> despite
>the fact that times were hard, some food rationing was still in place
>etc.
some things never change ? Hidden away on page 41 of our daily paper (the
first 13 are all olympic waffle, then ads, then the real news) is a story
about england about to run dry of unleaded petrol. Its claiming ambulances
and fire engines are on emergency only footing (some areas have already
seen
ambulance services been cancelled - serious ick), thousands of petrol
stations are empty, and the use of the army hasn't been ruled out to break
the picketing of refineries and depots. Oops 
RD: Your paper has it about right. Only in this country could we make such
a monumental foul-up of a simple but powerful grievance. The grievance is
that we pay higher taxes on petrol than anywhere else in europe. The
truckers and farmers decided to take the law into their own hands and
blockade oil refineries. The truckers I can understand because they can't
compete with european truckers who fill up with cheap fuel on the continent.
But the farmers? They don't pay any tax on fuel for agricultural machinery
anyway!
The truckers and farmers won massive support from the car-owning general
public, who miss the point that these two groups are only trying to win
concessions for themselves, not the ordinary motorist. Blair makes himself
look a complete idiot when he tries to blame OPEC. Nobody's complaining
about the price of crude oil (yet!), the issue is the huge tax on petrol.
The reason the tankers are not leaving the refineries is not because of the
blockade, which in many cases is minimal, but because the tanker drivers are
contractors. The might drive a tanker one day, an Eddie Stobart lorry the
next. In a word, they are truckers, so of course they aren't going to drive
through other truckers' picket lines as they are in sympathy with them!
Meanwhile the oil company magnates sit back and rub their hands with glee.
Whatever the outcome of this dispute, you can guarantee they will put prices
up to recover their lost profits, so we will will all end up paying even
more for our blasted petrol than we do now. What a bloody shambles.
Richard.
Its sounding like the book 'death of grass' by john christopher (actually
I
found that was one of his better books, the one with the ice-age was
another
ยทยทยท
good read).
> Continental Europe was in ruins, an Olympic game there was
>unlikely.
Bloody unlikely.
> Asia was in political turmoil.
I don't think asia had the political muscle to get the games back then.
> No Olympic games had ever
>been held outside Europe or the USA, and the last-but-one had been USA
>(Los Angeles 1932).
I would have expected the USA to have hosted the 48 games (but maybe they
didn't care), and London to host the 52 games.
oh well, back to planning death and mayhem in G34
m
Middle Earth PBM List - Harlequin Games
To Unsubscribe:www.onelist.com
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/harlequin.games/list.htm
