Welcome Aboard The Black Pig - Shipping & Freight Blog

All those Crazy Ideas Keep Coming Around

Firstly apologies avid readers for the prolonged absence. (avid? readers?) I know your skipper promised to up the output on the Black Pig Blog but the usual obstructions once more prevented a regular stream of garbage – work, work, fishing, work – and of course the fact I simply won’t let anyone else in the office loose on this little corner of the Handy Shipping Guide site (no, I’ll die before I let you have the codes Renfield).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

. . . So to business, as we trawl from the blossoming dawn into the wee small hours putting the news content of the site together every day we wade through mountains of unprintable dross, discarding reams of it like the multi layered packaging on a Fabergé egg sent by a bondage obsessed e Bay vendor.

I can handle having to redact all the self promoting guff that inevitably accompanies the vast majority of press releases sent by overeager copywriters.

I accept the fact that many ‘newsworthy’ items are actually dull as ditchwater announcements with faster acting anaesthetic effects than draught Ketamine.

All this is worth it to extract items which we feel may be of use or interest to somebody somewhere.

What I find unacceptable are pronouncements from the meddling idiots who, having run out of worthwhile ways to make a living, spend their time promoting madcap schemes which, if suggested by an illiterate hermit with megalomaniac tendencies would be immediately discarded by their proposer as simply a waste of money, being too stupid even for his self obsessed, deranged mind.

Today the electronic trawl which is the editor’s e mail turned up just such a proposal which we have seen Oh, so many times before. An American university research fellow, no doubt occupying a lofty intellectual perch, is investigating ‘the benefits of distance-based fees for the trucking industry’. Lets break it down then, yet another academic believes (and I quote) ‘funding the transportation system with a fuel tax is no longer sustainable’.

 

 

 

 

 

Why’s that then? Presumably this theoretical genius knows the money has to come from somewhere to support transport infrastructure, in fact that is his very point. The man in question, a Mr Ferrol Robinson from something called the Humphrey School of Public Affairs

(he’s done well since the milk marketing board adverts) states,

 

“We have known for years that heavy trucks do cause more damage. A lot of cars cause less damage, but they still put the mileage on the roads. So we need them to pay a fair amount for their use.”

We have news for you Ferrol old boy, those trucks supply everything you wear, everything you eat and drink and the tools you use to write this junk.

Yes, they have a devastating impact on the road surfaces which is why there are such a plethora of ways used to collect the readies to pay for it spread throughout the countries of the world. So the fact that a big rig swallows diesel at the rate of 6 or 7 miles per gallon means you have the perfect instrument to control your revenue stream and balance your infrastructure costs considering you, Mr Ferrol Robinson, can transport your fuel efficient backside around presumably in your Toyota Prius hybrid at an alarmingly low cost.

But no; Mr R would like to study the possibilities to charge mileage for every vehicle on the road and blend it into a clever formula to ensure everyone pays their fair whack. OK lets see how we approach this, obviously we can’t trust anyone to fess up to their true mileage, nor is it beyond them to fiddle odometer readings to avoid taxes.

 

 

 

 

Simple then, we use modern technology like vehicle recognition systems and Robinson quotes the German system of Autobahn tolling as a good example of how to work things out to his satisfaction. Which is a bit like saying because you can control the environment in a fish tank you can apply the same principals to ocean management.

I wonder if research fellows like Mr R actually have a concept of how the real world works.

Rather than looking to implement what will prove another expensive layer of bureaucracy and maintenance with the introduction of number plate readers, Bluetooth recognition systems etc. we in Europe can solve Ferrol’s problem in one simple sentence.

Charge US consumers a realistic sum for their fuel supplies.

In January 2011, motor gasoline taxes averaged 48.1cents and diesel fuel taxes averaged 53.1cents a gallon which accounted for 14% of the price of gasoline and 15% of the price of diesel (in some states tax reached a stellar 70 cents per gallon by the latest figures I could find)). The taxed rate in the UK for all road fuels on excise duty alone hovers around the equivalent of $3.60 per US gallon plus a further 20% VAT on both duty and fuel sale price (which includes of course the cost to the garage). Hence we have (according to your Captain’s dodgy maths) a retail pump price on diesel fuel of around $4.00 per US gallon whilst the equivalent figure in the UK , without the VAT equals $7.20 (according to AA figures today). So that’s $8.65 to anyone who can’t claim the tax back from the state.

So here’s the rub as old Bill would have put it.

