Welcome Aboard The Black Pig - Shipping & Freight Blog

Only Twits Twitter but Facebookers May Lose Face

All Right, All Right, so it’s been a long time coming.

Months in fact since you received the gift which keeps on giving – i.e. one of the Captain’s blogs.

Reason is of the simplest – I have been busy – alright! My apologies, especially to the bloke last week who told me (in person) he was missing the missives if you get my meaning. Come to think of it how did he know it was ME, after all the Captain thing is supposed to be a pseudonym to deflect legal action – a sort of antisuedonym if you like (that last one got the spell checker all excited).

So what has stirred me enough to pull out the quill and Quink again all of a sudden you may ask?

Actually it’s probably because I feel like death warmed (slightly) up at the moment (grandson’s virus thanks) and it doesn’t take a lot to get me aggravated.

 

 

 

This time it’s the PR group who send the Handy Shipping Guide mailbox different videos every day with the most sensational content they can find that lit the blue touch paper.

Today’s was some poor blokes getting wiped out in a plane crash which, as usual I didn’t bother opening.

This is not journalism guys.

A fat, sweaty bloke sitting on his arse scouring the internet for stuff he can cut and paste and post out to mutts like me isn’t journalism.

I should know, I do enough of it myself.

 

The angry rant led me on inevitably to consider the amount of pure crap which is being sent every day into the mailboxes of poor schmucks like yours truly whether invited or not. Time was all we had to whinge about was the unsolicited post dropping on the doormat.

One then found it was possible to prevent most of that by signing up to ‘no crap on the doormat’ scheme or whatever it was called. The effect was akin to shooting an elephant with a spud gun and the fibrous diarrhoea continued unabated.

This led to the fax scams, more uninvited junk arriving until you signed up again – somewhere else in a vain attempt to stem the flood. Then the bloody phone calls – yes please I want the TPS (telephone preference service) that one has now been hijacked by some other smarmy scam artists who managed to wangle the top spot on Google so if you now don’t get the search details right they will stop your calls – for about £30 a pop.

Same thing by the way has happened with mail redirection – search with the wrong keywords and you get another crummy mob selling you the same postal redirection as the official Royal Mail version - only uplifted pricewise by about 80%.

And so onto that e mail spam and the junk filters that, when set up, surgically remove the important stuff like Aunt Muriels wedding and the fact your tax return is due.

It seems the world, having advanced technically and technologically in so many ways in the past few years has left a big hole with thousands of people unable to find proper jobs. The answer – absorb their ‘spare’ time like a sponge in a puddle – invent things, or rather have them invent things for themselves to take up the slack hours, something useful if not productive – actually usually demeaning, debasing and/or pointless. Call centres for catalogues, PPI and energy scams - and that’s just the ‘professionals’ as for those poor souls with too much time on their hands in the amateur sense, well, you know the form.

People try to justify Twitter and Facebook et al by pointing out the ‘advantages’. Well here’s the news folks, they may very well be outweighed by the disadvantages.

For example Twitterers seem to exist in three categories, morons; people who like to read what self-important morons write and lastly business people, most of whom tweet but don’t actually have a meaningful purpose in doing so.

I did think the Twitter thing might have a purpose when Jimmy Carr wrote a piece saying he was on tour, alone and bored so he ‘tweeted’ that he was in the local Nandos. Sure enough, like moths to a flame, a couple of dozen people turned up to keep him company. Then it occurred to me, would I want to be in the company of anyone who had nothing better in their lives than to stalk my every thought on the Twittersphere? Let alone a whole bunch of them, let’s face it the nutter on the bus has to be somewhere in amongst that lot.

So here we are today with so much information flying about out there that if you plug into the wrong format for what you need to know, as opposed to what you think you want to know, you’ll just be wasting your time and if you are fool enough to publish your thoughts on those media you might cop anything from a groomer (not the poodle type) to an cyber bully or even (if you get really lucky) a psycho killer.

Now you might say ‘but you’re the one typing this (lately very infrequent) blog!’ And of course you are correct, but stick a comment on the bottom (bearing in mind the average one I receive is some mystery computer generated ad for handbags in Taiwan) and you’ll notice that the Captain, he don’t have no truck with that stuff, it will vanish off this site faster than the Jimmy Savile fan club.

Dodgy? Surely Not!

