Here's a bit of a motoring-related oddity from today's Telegraph
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/
"Dissent at 80p gallon"
"80p gallon brings calls for Brown to freeze duty
By Paul Marston, Transport Correspondent
(Filed: 08/05/2004)
Petrol prices rose to their highest level for almost four years yesterday, prompting calls for the Government to cancel an increase in duty scheduled for September.
As increasing tensions in the Middle East continued to drive up oil prices, the average British price of unleaded reached 80.2p, the first time it has exceeded 80p since December 2000, shortly after the fuel protests....."
(that'll be 80p a litre then...:) )
and here's what I wrote to Mr Paul Marston, tongue firmly in cheek:
"Dear Mr Marston
May I suggest an interesting business venture?
I agree an 80p gallon is extremely expensive, particularly when you reflect that is 16 shillings a gallon whereas it was more like 7/6 at decimalisation.
Still, if you send the name of the garage which sells petrol at that price I propose to drive straight over from Germany and selflessly fill a tanker with it.
I would buy you a pint for the information.
Best regards and looking forward to doing business,
(I should add that here petrol retails for ?1.249 / litre, which equates to just about 3 guineas a gallon! so I shall be helping Mr Brown and myself too!)
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At leat you have something in return other than a crime and speed hump riddles ghetto
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Sooty, they use the tax for pensions here I think but that veers away from the motoring-related of course...
thinking about the price of petrol, do you know somewhere near you where it's 80p a gallon? I could visit you instead...:)
pat "not sure the telegraph really means 80p a gallon but just in case always with an eye for a deal :) " pending
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I think you are a bit behind.in my area its around 81p a litre only gone up in last week/day by day.I say kill off road tax and put on petrol.please dont confuse old money for new it dont work.Gather its going up even more
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Woul love to have posted a nice long reply to this, but the explorer window keeps closing of it's own accord.
Anyway, the summary of what I was going to say is that I don't understand the fuss about the 80p gallon - it was over 80p in 2001 when I went to uni in Stoke, and has come down since, and will probably come down again when all this hype goes down. Is it just that there's no other news at the moment as we approach the summer?
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I don't understand the fuss about the 80p gallon -
I think the point was, that it's 80p a litre and their reporting was wrong.
If it was 80p a gallon I'd be over to the states to buy a 1969 Muscle car and challenge Growler to race for pink slips! Even I could afford 12mpg if petrol was 80p a gallon.
Gareth
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I think the point was, that it\'s 80p a litre and their reporting was wrong.
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I did sort of try to make that clear in a humorous way!
it\'s interesting that we still like to think we are measuring fuel in gallons but we perhaps visualise the prices on those shiny totem poles at garages which are for (pence per) litres.
so the error in the reporting (essentially in the title of the article and in the link rather than the body of the text) has perhaps crept in by an unconscious change by a sub-editor thinking \"gallons\".
I think that may be why the error is not all that obvious! the article is still there unchanged (search for \"80p\" on www.telegraph.co.uk ).
At least litres to gallons is a constant relationship. What things used to cost in old money after those decades of inflation has become of only historical interest, as mech1 correctly says!
pat
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Assuming that all the duty is really necessary, I think the time is long overdue for some of the burden to be shifted on to aviation fuel, with a corresponding adjustment on road fuel.
Not likely to endear me to some on here, I know.
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>> I don't understand the fuss about the 80p gallon - >> I think the point was, that it's 80p a litre and their reporting was wrong.
Er... yes that's perfectly clear this morning, thanks! In my defence, I can only say that I don't actually remember posting last night as I'd been out celebrating the demise of Pologirl the student!
Sorry folks!
PG (Off to search for anything else I might have written at 3am!)
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"Anyway, the summary of what I was going to say is that I don't understand the fuss about the 80p gallon - it was over 80p in 2001 when I went to uni in Stoke, and has come down since, and will probably come down again when all this hype goes down. Is it just that there's no other news at the moment as we approach the summer?"
The point is that if it wasn't for the extraordianry level of the pund v/ the dollar the price would be nearer 95p per litre. It's going to get worse guys, much worse.
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Whats this extraordinary level of the pound/dollar?
Its only $1.79 to the pound & the cost of the fuel only works out to be a small part of what you pay at the pump. It might cost 83p if the rate was worse but it wouldn't be anywhere near 95p.
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