Every politician in America is terrified of the effect a sensible tax rate on fuel would have. California claims to be the greenest thing since the Jolly Green Giant fell into a tub of luminous algae  

 

 

 

- but even they can only charge around a 10 cent surcharge for a gallon of juice. A 10 cent surcharge on every gallon sold in the US would, according to market analysts estimates, raise an extra $20 BILLION in revenue. Now friend Robbo says it will take $1.3 to $2.5 trillion to get US infrastructure back on track. That equates to a tax increase of between $5.20 and $10.00 a gallon, obviously unacceptable to all. That would mean however raising the sum total required in a single year. Spread that over a decade and you’re talking 52 cents to $1.00 a gallon and Hey Presto!

The big problem is of course that fitting the whole of the States with technological junk and employing armies of public servants to administrate yet another tax provides jobs, which to a politician is like truffles to a pig. So be ready friend this insanity might actually happen to our cousins across the pond, despite the fact the theory has been tested to destruction by many other developed governments.

So, to paraphrase Art and Paul here’s to you Mr Robinson, kick the idea into touch.

Or keep churning out your spurious opinions on how to ensure every road is nice and flat for your car and those nasty big rigs pay the bill.

Remember though as you tuck into your cornflakes, that sticker price is going up, the consumer always picks up the tab, only I suspect it’s going to rise a lot more if we drive down your road than if you screw your courage to the sticking place (sorry again Bill) and pay a sensible price for your road fuel – it’ll still be cheaper than here in Blighty.

Perhaps though the Captain is being a little hasty, there may actually be a whiff of conspiracy hereabout.

If we all switch to electric and efficient hydrogen or even hybrid vehicles within the next ten years (and the US citizens are liable to if the Yanks stick the price of juice up to a sensible level) then there really will be nothing in the kitty to fund Ferrol's asphalt infrastructure.

So if you really want to pay full whack for your roads friends, swallow the bitter pill and raise the taxes now - some hopes.

Or act like men (Ferrol and the US politico's), don't feed us the 'trucks must pay their way' line, just confess that you're hoping to create jobs for the boys and their corporations, raise higher revenues and make a few quid for yourselves.

 

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!

Careful Now – It’s Hang A Hoody Week

Amidst the Barricades the Captain spots a Ray of Hope

Most of you won’t have noticed it amongst the atomic meltdowns, earthquake’s, tsunami’s and attempted disposal of rubber faced dictators but we are witnessing a momentous event, the birth of a new geopolitical movement, our very own epiphany.

The joining together of two, not so great nations, to produce a philosophical tremor that is to sweep the world, a rival to conventional politics, destroyer of formal religions, a breath of fresh air blowing through the cobwebbed strewn corridors of convention.

Any avid readers of science fiction will be familiar with the trend, amidst the concentration of strife and confusion the observer registers a discordant note, an anachronism or an uncharacteristic scene which flickers almost subliminally for a split second leaving only a sense of slight bewilderment.

Such were the Captain’s feelings after another hard days toil, bent double over a steaming laptop when, upon adjourning for a brew and a doss, the television soundtrack droned on about the mass protest in London recently. Endless lines of herberts almost as scruffy as the Skipper himself trudged angrily through the streets of the Metropolis shouting abuse against Government spending cuts.

Mixed were my feelings, firstly how come they had the time to protest if they all worked so ruddy hard? I haven’t got time to go fishing and for some of us that’s a short head away from a bronze medal behind breathing, eating and sleeping. Fair enough, we know savings have to be made but not one of these anonymous souls seemed to disagree with that, excepting perhaps the odd union boss or two before collecting their enormous salaries as professional hecklers from their ‘members’ (and we all know what we call our members).

What of the mass of protestors though? Once again, as with the ‘Poll Tax’ riots we saw a huge bunch of people complaining about something but apparently with no real idea of a suitable alternative – we’ve run out of cash dear, there is none, what do you suggest, borrow some more and let the kids pay for it later?

So let’s get to the point (not the original point, I’ll be back there shortly) if you want to protest then so be it, realise however that a typical individual from the great British silent majority has no sympathy for the average Public Sector worker whom he considers a feckless, time wasting, clock watching parasite. Nurses used to be exempt as did coppers, not so any more, there’s no automatic pass these days but the medical profession still manage to command a modicum of respect.

Tabloid press reports (and it’s all tabloid now regardless of whether it’s broadsheet or A5) loves to report the extremes, devoted cancer carer to Munchausen by proxy murderer alike, and this exercises a strong influence on public perceptions. When you have to earn your own living, with no guarantee of income, when you’re only as good as your last job, when you’ve no publicly funded pension pot, it’s hard to muster sympathy for people who work 9 till 5 with an hour for lunch and a regular salary higher than yours, sick pay, perks and the rest.