You might also have thought by now that I’m not a fan of Facebook and guess what? You are correct, it has uses but it seems to me (and my contact is very limited with the medium) that it causes more arguments than makes its existence worthwhile (you know ‘Maureen, why did you put that picture taken on Tracie’s hen night of me kissing the goat’s a**e up on Facey?’)

Thing is, as has been said before many times by those more knowledgeable than I, this stuff, dependent on the exact medium, STAYS there and the views we hold, the friends we have, the things we say, the drugs we take and the acts we perform when young may be undeniable and there, red in print and photo, to haunt us in later life.

So has the Skipper got a web phobia?

Certainly not, however he likes to think he’s a little choosier than some. Skype, e mail various browsers – fine. As for the rest Thanks but no Thanks.

As the rabbit says that’s all folks, when the next one appears who knows?

Aaagh………….. Peace at last

The captain’s better half visited Dublin for a few days last week. Despite her indoors dire predictions the ship remained in shape, nobody fell from the crow’s nest (mainly ‘cos the crows went too), the ship’s cat managed not to fall in the briny. As your skipper predicted disaster was far more likely to strike the away team than those remaining close to the Black Pig.

 

Envisage if you can the make up of the motley crew who mounted the big (ish) silver bird at (London …sic) Southend and flew before the wind to the Emerald Isle.

 

Below: The ladies blow the froth off the first Guiness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The complement consisted of the Boss plus her three siblings, the Witches of Eastwood, Medusa and mates, the Salem Circle or, as I prefer to affectionately refer to them, Hubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble (but I never tell them which is witch if you catch my drift).

Now don’t misread me, they all got home safe and sound, as to what happened in Dublin I would prefer it stayed there I’m just glad the old girl returned apparently unscathed. Actually I’m far more worried about the state they probably left dear old Temple Bar in. I do however have a (semi) serious point here. The ‘girls’ include two grannies and a wannabe so the chickens have decidedly sprung, between them they keep the UK’s ‘Grey to Go’ product market on its feet, and, like so many women they have a particular weakness.

 

Booze.

 

More precisely usually wine, a beverage they consume regularly in vast quantities following the equation laid down in Sauvignon’s Law:

F x A + W (x - %) = C x M where F = Woman, A =Age W= Wine and specific gravity C= Collapse x Minutes

Lads (or lasses) out there with partners who like a tipple may need to apply Smirnoff’s Law or, as was the case with the Dublin crew, Arthur’s Law, the black stuff, liberally mixed with blackcurrant, being the drug of choice last weekend. Now you may be wondering at the point of all this and I assure you there is one. Apart from the obvious worries associated with the tribulations when one’s spouse vanishes of to the pit of iniquity for a licentious weekend (pity the poor young male natives if they can’t move quick enough when Trouble arrives in her pointy hat) this crew, like so many others, suffer from one fatal flaw.

 

Sarah gets the drinks in.

 

Middle aged ladies, when subjecting themselves to a long session, become virtually incapable of getting home unaided.

I know this only too well having been tea total since an overdose of grog caused me to walk the plank one night in a bid to wrestle the great white shark in the sky. Having had to sail the four miscreants home on more than one occasion I am well aware that, without some sort of aid, they would probably wake up talking to seagulls somewhere on the Cornish coast rather than tucked up in their Essex hammocks.

Fear No More!                           Help is at hand.

 

The other obsession which ladies of a certain age develop is a passion for shoes, a vice unfathomable to your average male punter. Now a genius, I do not use the word lightly, has come up with the perfect solution to ensure the little litter of lovebirds return to the nest.

Sat Nav Shoes.             Yes you heard (read) correctly – let me give you a minute to digest that……………………

Sat Nav Shoes. Operated by a click of the heels. It gets better – the Left one points you toward home, hotel etc whatever you programmed in before you finished the first bottle. The Right lets you know how far you have to go. All this is achieved via a series of LCD panels on the toes of the ones and two’s.

 

 

The new footwear may make traditional ways of finding one's direction home redundant. Finding a lofty vantage point can be hazardous and ineffectual at night.

 

 

Note how the girl in the centre is helping her friends find their way home by studying her new Navigation Shoes.

 

 

 

 

 

There may of course still be the age old problem of trying to locate this handy apparel just when it's most needed.

 

 

 

 

So all credit to Dominic Wilcox – Great Designer and overall cool dude. Dominic drew inspiration from Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz who clicked her heels to go home.

 

 

Don’t forget to re-programme when you leave the country though girls – I’d hate to think of you trying to walk across the Irish Sea.

