) and as for blockades like I explained in post 58 they would be difficult to start let alone keep going.
Complacent has 4 slightly different meanings and one of them is:-
To have given up, to accept the inability to change.
You correctly point out that the French wouldn't tolerate as much as we do,
perhaps they really could give us a few pointers.
With our fuel prices ever increasing and the soon to be implemented fuel duty rise (Budget) it would not be too difficult to envisage a scenario akin to post 59. What a terrible prospect.

Brahms
Hmm, you are correct, the masses appear to accept whatever is thrust upon them. Only a few token outbursts are hardly going to halt and upward price trend at the pumps.
If, hypothetically, blockades were forthcoming could the police force Joe Public to put fuel in his car?
Only a mass collective effort could hope to have any real impact.
We would have to refuse to fill up.
But this was tried during the last 'strikes' and car users filled up the day before. Rather defeating the object.
There would need to be thousands upon thousands of people unity, the like which has never been seen before in this country.
It would need a look toward the French to learn how to unify the population and stand together.

I came across this by chance. . . . there was no title, so I have taken liberty and gave one.

Life after the oil crash.

I can still remember the time before the crash
when we all drove around in cars and I had lots of cash
and anything I wanted, I’d just go out and buy
I’d even drive a mile or two - just to buy a pie

but then the oil wars started and everything collapsed
the supermarket shelves were stripped before a month elapsed
and people all turned really grim and gained a hungry look
we’d steal from anyone at all we’d kill for things to cook

and everywhere disease and grief and bodies left to rot
while gangs of grim and brutal men would kill and steal and plot
and people fled the cities and countless numbers died
and everything was so so bad not even mothers cried

our house was one of many then, a normal family home
but it was stripped and burnt for fuel when we had left to roam
and I remember mum and dad, my little sister too
but they were killed and eaten back sometime in ‘22

and now I know I’m dying, I’ve left no living heirs
nobody is alive to know there’s not a soul who cares
there’s only me so damned hungry I’m gnawing at the trees
there’s no-one left to kill and eat oh God please help me please

and as I stagger on and on through burnt and plundered homes
I see the the signs of rage and ruin and countless human bones
I hear the starving pack of dogs that follow close behind
and I am now so close to death I hardly even mind

I fall and screaming dogs begin to rip and shred my life
my mind drifts back to days of oil and to my kids and wife
oh life was so so simple then and life was so so good
but all we had we wasted, we never understood

By Murray Hobbs

57 Capri
You are absolutely correct we can't change anything in this country
re blockades.(Act of terrorism) My point is that a new blog like this one has died the death so quickly.

Reply to 56 Brahms
Explain. How do 'they' change and become 'un-complacent'?
Any protest is futile. We do not 'stand together' in this country.
Blockade the forecourts and the price goes up due to a drop in demand and profits.
We really are in a no-win situation.

55
Complacent IS right word. They're complacent (satisfied) with achieving nothing
and are happy to let things remain as they are.

Reply to 54 Brahms
Complacent is the wrong word. This means to be pleased with ones own achievements.
Perhaps it is better aimed at members of parliament who are detached from reality and more debauched than Thatcherites. Complacent indeed.
The only contentment felt is from our chosen electorate who are satisfied with 70% of fuel cost taken to repay huge debts taken by this frivolous government.
That is reality.

Hush,hush,hush,hush,hush,hush,hush,hush,hush,hush,hush,hush,hush,hush,
quiet,quiet,quiet,quiet,quiet,quiet,quiet,quiet,quiet,quiet,quiet,quiet,quiet,
Rock a by babies asleep on this blog.
It would seem that everybody is quite content with the petrol prices creeping ever upwards then. That's the way, bury your heads in the sand.It still won't
get any better. COMPLACENCY RULES!

Oil fell to just under $39. barrel today that's $108 less than the peak last July
or 73.5% down so where does that leave our fuel prices?

52 Robbing the dead? They've already got that angle covered with death duties and the V.A.T (Supposed to be for luxuries) on a funeral!

The old adage go's "Born free, taxed to death" and this remains governmental
policy even today.
I'm with you "Brown & co resign" but the alternative whoever they'll be, will have their hands tied and plaster cast over this one.

40,,, AA report

^^Motoring group the AA accused petrol retailers of pushing up prices at a time when oil costs are low.
Spokesman Luke Bosdet said "The inference must be that drivers are being ripped off.^^

So we're still not being ripped off then?
Robbing the f*cking dead next.
Legal form of pick pocketing. Gotta pick a pocket or sixty two million.
Brown and co. please resign.

RE 50,

Adrian my friend, it is so good to hear from you.

I hope you are feeling much better. Sorry to hear you needed an operation but am glad all went OK for you.

Yup, I know first hand (not by choice) how much a busted knee can hurt.
So an operation (similar to yours) mends the pain.
I am on anti-inflammatories and pain killers now.

I knocked it yesterday on the bed post and it took all my effort to refrain from swearing around my wife. She said I went very red in the face and she could see the words forming but thankfully not spilling out from the lips.
I am back at the clinic on Tuesday for a scan, fingers crossed it will be on the mend with no further complications.
We sound like characters in "Scar Wars"

Enough of that $hit, on with important matters.

Looking back over the blogs will bring you a smile or two. Maybe the odd chuckle.

Blog 48 (John Boy) makes a valid point. Why is it fuel is allowed to be sold at pounds - pence - point - something?

Imagine buying a joint at the butchers "That'll be £9.82 point 7 thanks"

RE 47, It proves how we in the west really believe we are infallible when the opposite could be true.

With BRIC countries gaining ground by the second it is obvious they could soon overtake the rich and powerful countries and be seated in their place.

It would not be the first time the balance of power has shifted.

Catch you later.