A persent History of Ian Rosmarin

When you are a blogger there is one thing that worries you the most will you have someone who adds comments that maybe to an extent true but which are liable?

In the last few weeks I have been extremely busy so I have not been able to write at all. The blogs I have written are true blogs about my life in London. Virtually none of them have been about my social life at BPP recently as to be direct to my unwelcome contributor most of my social life takes place outside of law school. What is not surprising is that I now have an unwelcome guest who is constantly and quite deliberately trying to undermine my blogs.

So who is this unwelcome visiter who can easily criticise my blogs but unfortunately not reveal their secret identity? All I will say to my somewhat self obsessed critic is this and lets face it its a blog I'm not making money out of it I don't really care if no one ever read as ever again on this website so why you making such a big deal of it? Unless you're jealous?. If I'm such an awful person in my blogs are so bad why is it you don't write your own blogs? At least am ready to put my head on the chopping board no matter what my problems are I'm brave enough to take ridicule I don't really care what you've got to write about I don't really care if people believe my blogs or not.

Who ever you are I have only one promise every time you write have rooted in disgusting comment remove them. I don't care what you think about me I do believe in freedom of speech but in this instance you are writing a comment on my website attacking me quite frankly I don't know care who you are? It sounds to me that you have some chip on your shoulder? As far as I concerned I don't give a shit.

Have a good weekend not just you None of my business but everyone else who reads my blog. I know my blogs are becoming rarer I'm just too busy these days to just sit around. I've got two part-time jobs one is selling printing the other is working as a film extra and sometimes I work for a solicitors in Fleet Street when I got time. At the end of October I've got my second placement which I hope to do well in.

I'm hoping to carry on writing blogs once a week at the legal practice course even if it's not as hard as a graduate diploma in law is still a hard course...

Have a good weekend.

PS by the way 'None of my business' the fact you write on my posts means you care about what I write think about why are you wasting your time...

The last few weeks I have been a little bit busy. So busy in fact I was so busy I've only just realised how long it's been since my last entry.

I've been to a few parties. Met a few nice people but unlike my GDL there does not seem much to talk about. This weekend I'm due to play a game of footie at Richmond. Its part of my move to increase the size of my social circle in London.

It's funny last year I had little of a social life but I had much to talk about. This year I have a much busyer social life but I'm finding it hard to find any issues to debate.

I have read about the credit crunch in the newspapers and the media. I'm sure over the next coming months I will have rich material to talk about. But this point in time all I can talk about is very depressing news.

Old friends losing their jobs friends of friends having their houses repossessed...

It seems like I am finally grown up...

That Satday was a brilliant party I had a lot of fun and managed to get back around 2 in the moring...

Here is a message I sent to an acquaintance a few days later...

'hope like me you find this story as funny as I did...

The women we were talking about actually went on a date with in January. She seemed lovely at the time and I really wanted a second date. However there was a problem and as it turned out it was the undoing of any potential relationship. She could not stop going on about her life in the States (especially her ex-boyfriend who had cheated on her) and her previous life in Norway. As well as her grand parents leaving Poland during the war often it seems she was obsessed with both subjects.

Next time I saw or heard from her was at the party on Saturday night. She introduced me to the former ex boyfriend who she described as having an on and off relationship with. The boyfriend she seemed shy he was just standing around.

After I sent you the previous message I went out to meet a girl who recently I've been seeing in south London. As I got off the district line and headed towards the exit at Richmond station I was on the phone with this girl finding out where we were meeting. I was heading out of the station when someones Achilles' heel literally stabed my foot! It turned out to be the girl from last night the Norwegian as I limped to meet my date who was 20 minutes late in pizza express I told of the story we both laughed.

and that in a nut shell is what happened the Norwegian girl did not even notice she steped on my foot we said hello and I told her I was hopping to meet my date i the tea box which is a tea room in Richmond where ironically I met the Norwegian girl in the first place and were me and the other girl have met a number of times

The problem I have got is that I am between girlfriends me and the person I seeing now are not working we live too far away and she not suitable long term at all. The girl's love interest said the same thing to me about him and the girl. I looking for someone like myself I don't think the Norwigan girl would give me a chance but I got a feeling in a few months someone else will be having a date with the Norwigan hearing the same story as me!

Have you got anymore parties in mind just hope none of my exs are there! I love to go to something with you thats less loud I going to cocktails in the city on the 25th.'

Since this message was sent I become single but that is another story...