 

This One’s Been Brewing for a While

 

Time has precluded a blog in recent weeks but unfortunately all this has meant has been a series of even more annoying things than usual to ensure the Captain’s vituperative pen doesn’t stay idle for long.

First up – Cookies

Imagine my surprise when informed by Seamen Staines that in future it might be necessary for us to sail onward without an official ‘Cookie policy’. Aboard the Black Pig food is usually top of the menu if you’ll pardon the pun. Navigating the narrow channels of the internet can leave a man desperate for a decent repast and therefore to prepare this essential ingredient we employ the services of a wannabe chef, known to one and all as Cookie.

 

 

So for the more seasoned amongst us Cookie is a bloke who serves slop up in what passes for a galley aboard the Black Pig or from the chuck wagon in Rawhide (no on second thoughts that was George Washington Wishbone).

 

 

Paul Brinegar 1917 – 1995 aka Wishbone 1962

Another permissible usage would be for the small, chocolate studded biscuits which I believe originated in the Colonies.

 

 

I’d even accept a large blue puppet and potential diabetic.

 

 

Not any more.

Like Gay, Wicked et al this innocuous little word has been hijacked by the ‘computer generation’ i.e. nerds whom we can’t now live without. What is far worse however is what these helpless sounding little buggers actually do (the cookies – not the nerds).

You (in Her Majesty the Queens realm at least) may have noticed that your internet searches have started to produce a notice asking you to ‘accept cookies’. Some of the cheeky blighters have script such as: ‘By entering this site you acknowledge that you accept cookies’ in other words sign up or p**s off.

I thought in my naïve manner I’d check as to what my trusty internet pal was accepting on my behalf as all I know about these little tykes is that they keep a silent all knowing eye on me and, like Winston Smith, and being by way of occupation, a Pirate, I have an inherent suspicion of such secretive devices.

  Winston and mate Dickie B in 1984. So last year doncha think?

 

 

 

 

I am in the habit of using the mysterious and ethereal browser system Firefox, chosen as the best available of course by my usual 100% correct and most efficient selection method of:

a) it not being the most popular browser i.e. not IE

b) it has a nice name (although it took me 18 months to figure out what the logo was, the old mince’s not being what they once were).With some trepidation I followed the steps on the top toolbar clicking my way gingerly through Tools – Options – Privacy – Show Cookies.

Then you have several options. You can choose not to accept any cookies – accept site (but not third party cookies) plus a host of other choices – none of which I fully understand by the way.

Like most old gits who only occasionally venture into the Narnia which lies within the depths of their computers I live in terror of ticking (or in this case unticking) the wrong box and changing my computer from an old chum that helps me with my day to day existence into a raving sociopath hell bent on wrecking my social and business life.

 

 

I took a look at what I had in the way of these evil little Trojans already entangled deep inside Dell Boy and to my horror, not only are there hundreds (I had only downloaded Absolute Radio*** seconds before to listen to the inimitable Frank Skinner whilst I type this, and yes – there was one in there from the ex Virgin Radio site).

I had no way of deciphering most of the cryptic names by which they are called thus knowing who thrust them into Dell’s dell.

Point is that one human trait is that most of us like to pretend we know what we are doing (alright ladies we men do it more than you) whereas in fact a little knowledge is, as the proverb says, a dangerous thing. When you have phoned a computer help line only to have a tekkie ‘take over your screen’ and seen ones cursor float around like some disembodied spirit, a captive of the Ghost in the Machine (which also even more worryingly can use your camera at the same time), one begins to realise that the phrase ‘out of your depth’ might be appropriate.

 

Having gone through the various processes listed above I have decided to revert to my default position when faced with a situation that appears beyond my control and concluded that in the great scheme of life none of this computer business matters a monkey's toss.

 

A rogue sunspot will probably bring all communications to an end at some point just before the last asteroid hits and we’ll all be long dead (and I think of myself as generally cheerful) so I won’t worry about it (that other Winston had his ‘Black Dog’, I quite like black dogs so have no problem living with mine concerned reader – no flowers please).

Onto more important matters - and my second, and final complaint this week.

What’s this business with water bottles?

In my time I’ve played Rugby (and the occasional bout of the round ball game) in various countries in all weathers (Yes – this is another ‘in my day’ speech). Time was you came on, warmed up, played 40 minutes or so, ate one eighth of a Jaffa, played another half, came off, showered and then consumed vast amounts of beer or, even better sat in a huge hot bath whilst consuming vast amounts of beer.

