I remember some years back when the oil companies reacted to a severe incident over in the Middle East within about 48 hours of it happening.
It would, they declared solemnly, affect the oil prices . . . of course.
So up they went in a matter of days, while the storage tank stations were sitting on about 20 days' worth of the stuff bought at the prices of 20 days earlier.
They must have coined it.
It rattles one's cage, this oil and petrol thing.
Way back in the late 70s the Government introduced carless days and it was a disaster because everyone managed to get around it somehow - even to the point of a growing "industry" where false but convincing windscreen stickers indicating any day you liked could be made and sold.
There was also the introduction of sales restrictions so you could not purchase petrol on a Sunday, or something like that.
I remember once strapping a large can of petrol on to the back of my motorcycle for the return trip to Manfeild. . . and the damned thing began leaking around Woodville due to the rising summer heat.
It was an interesting journey, put it that way.
Thankfully that ridiculous sales situation had been long withdrawn by the time I embarked on a high-speed crash just outside Waipawa during a return ride from another Manfeild meeting.
You would have seen the plume from here.
While far from being a suspicious type of chap I sometimes sit there (at the pumps, waiting my turn to keep the oil bods in profit) and wonder if it is all a plot to bring in the predicted era of electric cars sooner than what was initially pencilled in.
But then you check out power prices and realise they are not exactly bargain numbers.
So maybe the present Government is in league with all this petrol price unpredictability?
Na, they're not bothered about tanking up the Audi . . . we basically do that for them.
Must be the electricity conspiracy thing then.
Oh, the electric cars, yeah?
It's a tad ironic that at any one time there are thousands of large fuel-burning aeroplanes crossing the high skies of the world, leaving their exhaust emissions up there, of course.
And they have got big engines and big fuel tanks because they need tonnes of the propellant stuff, not a dozen or so litres.
I went to my information consultant, Sir Tappin Google, and was told that on average, at any one time, there are about 9700 commercial aircraft up in the sky - and on average a good-sized commercial aircraft burns up about four tonnes of fuel an hour.
So in the hour it has taken me to meander this far, about 38,800 tonnes of fuel has been burned up. In just 24 hours' time, 931,200 tonnes of fuel will have been burned . . . its fumes left up there.
Every day.
So then, where are the designs, plans, dreams, ambitions and press-into-service schedules for electric aircraft?
In terms of designs, of course, any such device would have to be about eight times the size of a current giant Boeing because you'd have to reserve about 80 per cent of the interior space for the batteries required.
It's either that or you have to reduce the current seating of about 460 passengers in a present 747-800 down to just 14. The rest of the seats would have to be removed to get the batteries in.
Ditto for the giant container ships plying the oceans of the globe, thanks to their equally giant diesel engines and tanks.
The big units of 175,000 gross tonnes can carry about 15,000 containers but when the electric engines are made compulsory by the Department of Emission Awareness and Things Like That, they'll only be able to fit about 30 aboard.
Oh, those darned batteries - and hey, how could you find enough power to charge them all anyway?
I can smell the uranium in the air now.