Fuel protests in Cardiff, and other interesting bits.
Well, today lorry drives, truckers and hauliers protested in London and Cardiff to try and ensure a tax rebate to keep diesel costs down. I am sympathetic towards them, but i don't feel that threatening to blockade refineries will help anyone. I'm also sympathetic to the government for trying to make Britain more environmentally friendly but frankly their policy of taxing existing polluting cars rather than only new ones wont encourage anyone to by environmentally sound motorcars nor help the transportation industry; even Greenpeace says their tax policy is helping no-one. I just hope Britain can avoid the sorts of protests we had in 2000. The government has put up the pressure on oil producing countries in opec and on Russia to up oil production. No doubt as I type this more oil and gas is flowing towards Europe via the Ukraine, and will continue to do so as long as Russia wins Eurovision. It annoys me that the former soviet republics are all still so dependent on Russia for gas and electricity and so largely friendly towards Russia despite Putin's medaling in the Ukrainian elections that if Russia put three ugly people on stage for two minutes of fart noises they would still win Eurovision. At least when Britain looses we lose fair and square because our music is awful. Latvia, on the other hand, was brilliant, as were Finland and Azerbaijan. The world needs more Pirates, hard-rockers and weird Gothic singing angel people, its only too bad Dustin the turkey didn't make it to the finals...
On the subject of the UK in international competition I would like to congratulate Ricky Hatton on his come back after his first ever professional loss. Juan Lazcano was as hard as nails and it was good to see Hatton bet him decisively. Also on the professional fighting theme I would like to congratulate BJ Penn and Wanderlei Silva for their wins in UFC 84.
And to finish on a lighter note, my DJ friend had got his hard-rock and metal night back after having it canceled. Well done mate, glad to see they are giving you free rein over the music again!