On the pitch water came in a bucket in which bobbed a dubious looking bath sponge which became ever grubbier with muck and blood during play meaning you’d rather drink from a muddy puddle than consume the stuff in the pail. Not any more. I recently witnessed a Premiership Rugby match when, at the start of the second half, we are talking within two minutes of play restarting, an injury stopped play. Immediately several players called for, and received bottles decorated with various logo’s from a drinks manufacturer. What’s that all about? Every time play stops nowadays players are seen throwing half full bottles off the pitch after swigging God knows what.

 

        My Day (note the oranges)                                                                                                 Nowadays (bloke can't even hit mouth)

This now happens at every level of the games, players drinking at every stoppage, even in the depths of winter. A recent investigation revealed that of all liquids tested the only one to aid recovery faster than water was –milk. Even then swigging liquids during a game won’t have any real effect on your rehydration till after the final whistle.

These ‘super rehydrating elixirs’ are another marketing trick designed to suit the current style over substance society we are building and need to be consigned to the dustbin of history along with reality TV, DAB radio’s (see footnote), e mails from disenfranchised Nigerian royalty, claim culture law firms, dodgy ‘cookies’,Wonga.com and their evil brethren, Get Screwed for Gold, whilst we retain all the goodness that has arrived in the past few decades, digital cameras, microwave cookers, CAT scanners and e cards when you’ve forgotten Mum’s birthday.

God, I feel better now – bet you don’t.

*** Yes, I managed to log on to Absolute. This was necessary because we now only have a DAB radio in the office which a) I’m only allowed to play whilst alone in the office or the Public Broadcasting people will swoop down and take me to their gulag and b) I can’t work the ruddy thing, it has taken me over 6 months to tune it to Radio 4, the only station accessible now on it as every time I try and tune in something else it all disappears – what was wrong with Long Wave please?

 

 

 

 

                                                                         Proper radio

 

 

Incidentally to get on things like Absolute the process is made much simpler if one signs up for a Facebook account. Obviously I, like so many of my generation have no use for Facebook it, like cookies, being another useless, faceless operation designed to find out the most intimate details of your life and then sell you things it decides you want.

My Facebook account therefore, like that of millions of others, is in the wrong name, with incorrect personal details and an anonymous e mail address (which I’m sure the men in black could trace if they want to) and hence the reason Facebook shares are worth the same as empty crisp packets. I get a warm feeling every time someone wishes to ‘friend’ me, redoubled when I reject their advances. One day I’m sure that Facebook will start to close down accounts like mine whose friends total – zero. Until then – another of life’s little pleasures.

On a closing note why would a known pirate wish to join a ‘social network’ which uses face recognition to the extent that the police now utilise it for every CC TV crime recorded?

The Captain's Facebook Photo.

Olympic Lessons for One and All -The Captain Bangs the Drum for Great Britain

As the London 2012 Olympic Games draws to a close we can reflect on what it has meant and achieved and take a look at what it can teach us, particularly about the social condition of the United Kingdom today.

One negative thing to have come out of what has, by any measure, been a great event is confirmation of, if you needed any after the hacking debacle and twenty years of dumbing down, megalomaniac owners influencing journalistic independence et al, the fact that our British press is simply bloody awful.

Spot the Difference: Sort the ‘celebrities’ shown into orders of despicability.

Yes you say, we know. Sometimes however the crass posturing and outright lies of the 4th Estate reaches a point where collective blood really should begin to boil. Pre event we were bombarded with stories sniping at everything from the national character to the organisation of ‘disastrous’ security and the opening ceremony (remember first off they said it wouldn’t get built in time).

As ever, as soon as it became clear that the whole event was to be a triumph we saw the usual seismic shift in print championing the Games.

 

 

 

 

My point? Today’s newspaper is no longer tomorrows chip paper, these days it’s that sheaf of toilet paper hanging on a nail in the wall..

 

 

 

 

 

Next thing is that awful security, anyone who studies the facts knows that currently the handful of large companies, known to Private Eye readers as ‘Crapita’ etc., consistently under perform, run out of cash and ask for public handouts to top up their contracts etc.

What was impressive was the fact that the British Army, no matter how debilitated, could still step up and seamlessly (apparently) take the situation in hand.

