h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

To be fair, until the last 2 years of Labour Government their National debt was below the level during John Majors time and they paid off £40 billion of inherited debt from the Tories in their first 2 years of office.

Be wary of numbers. They can be fiddled to prove anything. Even GNP. And certainly debts.

On holiday in France last month, we noticed petrol prices ranging from one forty-something per litre to 1.69 Euros. At the moment here in Germany we are at the top end of that scale, I think. It is fluctuating rather erratically at the moment everywhere by the look of it.

Erratically it isn´t. Holiday season means you pay more.
Holiday = highway
highway = robbery

Same procedure as every year, James.

€1.24 per litre for UL95 here in Cyprus today. That's 108 of your Great British Pennies.

The local grapevine expects a drop of 2-3 cents in the next day or two. The government are getting unhappy again with the forecourt cartel and are threatening another price-cap if the retailers don't make the right noises/moves.

DDD - so you´ll get cuddled by the penny and flogged by the pound.
More than 90% of what you pay are taxes, and no way will any chinless wonder ever say "right, we´ll charge a farthing less".


Pit

<>

Oh, I agree.

The Government here, through sheer incompetence, has recently managed to blow up the islands biggest power-station. Overnight we lost 60% of generating capacity and everyone is suffering daily, rolling black-outs.

We are left with two aged plants that are so fuel-inefficient that bills are expected to rise anywhere between 50 and 70%.

Ever keen to gain a little popularity, the man himself is threatening to come down hard on the poor independent petrol retailers who are struggling to make a profit while their pumps lay idle because of lack of power.

Madness.

Germany. The greenies in our gubmint pushed the idea of biodiesel. Once enough people had converted their cars, they found out that there is no petrol tax on salad oil.

Bad bad boy. Line up for a thrashing and bring cash.

Petrol seems to have dropped to £1.36 a litre around here today. My local garage is now cheaper than Bristol. That won't last.

>>My local garage is now cheaper than Bristol<<

Hey, so buy the garage!

A couple of years ago (2009)..My local scrappie started offering petrol that they had extracted from their cars. Tye were putting it into thier tank underground. Their price was £15 to fill up your car, £25 for a taxi and £35 for a people carrier.

The local council/government cottoned onto it and then quoted some law they were breaking and said they couldnt do it anymore.

They couldnt even state the law, The local courts thumbed up the ruling and made it "illegal"

B*astards

Laddie, some time longer ago Peugeot had a giggle. They ran a moped on the unburned fuel a competitor´s car coughed out of the exhaust. Go figure.

Actually Pit, I looked into the cost of buying the garage a couple of years back. It's owned by a property developer who wanted to replace it with a couple of semi-detached houses. The locals made them back down when we petitioned against it and blocked the planning consent. Wouldn't be surprised if they find a way of getting around it though.

They will find a way. Wherever there is something worth keeping there will be someone with enough money to knock it flat.
But to get back on topic - I remember paying 56 pfennig (.56 deutschmarks, or .28€ in today´s money) for one litre of petroil mix.