You spend two years after university working in various jobs then you spend a year or law school. The three years after University you find out that a girl you once cared about had married a man who she believes she could spend the rest of her life with and he has cheated on her. Well that happened to me as I listened from various acquaintances and former friends they told me the story.

A few weeks before I was being told by another acquaintance that Britain had one of the highest divorce rates in the world. Another acquaintance had told me that Britain's Jewish community actually had the highest divorce rates in Britain. It is not surprise me at all many of my Jewish friends got married before my non-Jewish friends. The result is always the same they get married between 21 too 26 happily married for between four to 10 years and then you hear that they've divorced.

The early signs are there I'm hearing about acquaintances marriages now on the block. It would be funny if I didn't quote one acquaintance who told me how she fought her friends husband was a wonderful man. The fact is no one should get married before the 26 at the very least ideally I believe that someone shouldn't get married till their 30. In the last few months I've ended up hearing about my cousin friends she had leased has four friends who are now in the early stages of separated from their husbands. I believe the problem rests with the youth movements they tend to encourage Jewish people to get married in their early 20s. The idea is to increase the number Jewish people because when you get married early you have children earlier. The result is were starting to get generation of children will ball into young families (and apart from the ultraorthodox who quite frankly could have come from another planet) ordinary middle-class Jewish people seem to be getting divorced much more often than their non-Jewish friends.

And that my friends is my second blog I'm going to send one off tomorrow in joy and have a happy Jewish New Year...

So its taken me a bit of time to write a blog entry but here my new blog entry rests. Between the two blogs I've turned from being 26 years old to 27 and I've just started the legal practice course otherwise known as the LPC. Apart from that I don't have very much to report I've simply been too busy however tomorrow I go to a Jewish New Year's Eve party.

With that the silver of information my second blog from September is due in just under a day...

Happy new Jewish New Year X

Last night I went to another to yet another Jewish event this time round it was young Jamie's NU. It was a good party and I met some people I hadn't seen in a fairly long time other was talking to various acquaintances as most of my mates live in Israel and or married. The women look great and on the surface it should have been a pulling market but if you talk to most of them they already had boyfriends. There were a few of us who were single in fact one of the girls I met there I had seen on dating direct a very good non-Jewish dating website and Jdate you would think looking at her that she was perfect for some guy. For a start she is a musician she is witty and funny unfortunately she isn't really my type (but I would not say no to snogging). Even if you do manage to meet a Jewish girl fall in love and have children. Very few people realise the Jewish community (non Orthodox mainstream) in this country has the highest divorce rates of any Jewish community in the World outside America or any community for that matter in Britain.

The disasters are easily seen in statistics most people agree that their is a problem (but most seem to worry more about marrying out!). The problem seems to be its so hard to marry in! I can give you five or six examples of couples who should never have got together but only did as they had the same friends. At the same time people like my friend who is very good looking and should not be single cannot find anyone. I know four people who have married and within a year they are signing the divorce papers. The only one who had lasted more than a year had been was pregnant at the time and wanted the child to be born in wedlock. It is not only me who is experienced this I talked to the cabbie who is telling me that he had two friends who had got married a few months later they had started getting divorced. The result of all this divorce we now have a generation of kids with parents living in more than one home. Family breakdown since be fairly common in the Jewish community in the UK I don't know if I'm being frank if this is getting worse in other parts of Britain society but as we are more educated we are seeing this first in our community.

What if you do find the perfect Jewish girl? But you have yet to ask her out? Any Jewish man will tell you if he has tried to marry into the Jewish community you have to get past her friends. If the friends do not like you do not have a hope in hell. I have had four girlfriends in the last two years. Three non-Jewish am one of them was Jewish honestly have to say that the non-Jewish ones are easier to date than the Jewish one. The only reason I ended the three non-Jewish relationships was that one went back with her ex-boyfriend the other two moved back home and they lived in North America. The Jewish ones friends and family adviser not to carry on the relationship they believed trainee lawyer was not the real lawyer and I was not financially viable. That's the crap the Jewish men now have to put up with when trying to meet a Jewish girl. No wonder so many Jewish men are now trying to marry out rather than stay within a community that they feel that they will never meet a partner.

I walked around the dance floor I noticed the attractive women I chatted a few more up and I had a good time but I couldn't help but think the music was not what most of us were there for and the reality was we weren't getting any...

In the last few weeks I been playing with the idea of writing a blog a day. In fact it was my original plan for ths blog that I would do one a day. Unfortunately I have not found any time at all to do that so as I can guess as my reader you may be wondering why you may sometimes read more than one blog a day at and other times you might wait weeks and weeks for my next blog. I am so busy often I don't have any time at all other times I am time rich and at these times there are multiple blogs a day!

