I am in pain.
Not the deep, dark, tortured pain that we all literary geniuses suffer.
This is a more intense, physical kind of pain.
I shut my hand in the car door.
No, I don’t know how I managed to do it.
Yes, it did hurt at the time.
No, the pain hasn’t got better.
Yes, the swelling is interesting, isn’t it?
As a result I probably won’t be riding for at least a day, maybe two, because, let’s face it, three of the four fingers on my right hand are pretty useless at the moment.
Which is a shame, because Tom and I are competing in Berkshire on Sunday; missing schooling time right now is a fairly critical failure.
Anyway, back to Fuel for Thought.
When, in 1887, Rudolf Diesel invented what we now know as the diesel engine, he intended the device to be powered, not by fossil fuel oil, but by vegetable oil.
The British motoring television programme, Fifth Gear, have just driven an unmodified, diesel-engined, saloon car from the East Coast of Lancashire to the West Coast of Yorkshire.
The car was powered by *surplus* (i.e. used) vegetable oil.
From the chippy.
The attractions of using a fuel that costs 37p/litre in its brand new state (i.e. not from the chippy, which is probably free!) as opposed to a fuel that costs £1.20p/litre, are obvious.
The first 2,500 litres-use of Straight Vegetable Oil (SVO) are duty free, thereafter one is required to pay duty on each litre of SVO used.
But 2,500 litres would transport me approximately 25,975 miles (based on an average of my last 10 MPL calculations), and that’s a fair old slice of motoring!
Or, to put it another way, my fuel costs for those 25,975 miles would legally drop from £3,117 to £1,039.
Just saying.
My hand still hurts.
And here’s some more fuel for thought.
The US file/music sharer Limewire is being sued for US $1 billion. BP are being told, by the US administration, that they’ll have to pay US $ 69 million.
It’s interesting to note that devastating oil spills are viewed so much lower down the scale than sharing a few mp3s.
Also interesting is fellow Oxfordshire-dweller, Thom Yorke’s view on the mainstream music industry.
Just saying.
You have my sympathies- I once got my fingers shut in the boot of a Toyota Yaris at a motor show. Thankfully prototype-quality panel gaps were big enough that I only got bruised, but my god did it hurt.
As for Mister Yorke, I suspect he might be right
Hope the hand gets better, but if I was Nelson from The Simpsons I’d do a “Ah Ha!” 😉
My uncle has a car that uses half veg oil half diesel. Not totally sure of the process (I should pay more attention), but I think the diesel is needed to start the engine and as long as there is ‘some’ diesel in the tank he just tops it up with veg oil. Seems to work for him and works out a lot cheaper, but it does smell like a chippy at times!
Ouch! Sorry to hear about the hand, that is bad luck, hope it’s getting better.
At the risk of sounding horribly jaded and cynical, if we all find a way of avoiding some tax by switching fuels, all the government will do is either whack a massive duty on veg oil or remove the money from your current account via some other tax take. It’s what they do. You might as well stop fighting it and just accept that your money is not your own, it’s the government’s, to be taken and redistributed among its own members, a few people who need it and a huge raft of people who can’t be arsed with the boring reality of full time employment. If you’re very lucky they’ll let you have a few quid of it back each month as pocket money.