Welcome Aboard The Black Pig - Shipping & Freight Blog

Simply the Best (or possibly not)

Who is the Country’s/ World’s/Global Leading Logistics/Multimodal/Express Carrier?

Every day in comes the great wash of e mails which keep us appraised of what’s happening in the world of freight and shipping.

Our job (as we see it) at the dear old Handy Shipping Guide is to filter all this (expletive deleted) so that it not only makes good sense but actually contains some interesting facts.

Unfortunately, the people who write this stuff are almost always over keen on ‘bigging up’ their product/service/routing etc. so they insist on putting as many adjectives and adverbs into the description of whatever it is they originally wished to plug that the thing ends up as a boring piece of self aggrandisement.

Our job therefore becomes one of surgery, cutting out the infected prose and rhetoric to leave a nice clean, sensible missive that conveys everything that needs to be said.

Problem is, once we’ve carved out the BS we often find ourselves left with one line of dialogue e.g. two foolscap pages of quotes like:

“This geographical extension affords the discerning clientele we enjoy as a multimodal, global logistics and supply chain optimising solutions organisation the chance to interface with a multifaceted connective rotation enabling them to explore the blossoming markets lying outward of the main hub and into the hinterland beyond utilising our international network of reliable distribution facilities,”

which becomes:

“New destination for us, you can use it to send stuff to one of our other agents somewhere else if you like.”

Nice and succinct but it won’t sell you any advertising space, nor does it make for a good story.

 

 

 

 

If we had a quid for every firm which tells us they are the biggest, fastest and always most reliable then retirement would have been long since past.

So keep the press releases coming by all means, but think not only of all the wasted time and energy filling them with self flattering comment but the poor souls who have to take it all out again!

A Ramble Through the East, the Freight Industry and the Price of Gas

Firstly, apologies once again for the lack of blogging of late.

As usual it’s pressure of work (thank God). Hands up, no other excuse but, when you think about it, if the Captain’s top priority was to put you lot straight about the world he must be having a pretty thin time of it.

Once again things are buzzing at the Handy Shipping Guide and demand means we will introduce some extra features in the near future and brush up the look of the thing. All we need now is for the UK shipping industry to catch up with the rest of the world and realise we are in a computer age and a modicum of happiness will infuse the Captain’s morning tea.

Meantime, out there in the big bad world there is the normal rush of things happening, at the moment we’re all sitting waiting to see whether the Japanese are going to have to deal with a nuclear disaster much different yet potentially no less serious, than their last, and all our thoughts and hopes go out to them.

The Middle East is in turmoil and your skipper fully expects blood in the skies over Libya in the very near future, some things never change. When you consider what is going on out there suddenly the balance of payment deficit starts to look a little less scary.

If you’re reading this some time in the future (as I know many of you do) those bits are history and I hope it all turned out alright.

So, back to this great industry of ours; on a personal note I see that RH Freight have been hoovered up, sorry acquired, by Kuehne + Nagel. This was inevitable as the Captain left the group (well a previous linked company two changes of identity since) over forty years ago. Let’s face it, that put the writing on the wall for poor old RH, I knew me going would finish them pretty quickly.

Talking of K + N the Swiss do seem to have a certain knack for this sort of thing, shipping and forwarding that is. Trifle odd when you think a) they haven’t got a coastline and b) they have, in their time, seem to have introduced eccentric road haulage rules seemingly just to p**s off the rest of Europe.

These two photos prove a) The Swiss have modern army with proper weapons and b) unbeknown to many they also have a sense of humour.

The shipping world and his missus have been putting out their trading figures and, at first sight, they are mostly looking pretty healthy, although backed up by serious brows and dire, veiled undertones.

Let’s face it though, after the debacle that was 2009, world plague would have looked pretty attractive (especially if you were a drug company). Looking at the range of figures however it does seem, for certain sectors of the industry at least, things have undergone a drastic improvement. Now we are told that rising fuel prices (that’ll be the Middle East again) will hasten Armageddon, well it will if you don’t pass on the cost; the trouble is the ruddy stuff is going up so much, so quickly it’s hard to keep pace.

Working from AA figures for the highest prices recorded at UK pumps, December 2008 saw diesel at £1.03 per litre, December 2009 £1.106, December 2010 it hit £1.267. Just two weeks ago it was up to £1.35 and currently (March 12th) the equivalent pump price is £1.499. That’s thirty bob a litre or creeping dangerously close to seven quid a gallon in real money!