First I am going to say it Gordon Brown must quit, I know the title says he must die but I want you to read this article! First I'm going to say I don't think Gordon Brown is a bad leader to the contrary he was a great chancellor the problem is he can't do his job. The other members of his cabinet don't seem to be even scared of him any more. The foreign office minister is now even declaring that he wants Brown's job. It no longer matters even if he is a good leader we know that he had potential the early disasters of his premiership he was able to deal one at a time. Early on we called him Stalin now we have to call on Mr Bean so sorry Brown thanks for the fish and thanks for being a good chancellor but I think it's time he left the job to someone who can do it and someone who understands

Today I spent my time seeing in the walkabout at Temple South Africa's rugby team being thrashed 0-12 by New Zealand. However this was not the highlight of my day the highlight of my day would come later on.

I was invited to a beach party with the difference the beach party was on the River Thames. No your not misreading what I am saying we were partying outside the National Festival Hall. From the start the party seemed to have some fairly surreal qualities for example before the party me and the other people I went with won't even sure if there would be a party. The reason for this was the beach was under the River Thames but as the River Thames is tired locked we had to wait for the river to disappear.

From the start it was a great party I am not going into any details but if you ever hear that the church of trance is having a party trust me go to the party...

Ever slept and thought you were awake?

I know its the question from the matrix but here I am asking the question the reason being that of the last six weeks I have had an average of around about four hours sleep a night. In fact I been so busy I don't think I've had a single rest I've been running around delivering court papers doing changes to my CV and when I've had a few minutes off in my spare time having sex! Okay that's not really something I should mention of the fact is I've had almost no free time this summer.

And it suddenly hit me this is the first time it ever happened. I mean I've worked hard before but I've actually worked hard during the summer holidays. So after all I've been through I now finally have my freedom. However now I need to do my pre-course work which is another nightmare.

Chemistry was much harder than law that is a fact but law is just a load of work. We have such a heavy workload that I know these 10 students who fail their exams and three who left before they even did them. As I sit here in my room trying to relax I can take comfort in one fact the LPC otherwise known as the legal practice course I have been told is much easier than GDL I hope to God they are right or I will go into the insane asylum before I'm even finished.

In east London in my opinion there are four markets today I saw two of them. The one I didn't see was the Cuban flower market which usually closes about 12 hiding I did not manage to get to algate east till about two o'clock. The three markets I saw I start with the two in Old Truman Brewery which likes to call itself ‘the creative hub of the East End’. First I'm going to start with the bad points the website is totally wrong not only is it not new the place is 11 years old creative hub of London or that part of London (Hoxton is where it's really going on) but it's also not self-contained as I'm about to explain it is too small to have two markets it would be better if they would just one market. The two markets the upmarket and Backyard markets are wonderful they remind me of the market I went to five years ago when my grandmother was dying of cancer. As me and my mother looked after her I would sometimes spend a few hours in Spitalfields. In those days it hadn't yet been redeveloped it was a wonderful place to go. It was messy dirty and you could buy almost anything there from a new book to a dodgy pair of shoes. The upmarket in the backyard markets are full of weird and wonderful artistic gems. They're also full of entrepreneurs selling off new T-shirts and various other trinkets. You can buy earrings there records and if like a lot of people you like Chinese and Thai food then it's heaven. Myself have never been an adventurous when it comes to food I hate Eastern food I tend over the European Middle Eastern food. As I walked round both markets the first thing that struck me was their size. In Camden and the old Spitalfields is a vast markets with often hundreds maybe a thousand stalls. It was often hard to walk around here it was easy to walk around. It was only after two o'clock the market started to fill up. Both markets are great they're noisy they're full of variety and a great places to be. If I was on entrepreneur I'd go to either market and these days are not just open on a Sunday that also open on satday.

I then walked out of the markets and crossed a busy road. It'd be many years since I'd been to Spitalfields I walked into the brick facade and I managed to get a shock. I guess I feel like people did when the old Euston station was knocked down and the so-called modernistic masterpiece replaced it. All I can hope is that within 20 years unlike Euston station which took 40 years they will knock down the grey boxes. The first shock I got was that the atmosphere had completely changed to Spitalfields. It no longer felt like a market it felt clinical boring and soul less. It reminded me of some public school girl who I chatted up at university.She looked the part but the minute you went deeper beyond the facade you find that it's clean and not the sort of place you'd want to go today.

