PUMP UP THE PROFITS

War! What is it good for? Lining people’s pockets.

Since war broke out in the Middle East, the neighbourhood grapevine is full of nothing but chit-chat pertaining to the price of fuel or more specifically how much it’s gone up in the past few weeks.

‘Oooooh, it’s just blatant profiteering’ screech the already squeezed top, middle and bottom in response to headlines concerning the price of a barrel of Brent crude. It’ll soon be cheaper to buy said barrel of oil than a litre of diesel the way things are going.

Just a quick visual reminder of where money goes when you fill up your tank. This nice little pie chart taken from the Petrolprices.com website clearly shows the various components that make up the cost of a litre of fuel.

Breakdown of the cost of fuel

Before war broke out, I paid a visit to my local supermarket filling station and paid about £1.44 for a litre of diesel. Curious to find out how this breaks down, I’ve used the percentages in the above pie chart to produce my own table showing exactly who is getting what every time I buy a litre of diesel.

Who gets what when I fill my car

Unsurprisingly it’s not petrol retailers who are trousering the lion’s share of pump prices but the Government.

More than half of the cost of a litre of fuel (54.5%) goes into Treasury coffers so the higher the price per litre, the more money flows back to the Chancellor from fuel duty and VAT.

Savvy petrol retail companies can hedge against rising wholesale costs with exchange traded futures, a stock market instrument that allows you to buy an asset for a set price on an agreed date. Unless you are simply speculating on oil price movements, you can take physical delivery of the asset (petrol or diesel) at an agreed future date. Such trades enable buyers of commodities to lock in cheaper prices for items they might need later on.

I suspect many petrol retailers probably bought their fuel many months ago when wholesale prices were considerably cheaper so agreed there is a degree of profiteering by anyone who hedged against price fluctuations and is now using older fuel stocks.

However, if you were not smart enough to hedge in advance then finding that extra cash to fund supplies at increased wholesale costs is definitely going to eat into your profit margin meaning any differences are likely to be passed straight down the line.

As the Government are not going to forego their slice of the pie any time soon and petrol retailers won’t want to compromise their profits then ergo it follows that motorists must pick up the tab.

Fuel duty raises a huge chunk of cash, somewhere in the region of about £24 billion quid every year. Persuading everyone to drive electric cars is pushing down revenue generated by fuel duty. Unless the Government can find a creative way of recovering that lost duty from electric car drivers then it will no doubt use the war to make hay whilst the sun shines.

I hope the Reevester uses that unexpected bonus from fuel duty/VAT receipts to provide much needed support particularly to those living in rural communities reliant on oil fired central heating.  However, as spring moves into summer then it follows less folks will be using heating so I suspect the Government will adopt their usual lets wait and see approach before rushing to spend any money.

When you stop to crunch the numbers, is it any wonder then that petrol retailers are just a little bit grumpy at being accused of profiteering when in reality it’s more of a case of the political pot calling the petrol forecourts kettle black.

THREE WEEKS TO GO

A few drones appear to have flown over the office at the weekend completely re-arranging our workplace layout. Some might say for the better as magically the room visually appears much larger just by having moved a few desks and filing cabinets. It’s amazing what a simple re-shuffle can do to increase available space.

However, it seems the music on the furniture merry-go-round stopped leaving me almost without a chair to sit on. My desk has been shoe-horned into the ‘Billy no-mates’ corner, a space so cramped that I’m considering changing my name to Sara Dean (sardine). It’s a desk with a view of our customer car park since it’s now right by the window. Whilst that might sound idyllic to some peeps, having sat in a chilly draught all morning I can assure you it’s not. No doubt when the low springtime sun re-appears, it’ll be like working under an interrogation spotlight.

The plastic desk bubble I’d desperately clung onto since Covid gone. How will I keep everyone’s germs out now? Thanks to a daily cocktail of vitamin supplements I’d successfully gotten through those winter months carefully dodging all the coughs, sniffles and squeaky bum episodes brought in by the hoi polloi but without my plastic protector, I may as well be wearing a ‘party here’ badge inviting all microbes round for a intimate tete-a-tete chez moi.

Thank goodness I’ve only three weeks of viral exposure and chilblains left to endure. If I hadn’t already handed in my notice, this definitely would have been the final straw.

Mrs Fannypack's survival tips for cold office workers

YEAR OF THE WAR HORSE

Looks like 2026 is shaping up to be the Year of the War Horse now that Trump has decided to bomb the crap out of the Middle East for reasons known only to orange jelly babies.

Great film and book

Entertaining sub titles on the Beeb’s morning news reportage – HMS Dragon still docked at Pompey apparently waiting for a beautician. Hilarious! Clearly the AI subtitle monkey can’t distinguish between the words ‘munitions’ and ‘beauticians.’ 

I think I prefer their erroneous version because the thought of going to war without perfectly manicured nails, exfoliated skin or unwaxed upper lip is just unthinkable.

Profiteering at the pumps, inflation wave and energy price cap increases all heading our way just when I thought the UK might have been turning an economic corner. It’s another one of those unfortunate setbacks for the Government and personal finances - life won’t be getting any cheaper any time soon!

However, global conflict is no excuse for changing one’s plans. Prices may rocket but I’m still heading for the exit come what may. We'll just have to manage somehow.

THE ORDER OF THINGS

Arctic blast on the way. Cheapest way to keep warm? Get a cat rug.

Months ago, I bought a small brown throw on one of my charity shop trips to keep me warm whilst knitting in front of the telly. Bertie had other ideas and has now commandeered it as his own personal cat bed.

Nice rug 

Not to be thwarted in my efforts to keep arctic chills at bay, I’ve now realised that by draping the rug over my lap to create a human cat bed, I can mooch all his kitty heat at the same time as he absorbs mine. It’s a symbiotic relationship worthy of a Blue Planet documentary.

There is a natural order of things that exists in the animal kingdom and so too in the world of household renovations. The trick is to work out what that order is to successfully bring about the desired end result.

I’ve decided that my wood panelling natural order of things is as follows:

1. Build all panelled sections to the point that they are ready to prime/paint.
2. Apply two coats of primer, sanding everything lightly between coats
3. Mask up the primed panels with a dust sheet
4. Paint the walls above each panelled area with two coats of matt emulsion
5. Carefully remove dust sheets
6. Paint all panelled sections with your choice of colour using silk or eggshell finish paint.

By painting the walls first, I hope to avoid covering my wood panels with unsightly splashes of coloured paint.

What I haven’t decided is whether or not to paint the panels white to create a contrast to the darker green walls or to use what is known as colour drenching.

Colour drenching is a technique used by interior decorators whereby they paint all available surfaces in the same colour or in similar colour tones. Skirting, architraves, coving, pipework even radiators would all be painted exactly the same. Apparently having everything the same shade creates an aura of sophistication, cohesion and can sometimes make rooms look bigger.

Since adding a bit of posh was the whole point of fitting panels to the corridor in the first place then I will make my final choice once the walls have been painted as then I can assess the effect on the overall order of things using the primed panels to help make the decision.

In the meantime, just need temperatures to climb into double figures and remain continuously high so that I can press on with some painting.