 

I think the container companies have now got a handle on the fact they need to ensure they cover their costs when tough times arise as opposed to indulging in a rate war to see who blinks first. Whether other logistics groups, truckers, bulk carriers etc can hold their bottle enough to do so is a very different matter.

As usual when we face rough weather some of the bigger transport groups hang on whilst the smaller guys wilt and fail but, just as spring follows winter, these are the same people who get it all moving again just as the mega carriers think they are getting close to a monopoly and their rates are rising.

There will never be a monolithic company answer to the personal service that many of the smaller hauliers, freight forwarders and others bring to the industry, and let’s hope that remains the case. Big companies are great at what they do, just look at some of the express parcel services we now enjoy, but they will always need those smaller competitors, ready to grow larger by way of superior service and personal attention to detail to keep them legal and on their toes.

So whilst we sail on in 2011 with the usual slough of problems, plus a few more to take up the slack (the pirate problem continues to be the biggest growth industry on the planet; Governments world wide complain of economic problems; weather patterns cause floods and crop failures; earthquakes etc.) we should remember that, despite all the aggravation, we still represent the luckiest generation ever born.

And if you can’t handle it and you’re in logistics – you’re in the wrong game pal

 

 

Just write your own caption (put them in the comments if you like).The three I thought of are simply too rude to print even in here (and why has he got the world flag collection on one side and a photo of the Beach Boys 2010 on the other?).

Progress beyond our Wildest Dreams

Firstly, the apology.

Regular readers have been asking why the usual erratic publication of the Black Pig Blog has been even more so of late.

The explanation is simple, no time.

As we all have to do in our busy modern lives the Captain has had to prioritise of late – there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to do it all and the demands of the Handy Shipping Guide have meant 7 days a week working from the whole team (well except the four days we all bu**ered off to Yorkshire).

For those that don’t know the Guide operates from five main centres, three in the UK, one in France and the other in Thailand (the lucky ones).

As half the Thai office are in the UK this month everyone has been busy proving how efficient they are and time has been very short.

As to the title of this blog, the truth is we always expected the Guide to be successful, just that most didn’t foresee how fast we would get so far.

Still, the best kind of pressure is that which means you have too much to do rather than too little – especially when times are hard.

One of the joys of web publishing is that you can continue to work no matter where you are on the globe.

Well that’s what the manual said.

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 Biggest load of BS along with the paperless office and your cheque’s in the post.

The Paperless Office (Not)

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In the last few months the Captain has seen more communication breakdowns than the West Bank. The internet is a wonderful tool just like a petrol strimmer, except of course when the petrol runs out. . . . . A word of advice. If you ever need a suitable photo to illustrate a comment like that last one, don’t type ‘Broken Tool’ into the Google Image Search with your adult content censor switched off.

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I did and I had to go and lie down after the first three pictures showed up.

The UK is a wonderful place to live and work, a fact we who live here tend to forget (Clue: If lots of people want to move from their country to your country you are probably luckier than you realize).

The problem is our office enjoys a fast efficient broadband service, a must when you do what we do for a living. When away into the wilds  (have you BEEN to Yorkshire) using the dodgy old roaming, mortgage your daughters by the minute, steam driven web connection can drive one potty.

I appreciate that it’s nice to be busy, and it’s simply fantastic that the Guide is now read in 212 countries.

I’ve been in the freight game for over forty years

(Blimey, how old is this guy?)

and I wasn’t even sure there WERE 212 countries, and there are at least 20 of them I can’t even spell.

So for any of our many readers who don’t know exactly what ‘potty’ means here is my excuse to demonstrate.

We won’t be away so long next time.

Airships - I Think Not !!!

Firstly apologies for the lack of blogs lately.

The pressures of keeping the Directory current have necessitated neglecting something and the blog was it (alright, alright the Captain has just left the bridge for an extended period).

I hope we shall go back to regular rants at the world.

Starting Now.

According to a report in yesterday’s Guardian we in the shipping world are about to see a revolution in transport logistics.

Apparently we are on the brink of starting to use ‘blimps’ otherwise known as airships to ferry our cargoes around the world.

Now call me a cynic, and I know many of you do, but this must surely have been written by Phil Space, he of Private Eye fame. The final paragraph of the guardian report ends “The craze for blimps came to an abrupt halt after the death of many people when the Hindenburg caught fire in New Jersey, US. However research and development languished but never halted."