I talked to the stall owners they agreed most from the old Spitalfields have now left. Some have gone to the markets in the Truman Brewery others have retired others still have gone to markets outside the area. The redesign of Spitalfields has been a disaster everyone knows it's a disaster. As a trainee lawyer who was sweet irony to find out that half of Spitalfields had been knocked down for a building that would hold 3000 lawyers. If it was me I would have moved Spitalfields brick by brick to another part of London it would have been better sense. Instead they have ruined the building they ruin the whole idea of a market in London and all we have left is a shell a corpse a dead body another ghost of London's past and its lost forever...

The two markets upmarket and backyard market at the Truman Brewery are great they have energy however I don't see them lasting long unless something is done about Spitalfields. The two markets are simply too small to maintain their own existence with out a new market being founded nearby. I walked around and unlike the old Spitalfields site which would have taken maybe 20 minutes to get round or if you were looking at the products an hour the two markets in my opinion were less then 10 minutes to get through. For me it was a shock I love the part of London both Truman and Spitalfields are in I consider it my home borough and my home neighbourhood. However I've not being to go to algate in a very long time in my GDL and my friends and my job I've not been there in almost 5 years. Before that I was working as a temp and before that I was at university in Manchester I was lucky if I could ever see a member of my family who lives in the area let alone visit the markets. When I finally did get to east London I found a shell of a place I once loved. Soon crossrail will also be coming to the area in 2017 I hope that it does not ruin this village of London even more than the redevelopment of Spitalfields has.

And that really is my thought for the day...

Yes it's true these are my three most favourite things. I'm not going out any details why the first thing I loved because of taste food and meeting new people in general I love travelling and experiencing life. I love I love someone falling for me and all the little things that go with them and I love the last thing well it's a good way of passing the time llol.

Meanwhile as I write I can't help but think about the last four years they have for the most part been pretty boring. The first year I was doing a master in enterprise which was an absolute disaster and did not come to anything and took up all my time. I spent the next half the year finishing and trying to grab something from the disaster of that year. Then the remaining 18 months before I started my GDL I spent mostly unemployed being a temp. Actually the last six months before I started my GDL I was hardly unemployed and all I was going from one marketing job to the other. Then I come to the fourth year my law conversion course itself the decision to do it was last minute there was plenty of discussion. But the downturn with recession now pretty much start it don't regret the decision at all. The only regret I have got is that they do make the decision right after I left university.

But that is the thing with life you cannot change it you can only learn from it...

After four weeks in a three-week placement (the law firm I was working with extended it) I am finally free. I woke up this morning without thinking about the work I was doing the following week. I have decided today to have a rest tonight I'm going out with a close friend to celebrate a good month. It seems to me that it's been a busy time as I have met new people snogged a few women and generally had fun.

The last month and every day I have worn a suit I soon found out that wearing a suit is in fact a very good way of finding girls to take out on a date. Due to the suit I have managed to go out with for women and that's not all I've done...

The last few days i found it hard to write I don't know being the emotional pressure of getting my exam results (or the two days when I didn't have my exam results) but it's true to say that if but I did have writer's block. Over the next two weeks I need to apply for training contracts. The result is my blogs are going to get shorter and shorter as I prepare for the next stage of my life. I survived the boat that you could not leave now I have to survive the easer year (e.g. not the GDL)

First the good news I passed my exams!

Then the bad last night I spent three hours on a Thames riverboat with some absolute strangers. It was a JNF (Jewish National fund) fundraiser. As I sat there in finally hit me what is wrong with Britain's Jewish community. Most of the people seem to have known each other from the age of nine. I talked to a field worker who worked for the charity according to her it was a growing problem.

Speaking from personal experience I happen to know that Britain's Jewish community is now famous as some think it shouldn't be famous for. Among nonreligious Jews like myself we have the highest divorce rates of any community. Many reasons are given but the one that stands in my mind and many psychologists believe is absolutely true is that we married too young. Among other middle-class people most people don't get married to their early 30s among Britain's Jewish community we now get married in our early 20s.

Now I got to go...

Today I should have got to my GDL however I did not...

The reason was a strange one I had not given them my locker key and I have just found out that College policy is not to give results out till your paid for it. I did pay for the dam key however due to a technical glitch I will not get my results till midday tomorrow.

I found myself pacing around my work placement I will not know whether I passed or not till midday tomorrow. Meanwhile like yesterday I have to look forward too anther sleepless night of worry and pain.

How to lose Friends...

