Sunday, 26 July 2026

The price of oil

It is hard to see the price of oil falling much. There are four reasons for this.

  1. The strait of hormuz
  2. the red sea
  3. the fall in russian prodution
  4. inventories
As you can see 1 & 2 are related to the Illegal war the USA is conducting on Iran. They are chokepoints for middle east oil to get to the rest of the world. Trump is a moron ( this is a highly technical term) and has gotten himself into a war where there is no end unless he gives Iran too much inn an agreement. Iran has no reason to sue for peace and would like it to continue until after the mid-terms. The youthis are joining Iran in their quest. Just remember even if hostilities stop ships need insurance to sail and that would take time in both areas.

People have seemingly ignored the Russian/Ukraine war. Ukraine drones are making a mess of russian oil production and terminals. It is hard to see Ukraine reducing this successful campaign.

Inventories were rundown a lot when the War started and no oil was able to get out of the strait of hormuz. Any further hostilities could see oil prices rise bigtime.

Let me finish on a very bearish note. If trump does put boots on the ground in Iran then watch out!

Thursday, 23 July 2026

Around the Traps 24/7/26

 It is time for Around the Traps again.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

OZ Climate

Northern America

Europe

Asia

Wonk

General

Climate

Andrew Gelman (mainly stats)

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

  • nuttin

Vox Wonk

Wednesday, 22 July 2026

Iran

You do not win a war by bombing the clappers out of the country. By simply staying on their feet Iran wins the war and the USA and therefore Trump looks impotent.

As I said before if you wish to destroy the nuclear program, reduce its missile and drone capacity, have regime change and have it withdraw from financing various terrorist groups then you have to have boots on the ground. Even then the results would be problematic. There would be lots of well armed people willing to kill US soldiers. The politics is also against it. It is already a very unpopular war. This would make it more so. Why were they killed would be a devastating question.

Thus we we have trump and his incompetent defence secretary having overreached themselves. However it gets worse. Iran now have done so.

We live in uncertain times and i have no idea of how this mess gets solved.

Tuesday, 21 July 2026

Some TV Shows

 The Capture

I will simply say watch it. There are three seasons and they are all brilliant. It is on Iview so binge it if you haven't seen it. Highly recommended.

Watson

A modern day version of Sherlock and Watson but with little of Sherlock. Watson is a highly trained medical specialist not the bumbling butt of jokes in the novels and he is black and it is based in the USA. He does have a beautiful ex-wife. After an episode you will like it or not. It is more of a medical drama rather than a crime drama.

Boston Blue

This is an offshoot of Blue Bloods one of the best us crime series and this does does not disappoint. In a word if you like blue bloods then you will like boston blue. A couple of minor criticisms. Sean is different and not as good and the writing on religion ( christianity and judaism) lacks knowledge.

Cooper and Fry

Another series on the ABC. Short seasons but interesting. You will either like it or not after the first episode.

Monday, 20 July 2026

The Odyssey

 I watched the odyssey last night with my two sons. It is three hours I wil never get back.

Given my greek background ( I have always enjoyed greek mythology even as a schoolboy)and given the rotten tomatoes rating of 98 I went full of hope.

It was in vain. The film is three hours and way too long and to be honest I thought it to a load of old cobblers.

My eldest son thought it too long but thought he needed to watch it. My youngest said it was soso but again you needed to watch it and the audience actually clapped at the end of the movie so yes I could be just one of the 2%!

There was quite a few black people in the film which would have been unheard of in greek society two of the wives and one was helen of troy/sparta. very inclusive!

I was surprised he didn't use the story to show the remnants of troy started rome!

Sunday, 19 July 2026

Spain wins the world cup

Spain deservedly won the world cup. They started slow , like most champions of the past, but finished with a wet sail.

I really do not know what the Argentine tactics were, Perhaps playing for a penalty shoot out! Whatever but it was a one-sided contest. Clearly the previous games took a lot out of their players. Messi did very little. ( yamal had a quiet game as well.)

It will probably go down as the world cup where good coaches made inexplicable substitutions ,tuchel at the top of the heap. Overall there was only one game which was truly one-sided and therefore a blow out occurred. We do not know however whether this was a  one-off or a regular thing. blow-outs will reduce the credibility of the word cup. consistency on red cards are also important and thus the FIFA president needs to go.

The world cup now is so large few countries can host it. ( We cannot because of stadiums).

We await what occurs in four years.

Thursday, 16 July 2026

Around the Traps 17/7/26

 It is time again for Around the Traps.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

OZ Climate

Northern America

Europe

Asia

Wonk

General

Climate

Andrew Gelman (mainly stats)

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

  • nuttin

vox wonk