Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Stormy Petrol

Hey, This Must be April Fuels Day

Photograph copyright: DAVID McMAHON


And you think YOU pay a lot for petrol? Huh, you ain't see nuthin' yet, mate! Have you ever paid $888.8 for a litre? Here is photographic evidence of how much we pay. But you can breathe easy - this Shell service station in Caulfield is being refurbished, with new underground storage tanks and better access. And when I drove past today, they were simply testing the pricing display - hence the astronomical sum.

At that rate, 65 litres would cost $57,712, so the contents of my fuel tank would have cost a fair bit more than my car itself! And just for the record, the average price in Melbourne today was very low at about $1.28 a litre, For the benefit of my American friends, that works out to $5.76 a gallon, or 54 pence a litre for my mates in the UK.

FOOTNOTE: Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater, sold his house to buy a litre.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Had a good laugh David... cool title for this post! ;-) Hope it won't someday be the real price... the way fuel prices are ever-rising! Its interesting one of the opinions on this BBC article is "Higher petrol costs can only be a good thing for the environment" :-) Here's a pretty interesting article on how we're ending up ignoring the ecology!

Bart said...

Hahaha, awesome.

Reminds me of when Jessie and I arrived in Jamaica, the gas prices were astronomical. Then our driver told us that while they accept American dollars, they have their own dollar which is not worth near as much, and the gas prices are in that currency. Or something like that.

When you get a chance, check out the New Camera post, for I have answered your call to duty. I edited in to the existing post simply to conserve some front page space for now.

Lady_T said...

Hey! Dont forget about your British friends!

How much does that work out in pounds? $888.8...umm carry the 1...ah forget it. I'm sure it's a lot :)

fuzzbert_1999@yahoo.com said...

Well, that settles it...if I do decide to come down and visit...I won't drive! Ha

Anonymous said...

gosh!! u almost had me there david... my eyes nearly popped out my socket!!
thanks god!! phew!!
once again... a good catch!!

DILLY said...

WOW that's worse than here! (96 pence a litre of unleaded).

Anonymous said...

This only helps my decision of going with your other funny post of 41 miles a gallon(beer). Its cheaper, loads of choices and more fun... Siddharth

david mcmahon said...

Hi Sanjay,

I'm so glad it made you laugh. Thanks for those links. Will check them out later tonight.

Hopefully fuel prices will never get that high - well, not this week, at any rate!

Cheers

David

david mcmahon said...

Hi Bart-Man,

Loved the story. You should post it on your blog, because it's so quirky. You and I revel in that sorta stuff, don't we!

Yes, check out your pictures hours ago and showed them to friends who agreed they were great.

Cheers

David

david mcmahon said...

Hi Lady T,

Sorry, I would never do anything so churlish as to leave you out.

The only reason I converted it to US figures is that they buy petrol by the gallon.

But immediately I saw your comment, I added the UK equivalent.

Consider my knuckles rapped!

Cheers

David

david mcmahon said...

Hi Mushy,

Whaddya mean ``if''? I thought you were coming this weekend - I've boked out the whole pizza restaurant for us and our wives.

Cheers

David

david mcmahon said...

Hi Sam,

Glad you liked it. Funny thing is, I drove past today and the service station had re-opened for business and the price was a normal $1.31 a litre.

Cheers

David

david mcmahon said...

Hi Dilly,

That's a lot of dragon-quid! Get Mum to pay instead ...

Cheers

David

david mcmahon said...

Hi Siddharth,

The perfect reply! I am so on your side.

Let's invent a beermobile.

Cheers

David