But what really lights the blue touch paper for us independents is the sight of compulsive anonymity, the legions of hooded, scarf wearing protestors who seem to think hiding one’s identity is a prerequisite to public dissent. Surely if you are going to be struck down by a baton wielding rozzer you want the TV to see who you are for the ensuing no win no fee court case? Or is there another deeper, darker reason you don’t want recognition? Up to no good perhaps, windows to break, bricks to throw?

Being frank shouldn’t anyone turning up at an event where someone is almost bound to start trouble, as we witnessed last week, be compelled to at least dress in a manner where they can be eliminated from enquiries?

So it was that, even more bitter and twisted than usual that I noticed him. A fleeting glimpse, a slight figure almost lost in the sea of similarly garbed, trudging morass of humanity. Like them he clutched the skinny pole that supported his placard, his plea from the heart, a small whisper of sanity amongst the roar of abuse.

It said simply ‘Down with this Sort of Thing’.

Could it be? Did it mean what I thought? In an instant he had passed from the camera’s eye but the emotion remained, a tiny internal smile which grew steadily, burgeoning upward and out, reaching inexorably until the corners of the Captains mouth crept into a half smile whilst deep, deep down a laugh was born.

Amidst all the misery, anger and confusion came the thought that at the last roll call it wouldn’t be the protest that lingered in the memory, just the humour. Back to the smaller screen, a quick surf and there it was, evidence that a momentary amusement from the Emerald Isle and the great white haired giant himself had developed into a crusade now embraced by the British love of eccentricity.

A nation which has entered ‘Jedi ‘ so many times on its Census forms it is now the fifth biggest religion in the UK.

A country which spawned Major Allison Digby Tatham-Warter, awarded the DSO after leading a bayonet charge on a German position with an umbrella and when it was pointed out the contraption was useless in combat merely replied,

‘Yes, but what if it rains?’

 

Major Tatham-Warter DSO

 

 

So bearers of the placard we pay homage to your meaningless, selfless act.

 

Bear witness all to the armies of insolence who can find the wit to write a proper placard and prick the balloon of pomposity which typifies the street protestor of this wonderful state that allows you to shout your complaint aloud in the streets of the capital.

The great man himself (and perpetual sidekick) in the original protest.

Protestors against protests, we salute you!

And finally and best of all Fathers Ted and Dougal in the original protest against the fictional film The Passion of Saint Tiberius (if you’re not familiar then this video is essential viewing).

 

Supermoons And Other Assorted Rubbish

So the conspiracy theorists, wicca weirdos and that most despised of all breeds the tabloid journalists found something to lighten the mood over the weekend whilst the RAF revved up their Tornados awaiting the word to smack Gaddafi in the mouth and families searched in the rubble of Sendai for lost relatives.

A new phrase was born, ‘Supermoon’, this was the phenomenon blamed for everything from landslides to murders, from tsunami to shipwreck, although in the latter case with some justification. Opening the office today produced the usual flurry of e mails, more than one concerned with reports that a cargo freighter had run aground in the Solent.

 

It would need to be a very quiet day for His Majesty to want to write up that one, we get about ten stories a day of ships running aground worldwide but, as things developed, more and more strandings were reported. At last count the 2,900 tonne MV Paula C was the largest of no less than five vessels caught out on the sandbanks that lie between the mainland and the Isle of Wight.

 

(All right this is a photo of a stranding in Alaska many years ago but the Solent photo's we got were rubbish!)

This ‘supermoon’ phenomenon happens about every twenty years or so and is simply a result of a full moon passing on its closest orbit of the earth. The boffins refer to it as a perigee (close orbit) and when combined with the Sun, Earth and Moon being in alignment it’s a maximal perigee syzygy (sounds like the tattooed bloke from Warsaw who did our windows).

 

So it’s a rare phenomenon worthy of all this press coverage. No actually it’s not. We get something similar around five times a year but apparently there were five skippers out in the Solent at the weekend who can’t read a tide table. If you looked at a chart for say, Newquay, you’d see the normal tidal range is 3 to 5 metres for arguments sake. On Saturday that became 7.7 metres. The tide didn’t appear to be a particularly high one but the ebb, now that’s something different. That actually showed up as a minus figure, and guess what a minus figure means? Yep, you got it, that isn’t the depth of water; it’s the height the sea bed is sticking out of the water.

So stop ringing Nasa, and telling the Daily Mail the end is nigh, it’s just perigree’s, apogee’s and the longitude of the ascending node doing what they’ve been doing since before we could swim let alone crew a tub round the Isle of Wight.

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?).