With increasing uncertainty about the state of the commodity markets, especially oil, it is perhaps quite surprising that the stock markets have been able to maintain the gains they have made since January of this year.

Does this mean that there is no oil crisis in the offing, or that it is simply not of the same scale as that of 1974 or 1981? After all, did the Western economies not learn from those crisis situations, with many now possessing a large buffer stock of oil? Certainly, the lessons of the past loom large in helping oil-consuming economies deal with the pressures of an uncertain world. But the situations in Nigeria, Iran and, to a lesser extent, Russia make for an uncomfortable situation here in the West. In my next blog I shall examine how we might best deal with the situation, after a preliminary investigation into the possible impact of a continuation—and even a worsening—of current events. Stay tuned!

First post

The world is a strange and exciting place. Just when you think you have a handle on the way it works, something happens to upset your personal psychological apple-cart. In this blog I am planning on developing an approach to minimising the problems caused when the apple-cart is overturned, via a selection of self-penned articles and links to other items of interest.

My own key areas of interest are:
(i) the world of football, especially the English F.A. Premiership, and more narrowly, that of Tottenham Hotspur F.C.,
and
(ii) the world of business and especially finance, whose observation and explanation has been a key source of my income for many years,
and
(iii) Macintosh computers. Having owned and operated one for some two decades--I have graduated from an SE to an SE/30 to the Blue-and-White PowerMac, and now possess the awesome iMac G5--I continue to be fascinated, amazed and inspired by these wonderfully creative tools, and
(iv) Doctor Who, which I have watched since it began in 1963, and continue to enjoy in its new incarnation.

I do have interests in other areas, but perhaps not as obsessively as those mentioned above.