Petrol price cycle

When I eat breakfast I usually watch TV. In the morning I like to see the news. To me it's a good start of the day to get some orientation about what's happening in Australia and the world overseas.
However, I have come across one strange thing...
In the financial part of the morning news, besides reporting share prices, market indexes and currencies, they also report the current petrol price. Well, a little bit odd maybe you could think but not really that strange. The strange thing is that the price is always accompanied by a comment about where we are in the price cycle. Hmmm which price cycle? How can a serious journalist in advance say he/she knows where in a cycle we currently are?

As a recently become car owner of course petrol price is of interest so I started to research. And surprisingly enough it turns out that petrol prices vary up in down in obvious cycles in Oz. And it's not small variations. We are talking about 20%! How this can happen in a free market I don't understand but I guess it's just to accept and adapt your filling pattern!
The graph shows price in Sydney over the last 45 days.

And below it is. Our ticket to freedom. The Silver Pearl!!

Cheers!

Prince of Penzance

Today is another big day in Australia. You could actually say all Australia goes nuts today. In Victoria which is the state where Melbourne is capital they even have a public holiday. Also here in Brisbane more people than usual are out in the streets.
So is it a celebration of a historical event? No
The queen's birthday? No
Australian independence day? No
No no no
It's Melbourne Cup!
It's a horse race!
3200m gallop.



This engages the country to such an extent that they set up temporary betting kiosks in the city. They have special menus at the restaurants. People dress up in funny hats etc etc.







Of course yours truly wanted to take part in this and get some of the feeling and atmosphere of the race so together with my friends we went to a pub. (Had a nice dark Ale by the way, White Rabbit).













You could almost feel the nervousness an anxiety in the audience. Maybe it's not a good idea after all to bet a full months salary...

At 2 pm sharp the race started. People were standing up, screaming and yelling.
3 minutes and 20 seconds later it all was over. Silence... What happened....

Well it was a dark horse winner this year. The odds was over 100:1 and it was the first female jockey ever to win.
And the name of the horse: Prince of Penzance

Cheers!

.....and after this event next big "strange game season" is coming up. The Cricket league!
Well I guess you really have to respect a game where they have tea breaks!