The clue would seem to be right there - that bit about death just somehow catches my eye.

Now if any of you don't know the fate of the Hindenburg, it prompted one of the most evocative, and famous, pieces of radio journalism in history.

And therein, Ms Juliette Jowit author of this sterling piece, lies the clue.

The problem with your article is it is patently written by someone with little or no knowledge of logistics after reading a report by someone who is being paid to investigate any way possible to cut carbon emissions, no matter how crazy the notions.

But what about that friendly looking Goodyear blimp?

That never has a problem does it?

Take a gander sweetheart.

Yes, blimps can lift a lot of weight, yes they can travel relatively quickly these days.

The problem is dear JJ that they have the aeronautical qualities of the same Helium balloons you let go of at country fairs which then fly off to be found by a child in Ethiopia or Tunbridge Wells or, far more likely to end up starving a sea turtle who thinks they’re a jellyfish.

They not only don’t come close to the tiny percentage of world freight shipped by air in terms of delivery times, there is no guarantee you can launch them in even a mild blow.

Just imagine, in recent times we have seen ships carried miles inland by the force of storms, we have seen New Orleans devastated, Haiti ruined all by the power of nature.

How much will it cost Ms Jowit to get you out from behind your laptop and onto the end of an airships mooring rope in a relatively moderate force six?

Or you might face unforeseen and fatally mysterious problems like the one which destroyed the USS Macon as shown here in this hitherto unseen video......

I am sure there is room for a little more use of dirigibles in transport but the only way to find out the limitations is liable to cost more in terms of financial investment, and more particularly human life, than most would think worthwhile. As a sales pitch to draw the ever ready save the planet vote blimps may be fine, but for moving cargo in quantity and to make a REAL difference let’s just concentrate on practical ways to shift our goods around the world, use local sources wherever possible and leave it to the experts who haven’t got a vested interest. So I leave you with one last video which is symbolic, if not accurate when traditional shipping methods are faced by the "new" technology of airship logistics.

UK Election – What About The Freight And Shipping Sectors Gentlemen

Industry Representatives Say Talk is Cheap – But We Don’t Even Hear That

UK – With the UK General Election only days away, comments by leaders of the big three parties relevant to the shipping and transport industries are virtually non existent, evasive, or perceived as mere rhetoric by logistics analysts and representatives. The Road Haulage Association (RHA) launched another attack on what many industry watchers feel are merely insubstantial and vague policies.

The RHA point out that the ruling Labour Party position is for what they call “regular real term increases” (why use one adjective when two or three will do) with “tackling road congestion a key Labour priority” whatever that means.

They say the Conservatives will ‘consult’ on the introduction of a ‘Fair Fuel Stabiliser’ that would cut fuel duty when oil prices rise but increase it when they fall. That should be interesting as they give no clear indication what price levels will be set or how they will measure the fluctuations and over what periods. They will also fund new road projects through increased toll schemes.

The Liberal Democrats seem determined to simply avoid virtually any mention of what their targets for the industry are other than to say that “HGV’s will be charged to pay to fund high speed rail links”. Hard to see the connection on that one without any further details. Generally it is accepted that HSR projects are for the benefit of passengers, not freight carriers and yet apparently the Lib Dems seem to think the haulage industry should pay for further tax burdens to fund what is then presumably impractical schemes if left to fund themselves.

As the RHA say to add insult to injury, the party’s plans for re-opening closed rail lines and adding extra tracks will be paid for “by cutting the major roads budget”. Far from confidence-inspiring for the road user.

BIGOT - Street Definition 

BROWN IS GONE ON THURSDAY. Not Premier Browns finest Hour.

The PM is pictured showing his true feelings (for once) after being caught out leaving his microphone on and referring to a lifelong Labour Party supporter as "a bigoted woman".

This trend of obfuscation when it comes to setting out clear manifesto commitments and substituting general statements which are merely sound bites is one of the main reasons there is currently such a lack of confidence in voters across the country.

It would appear that the three main parties are so scared of demonstrating to the electorate just how bad things are, and consequently the draconian measures they will be bound to take to re-correct the economy, whilst falling over themselves in desperation to keep or obtain employment that, whoever one chooses to vote for, you will probably get a Peppa Pig in a poke. 

Photo Courtesy of Channel 5