One fact, unsurprising to many Britons, is that per capita Australia holds the biggest head of whingers in the entire world. We in Gods own country always knew the ‘whingeing Pom’ accusation so long levied by the sunburnt ex cons was the usual hot air but actions in the past two weeks have brought it to the attention of the world at large. Newspapers in Oz publishing the ‘Top Nine’ medal table (because at the time old foe New Zealand was at number ten whilst the corkly millinered ones were untroubling such lofty statistics), references to ‘Oceanic Medals’ and ‘AuSealand’ (in a desperate attempt to gain some kudos by association with the enemy) led in part by a Sheila who wouldn’t play unless a ‘woman’ carried the flag (guess who she had in mind).

Whingers? Surely not.

This isn’t me folks, no less than the Sydney Morning Herald, publishing even before the Games started under a headline ‘Whinge, whinge, whinge Australia’ made comments such as its country’s athletes being ‘most likely be better remembered after London for a litany of complaints’ - how prophetic.

In a poll published together with the article 90% of Aussies from the 12,500 respondents said they were ashamed of how their athletes were behaving in the lead up to the event. Guess they’ll be even less happy now. Luckily the Aussie Minister for Sport had enough bottle to bet our bloke they’d win all the medals. Anyone wanting to brighten their day can shortly enjoy the sight of Kate Lundy on YouTube donning her GB cobber clobber and rowing a length of the Olympic Eton Dorney course in the next few days.

The biggest thing about the whole deal however is (excuse me, cliché en route) is the way the Great British Public have shown the picture of the UK which the gentleworms of the press have published for so long is simply a fantasy.

The theme of these Games was those five syllables that make up the word ‘inclusivity’ and even the most hardened, liver soaked hack couldn’t deny that, above everything else, for the past two weeks the nation, and, to a slightly lesser degree, the world, was at one.

Forget the BNP, blokes chucking bottles, ignore a handful of ‘rioters’ last year – in reality petty crooks and chancers, we saw a Muslim refugee who came here aged eight from Somalia win two Gold medals on the track, a man admired nationwide and completely devoted to his adopted country.

A man with no legs was allowed to compete for his country, not because of sympathy but because he was good enough.

We saw burka’d Arab women fighting for their rights and their country even at one of the original male bastions of exclusivity –Lords!

Preview

We saw black, white, Asian all conjoined into doing their best both in the events, amongst the volunteers and out in the crowds, at the spectacles in the arenas, by the pools, out on the streets and at home in front of televisions.

 

 

As a nation we have problems but that said no worse in many ways than other nations and we still retain that national pride and sense of arrogance that comes with our history (and infuriates so many others).

To be placed third in the medal table with around a tenth of the available Gold medals won by Britain shows we still punch above our weight.

To organise a Games as successful as London 2012 shows we can still pull off the big occasion.

An opening ceremony demonstrated not just how proud we can be of our history but how we can produce talent like Danny Boyle to make such points accessible and comprehensible to all, the closing party, and that’s what it was, showed the depth of our modern culture from fashion to music. I quote, selectively admittedly, from US writer Mike Lopresti who said:

“This was the Olympics where the hosts had every right to congratulate themselves. There were no major snafus, it didn't rain much, it was charming wondering which of the royal family would show up, and many of the venues were stunning in their marriage to history.

“Equestrian horses jumped from the one hemisphere to the other over the Prime Meridian at Greenwich Park, beach volleyball went on next to 10 Downing Street, and a rousing version of God Save the Queen echoed through Wimbledon.”

But with still some time before it starts the fact we have already sold two and a half million tickets to the Paralympics when Beijing, in a country of billions, sold a meagre 100,000 in total when it was there four years ago, says more about this country than anything else.

 

So, despite the stiff upper lips and the occasional moan The Spirit of ’69 Lives (Even when we are bashing the Granny out of each other at wheelchair rugby).

 

 

 

Where Does All the Money Go?

That’s the question this week. And No, I’m not talking about what the boss got through when she accompanied the Captain to Dublin last week (although that visit is probably the single biggest factor in any recovery for the Emerald Isle’s financial dealings).

Nope, this week I’m considering all those whacking great fines we keep hearing about.

If you’re looking for the most profitable growth industry currently around then the sky’s the limit when you’re (not to put too fine a point on it) in the fine business of collecting fines.

Everyone knows that Barclays (Motto: It's our business to know your business) basically nicked a fortune from customers by rigging the LIBOR (now known as the LIOR) rate.

We also know they weren’t the only ones and there is likely to be a slough of future prosecutions on other banks raising billions in fines.

