The fallout from the Russian invasion of Ukraine is now really starting to affect car fuel prices.
I went out for some fresh air this afternoon, and passed a filling station that wanted 187p per litre for diesel - I use diesel in Fiona. Understandably, when I saw diesel at 168p per litre not far down the same road, I pulled in and thought myself fortunate that I'd spotted that. But in fact this filling station was being naughty, as although the lit-up sign said 168p, the actual pump price was 180p. I realised that only after the stuff was running into Fiona's tank. I paid up and said nothing, but felt they'd lured me in with a trick.
Even so, not long ago a 7p saving at the pump (I paid 180p, but might have paid 187p) would have been considered very significant. But it's not so much now. And while the price of Brent Crude - almost a currency - continues to skyrocket in these uncertain times, so will the pump prices carry on climbing.
Where will they end up? I expect that at some point demand will slacken. People will decide that they must simply drive less, and use less fuel, and may (as some did during the lockdowns) discover that cars are not absolutely necessary in a city well-served by buses, trams and trains. That will force fuel suppliers and retailers to moderate prices, and stability will return - albeit at a high price level never seen before. But we can get used to that, just as you can get used to anything.
Of course, countryside-dwellers like me will have to absorb the extra fuel cost. I'll just have to be more careful about my car use. Long-distance days out from home may have to be confined to those occasions when I see friends. Long-distance holidays are something else, and even if I spend hundreds of pounds more on fuel, I can't see myself sacrificing longed-for journeys to the West Country or the Cotswolds, nor indeed Scotland.
All this must make owners of all-electric cars smile smugly, even if their electricity is costing a lot more than it did a year ago. It's another spur to going electric, and discarding old-fashioned and polluting liquid fuel.
It's impossible to say how the present conflict in the Ukraine will turn out, and with what effect. I think that Russia cares nothing for Ukrainians who want to be independent of Russia: they are its enemies, and can be bombed to hell. Russia wants territory, with pro-Russian locals (who feel Russian and want to speak Russian) to look after it. There are such friendly locals in Crimea and widely along the western Azov and Black Sea coasts, and I am pretty sure its ambition is to take over most of eastern Ukraine, including that coast, as far south-west as Moldova. That would effectively cut western Ukraine off from all its ports, render it land-locked, and give Russia a pretty free hand in the Black Sea.
Of course, its naval ships would still be bottled up by the narrow seaways of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, both presently in the hands of Turkey. So I conjecture that Russia will woo Turkey as never before. Which poses a dilemma for the EU, who haven't liked recent developments in Turkey, but may now have to overlook those in order to keep Turkey pro-EU, rather than allow it to become a Russian client state. Still, Russia's record on attacking Islamic countries ought to give Turkey pause, if it thinks the Bear will be a good and faithful friend.
What of the Baltic countries? If the often-said premise that Russia wants to re-establish the old buffer zone between it and Western Europe is correct, then the little countries in the eastern Baltic should be very nervous. I think the first blow would fall on Lithuania, which separates the detached Russian enclave of Kaliningrad from Russia proper. So southern Lithuania may be taken into the Russian fold.
Does it stop there? It's all horribly reminiscent of Hitler demanding that 'all Germans' be absorbed into a Greater Reich before the Second World War - his excuse, for instance, to merge Austria with Germany, and to 'liberate' the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia.
Will it happen all over again, but this time with Russia as the aggressor? The lesson of history is that you can push things only so far. Then there is a devastating and ultimately overwhelming response which leave the main battle areas in ruins for a decade or two. The existence of nuclear arsenals is probably irrelevant, as nobody sane can use them. Opinions on the Internet are irrelevant if the web is switched off. As ever - given competent leadership - soldiers and tanks and jets are the things that really matter.
Ah, 'competent leadership'. Who has got that? Who can make the wisest move? Who will lose their nerve first? Who is most exposed to betrayal?