It all really started a week ago I was going on a date with a girl at the was in two minds to move out with this friend of mine. They had offered to let me move out with them for a reduced rent and I was really tempted. I'm not sure what that out of the following finally sank our friendship and I'm not really sure if they'll really aware that they have upset me. Anyway we needed to talk about moving out and I wanted to be extremely careful. When I went to go out and see this friend of mine they asked me to cancel my date (which had looked forward to that entire week) and go out with them and their family (an idea which really I was 100% sure I did not want) this was the first issue that started getting me thinking they were they a real friend?

A week later they started moaning at me that I haven't spoken to their family in the car as we discuss my plans for moving out. In retrospect this was the reason along with their insistence cancelled my date (which I have to say no to). What really infuriated me over the next two weeks was how they kept asking me if we really were friends. We were mates I would have classed up until two weeks ago this person as a good friend. I was polite and patient bit by bit they infuriated me. Yesterday I found out just how rude they could be. They had invited me a fews days ago to a lunch appointment a workmate they spent almost an hour and a half moaning about a workmate. This in itself would not have killed our friendship it was what they talked about next. Over the entire afternoon I was polite and I listened they said how I was invited to the birthday party in a few weeks (they had in fact invited me two weeks earlier). No the final destruction of our friendship came this morning with a text message. I've only got a limited number of places on the party this summer I think there's been a misunderstanding I smiled to myself. One word in my mind struck me 'Whatever' the word Alex Sten used to use when he was finally fed up with someone. It summed up how I felt and what I was trying to say was it was your decision you can change your mind if you want I don't really care. I'm not sure if a text message me back again and said to me you've come to the party if I would even bother going now. This friend seemed upset when they found out I was in a relationship (in the past). When I had a good job. when I gave one of their friends business card when they asked how they could contact me this friend seemed jealous. When I come to think of it they spent most the time of the last few weeks criticising me I don't need it and I don't want it.

Also its not just me they upset I can think of three of us who won't speck to them as well over things they said! I'm not sure if I'm going to rebuild this friendship but at the moment I really can't be asked...

The changing price of Commodities

A few weeks ago the price of crude oil hit, $139 which is the highest crude oil has ever been. Today the price of is $135 but very soon the price of oil may be due to go up again! In ‘What's Driving the Oil Bull and How Much Further It Will Go?’ on the ‘Money Morning’ website they said the price per a barrel could hit $225 a barrel within next year. I know from my father who used to work from BP oil and Shell that the price of oil is like a yo-yo going up and down. The oil market is decided by the commodities market the result is if you look at any website looking at the price of oil over the last few years it will look something like this:

Oil is the fuel of modern society its price fluctuates if you look at the price of the over the last two years it even more confusing...
As you can see from January 2006 to October 2006 the price was between $65 and $55! Before it went right up!

As my father has always told me it's about supply and demand and today were entering a period where there will always be more demand than supply (source information New York Mercantile Exchange). An organisation which is an exchange commodities like for example crude oil. The result is you have hundreds of people in the room betting on how much of oil will cost and they work out how much we are going to pay (they also ask how much the oil price will change by guessing if their going to be a war causing a shortage of Oil an example is the First Golf war and the Iran/Iraq war of the 1980s). When you look on the New York Mercantile Exchange website http://www.nymex.com the prices are shown in black-and-white the problem is what are the results of these actions? Why and how do the prices affect the world live and work in today.

Well if you ask Saudi Arabia the World’s biggest oil exporter then they’ll give this is the reason why the oil price has gone up. In the business section of the daily telegraph on Monday, June 23, 2008 they talked about this issue on the front page. Later on in this blog there is a map where Oil is found. What most other places have in common like for example Nigeria were local people upset that they don’t have their fair share of the oil revenues attack the pipelines is conflict. It does seem that it only takes a spark that the oil price to leap up, if it does then life over the next decade could become very hard. As I read this article I quickly found out that there is also split in OPEC where Venezuela, Libya, Algeria, Iran and Qatar do not want to see an increase in oil production. First I asked myself is political reasons why these states act the way they do? Maybe the stated reason however is that this is more due to short term speculative investment in the financial markets and knowing how is priced does not surprise me.

I am going to start with why? The first issue I am going to come to is that it is not just oil. Recently in the news it was widely reported that China had obtained a mountain in Peru see http://www.mining-technology.com/news/news5317.html and the BBC website. The reason the Chinese obtained this property is that Mount Tormocho is made up of two billion tonnes of copper ore. This sets the Chinese government back $3 Billion Chinalco (the name of the company buying the mountain through) will be getting the copper ore for $410 per a ton (today London’s metal Exchange is selling the copper for $8,255. China is going to use the copper ore for wiring in its factories.