 

In our own industry typing a suitable word like ‘Cartel’ into the Handy Shipping Guide site’s News Search box will produce a list of articles referring to dozens of cases where the state authorities all across the globe have levied billions (yes billions) of dollars, pounds, euro’s etc. on freight and logistics groups.

Shipping lines, airlines, freight forwarders – all grist to the Anti Trust mill.

If you’re going to have a free market, and the Skipper sees the argument for cooperation between carriers as well as the need for competition so let’s not get started on that, then someone has to police the system.

So in answer to that original question –

1) Where Does All the Money Go? - or if you prefer 2)Where Does All the Money Come From? – the answer is quite simple:

1) You Get It or 2) You Pay It depending which question you consider.

 

Let’s break it down. The Vegetables (industry insider’s laugh now) from opposing carriers, agents etc. get together in their local café for a clandestine meet.

None of them are making enough cash so they agree to inflict the pain on their customers by raising a ‘surcharge’.

The only decisions they have to make are what to call it and what rate to charge.

The agents of course have a smorgasbord of choices, CAF (currency adjustment factor), Fuel Surcharge (Bunker Adjustment Factor or BAF), Port Congestion Surcharge, Winter Surcharge, PSS (Peak Season Surcharge) etc.

 

I especially like that last one, ‘We’re busy so you haven’t got any choice, give us more money.’

 

Maersk for example has a list of sixty two extra services, surcharges and fees, most of which are very specific and certainly warranted.Unscrupulous execs could, and have, adjusted such a list to sway the balance in their favour in cohorts with their direct competitors.

So let’s look at a typical shipment.

Luigi sends shoes from Milan to San Francisco, ocean or airfreight it doesn’t matter. He gets a quote from a suitable freight forwarder and, after readying the order, pays up front for the service which includes a small percentage in dodgy surcharges or, perhaps worse still, a rate which competitors have agreed to charge on that route.

The carrier picks up the money from the forwarder including the bonus cash and banks it. Luigi passes the extra on to his customer, both being unaware they are being cheated of a fair deal.

The consignee passes it to his retailer, the retailer to your missus when she buys the ones and two’s. Just a tiny amount per shoe you understand not enough to notice on each and every pair.

Some years later along comes the regulator with evidence against all the carriers concerned. One immediately bottles, does a deal to lower their own penalty and rats out all the others (you know who you are….). Big investigation, raids on all premises, guilty as charged.Fine comes to a zillion quid, carriers have set it aside already as the investigation took three years, State collects fine.

So technically that’s you that is.

Justice done you says?             I think not.

The state banks the cash, it’s not theirs you understand but what can the poor souls do? It’s not their job to decide who got diddled.

So far so good, the authorities have a pot of gold, the miscreants have paid the fine.

Now some of the forwarders who shipped the goods on behalf of their many clients decide they have been fiddled and get together to launch a class action against the carriers who nicked the cash (yes, nicked – you can put a finer point on it but the law says it’s nicked. QED).

  PRO BONO (get it?)

Now as the head count of poor lawyers makes the Yeti appear to have an exploding population there’s going to be some serious money for the carriers to pay out.

They’ve already been found or pleaded, guilty so legs to stand on are in decidedly short supply.

M’learned friends add their costs to the money they win (or more likely negotiate) from the carriers on behalf of their clients (the freight forwarders) so that’s the carriers (who have upped their rates in the meantime to cover the costs of all these fines they keep getting) paying out more money. Now this is where it gets sticky.

All the corporate clients likely deal with the lines direct so they either already settled or, more likely, didn’t get charged in the first place having negotiated rates in advance and telling the carriers to stick it when they raised the subject over lunch.

So all that money, already charged to the end user, goes into the forwarders coffers with the intention of paying back the myriad customers who got stung for the surcharges or rate increases.

But ten years have passed, half the forwarders have been absorbed by UPSDHLFEDNAME ANOTHERCONGLOMERATE plc.

The other half either don’t work for the original customers any more or have had so many personnel changes no one remembers who got stung for how much. So they keep the cash.

So pick the bones out of that for yourselves.

State got a bung, Carriers got hit but all upped the rates to pay for it, consignors, consignees, wholesalers and retailers never lost money in the first place ‘cos they passed on the charges to each one down the line, Forwarders got paid twice as they passed on the excess then sued the carriers to get money back they never had a right to.

Guess what?   That leaves you and me.

Well not me, I don’t actually wear ladies shoes these days.