The current situation with world oil prices reminds me of a monologue by satirist John Clarke (aka Fred Dagg) from the mid 1970's. At the time petrol in New Zealand was less than 50c a litre, we were worried about an impending ice age (not Global Warming) and the country was run by Rob Muldoon...
I hear the price of petrol will be going up again. It's a bit of a problem having the oil-producing world run by a pack of ratbags like the Arabs. Actually I know something about this and they're really quite bright. It's just a pity that nobody else thought of the idea first.
They don't actually produce oil out there at all. I mean, have you ever seen the place? It's built like a big long sand-hill and it's pretty clear to the average observer that there's nothing underneath. One of the big oil sheiks is a bloke who used to live out our way, as a matter of fact, Sheik Trevor. He's a funny sort of bloke, His Imperial Highness, and what he did was really quite simple. He took all his sheep-retention money, and he had quite a lot because he'd been retenting himself into the ground at the time, and he brought petrol (at the old price of course) from his brother who ran a gas station just outside Taihape. A few others had the same idea and pretty soon they'd brought up all the oil stocks and had it sitting in these big separators in the desert which is the only place they could get cheap land. And now that things have got a bit tight they're selling it back to the rest of the world and they make up the price as they go along... maybe if the Government had a bit of a chat with Sheik Trevor he'd let a few barrels fall off the back of a tanker for his mates!
I see the major oil companies think they might be on to a big pot of oil just off the West Coast. This would, of course, be of enormous benefit to New Zealand as we would no longer need to be dependent on the whims of the Middle East. I think I know what they're up to, these companies, and we're doing the same thing down our way so it won't only be the big oil companies that take off once the drill strikes the black moisture. The idea is to go along with Sheik Trevor and his mates, only without the problem of transportation. A few years ago the big oil companies started putting oil in the ground on the off-chance that the price might go up. They'd take a few million barrels, wrap it up in a big plastic bag or something and drop it off the coast somewhere that a whole lot of fishermen or scuba divers weren't going to run across it. And now the price has gone up they set up a few big rigs and pretend to find it. They know where it is all along, of course, but they can't just go and pull it up or people would ask questions.
A mate of ours was working for the Harbour Board at the time and he's about the only one who knows exactly where it is. So once the directors of the big oil companies have had their rigs photographed and they've all been on TV a few times they'll send for this mate of ours and he'll go out and point to the bit of water where he turfed it in. He owes me a few favours, this particular bloke, and with any luck I should hear a couple of days in advance so if anybody wants a share in the big strike, drop us a line and I'll see if we can fit you on the boat!
For more John Clarke humour visit www.mrjohnclarke.com
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