I see the BBC has reported a British oil refinery has gone bust.

In today’s world, oil products – whether they be the petrol, diesel or fuel oil most directly obtained from refining crude or the plastics, chemicals, medicines etc derived by further processing – are the most sought after substances; excepting (possibly) illegal drugs.

So with markets like that, how the hell can an oil refinery go bankrupt?

To be fair, the headline on the news was a little misleading. It is the parent company which owns the refinery which has gone bust.

But the point still applies.

There has been a lot of scaremongering about the possible effects as the refinery supplies 20% of south-east England’s fuel needs; scaremongering no doubt put about to raise fuel prices. I would expect that some other company will take it over sooner rather than later.

Menawhile Britain’s debt has reached 1 trillion pounds* for the first time.

The Coalition cuts are working well to reduce the debt then, aren’t they?

I also see UK growth was -0.2% for the last three months. Not much scope for joy there.

Why are these idiots repeating the mistakes of the 1930s?

*That amount being illustrated on the BBC news last night as £1,000,000,000,000 is, to my old fashioned eyes, actually a million million or what we used to call a billion. Well, it was before we took up US descriptions of such things.

At the time of writing Wikipedia is blacked out as a protest at the impending legislation in the US about online piracy and intellectual property protection.

It seems the only link up on Wiki is to their article on this.

Many people seem to be of the opinion that these bills could infringe unacceptably on free expression and lead to even such a humble website as mine being targeted for closure due to a perhaps unintended or even unwitting infringement of the proposed acts.

Not being a US citizen I have no direct input into this but add my sympathy for the action Wiki has taken.

I’m sure you’ll all have heard that Tesco’s shares recently fell in value after a profits warning.

Yet Tesco’s seems still to be on course to make £3.5bn of pre-tax profit. (See para 2 in the link.)

What?

A company is going to make £3.5bn profit and the its share price falls?

Isn’t this a prime example of how our values as a society have gone seriously askew?

£3.5bn a year is approximately £10 million a day.* And the people who buy and sell shares think that’s too little?

Do they think profits can keep going up for ever and ever?

Get real. If that were the case then eventually everything on the planet would be Tesco’s, and nothing but Tesco’s. It’s simply not sustainable.

And how can any enterprise possibly make £10 million a day? It’s obscene.

That level of profit means either – or both – of two things.

1. Tesco’s is paying its suppliers and/or employees too little.

Or 2. It is charging its customers too much.

(I bet they don’t pay all that much in tax either.)

*Edited from original – see comments.

So. The man who at least latterly was more famous for something he didn’t do than for anything he actually did is dead.

But he was one of the first actors to play James Bond – in a radio version of Moonraker in 1956.

His most resonant appearances for someone of my generation were as host of the TV game show Blockbusters where he was subject to the recurring request, “Can I have a P please, Bob?” and was also the presenter of Call My Bluff when it was axed.

He played along with the urban myth that he was the saxophonist on Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street, apparently adding in for good measure that he also played lead guitar on Derek And The Dominos’ Layla.

Robert Wentworth John Holness 12/11/1928 – 6/1/12. So it goes.

Happy New Year, everybody.

On this day, in Nineteen Hundred and long time ago, I was born.

My birth day greetings to you all. And many happy returns.

Let me get this straight.

The police shoot a man (who may or may not have been an immediate threat to life but certainly did not have a gun on him when shot.)

As a result there’s an outbreak of rioting – the worst for nearly thirty years.

The remedy for this is …

for the police to be allowed to shoot people!

Have I suddenly woken up in a fascist state?

I see that the Military Wives are making the news – even in Canada.

Much like Strictly Come Dancing which, while its run lasts is impossible to avoid even when you don’t watch it so determined is the BBC to ensure synergy across all its outlets, the Military Wives never seem to be off the airwaves here.

At least it means that that other pile of kack on the other side – which I also never watch – won’t be providing this year’s Christmas No. 1.

I know that the proceeds from the sale of each Military Wives CD will be donated jointly to The Royal British Legion and the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen Families Association – two worthwhile causes (though it could be argued that the welfare of ex-servicemen is a direct government responsibility) – and that the formation of the choir itself will have boosted the morale of the choir’s members (and for all I know their partners in the forces) but the whole thing strikes me as being something of an exercise in manipulation.

OK, the words may not be the purest poetry, they are taken from letters from and to forces sweethearts after all, but that’s forgiveable.

But does anyone else think the tune is just awful?

So now it’s The Dear Leader who’s passed on.

You daren’t switch on the news…..

Mind you, Big Rab, who monitors the North Korean News Agency on a semi-regular basis, has been of the opinion that something was amiss for some while. Perhaps they were trying to ensure the succession.

The Agency seems not to have featured the news of Kim Jong Il’s death yet.

I doubt it will mean better times for the North Korean people whoever takes over the mantle.

And, today, Václav Havel.

It’s given to few writers to affect their country in a material way, still less to achieve political office. Havel became President of Czechoslovakia and then, after the split (which he opposed) with Slovakia, of the Czech Republic.

His was one of the voices which ensured that Czechoslovakia’s revolution (unlike the 1968 Prague Spring of Alexander Dubček and its aftermath) was a velvet one. The times were with him in that of course, as they weren’t with Dubček.

I remember one year there was a host of well-known people died between Christmas and New Year. In 2011 it seems to be happening earlier in December.

Václav Havel: 5/10/36 – 18/12/2011. So it goes.