If you look on the mining technology website and you see dozens of stories about resources. Another example of a report from the same website is entitled ‘Rio Opposes Sharing Oz Railways’ again China crops up they mention that the rival firms because of interest in China and a growing need for iron ore want to use existing lines rather than have to build new ones. You may ask what has this got to do with Oil? Both metals and oils are considered as commodities as I explained before their price fluctuates and it now seems that the world is a race to obtain his resources as quickly as possible.

It’s not just mining in the Guardian’s G2 section on Wednesday the 25th of June 2008 there was an article about ‘Who had stolen all the copper?’. The fact is China’s thirst for resources and so big now that bridges between Germany and the Czech Republic are now being stolen. Church roofs have mysteriously disappeared as they contain copper. In fact the good old Guardian made a list of how much metal objects are worth! Examples are as follows Cast-iron from manhole covers scrap value £210-230 tonne, Lead from a church roof £275 tonne, Copper piping £2,500, Aluminium from Road signs £590-640, Iron from railway bridges £145 to 190 a tonne, Platinum from cars catalytic convertors £30,71 a gramme and Bronze from a ships value is £2,070-2,090. The result is China is acting like a vacuum cleaner sucking up all the resource they are looking for all the commodities. The problem with oil however is not only is the price of oil decided by the commodity markets but also where the actual oil is...
Just in case you think that you're reading the map wrongly you're not! The biggest reserves of oil in the world today are in Saudi Arabia 260 X 10 X9 bbI the country has reserves that should last for another 81 years. Canada which is one of the few stable countries on the list of large oil producers has reserves should last 182 years. The United States and Mexico are both near the bottom there reserves will last just over 10 years so you can see where the problem is and China is not even on the list. I have to say as a scientist and a trainee lawyer with a small amount of knowledge of international politics that most of the countries on the list I would not want to be buying oil from.

Most of the countries on the list are either in the Middle East (for examples Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Kuwait) all they are run by governments which are despotic example potentially Venezuela or in all but name are despotic like Russia. In the United Kingdom with often talked about the energy infrastructure the example of the recent problems is a clear indication of why we need to change the fuel we use. Just to make my findings clearing here is a table from last year.
Summary of Reserve Data as of 2007
Country Reserves 1 Production 2 Reserve life 3
109 bbl 109 m3 106 bbl/d 103 m3/d years
Saudi Arabia
260 41 8.8 1,400 81
Canada
179 28.5 2.7 430 182
Iran
136 21.6 3.9 620 74
Iraq
115 18.3 3.7 590 101
Kuwait
99 15.7 2.5 400 108
United Arab Emirates
97 15.4 2.5 400 107
Venezuela
80 13 2.4 380 91
Russia
60 9.5 9.5 1,510 17
Libya
41.5 6.60 1.8 290 63
Nigeria
36.2 5.76 2.3 370 43
United States
21 3.3 4.9 780 12
Mexico
12 1.9 3.2 510 10
Notes:
1 Claimed or estimated reserves in billions (109) of barrels (converted to billions of cubic metres). (Source: Oil & Gas Journal, January, 2007)
2 Production rate in millions (106) of barrels per day (converted to thousands of cubic metres per day) (Source: US Energy Information Authority, September, 2007)
3 Reserve life in years, calculated as reserves / annual production. (from above)

Meanwhile in other parts of the world like in South and Maritime Asia businessmen are rapidly turning fast swathes of rainforest into palm oil plantations. A good report to read is ‘Need for cheap palm oil drives deforestation’ By Paul Eccleston in the telegraph newspaper this report written late last year was before the present energy crisis but it shows just how desperate the problem could become. Another example is Athabasca Oil Sands just put those words into Google and you see a huge number of results. I would suggest if you want to know more you could not do worse than look at a two year old article from the BBC website ‘The great Alberta oil rush’ by Peter day. If you read the report explains that all oil needs to do is go above $60 and the oil Sands become worth exploiting well in a world where the average oil prices is $135 I think it is now safe to say that at least someone is making a killing on the commodity markets.

The result of the increase in the price of oil is both causing local and global. Recently I started thinking of moving out a friend recently offered to let him moving with them for a low rent. The reason being the price of living has been going up their gas prices for cooking and heating mean that they need to. On the Goble level the price of oil could destabilise many of the world’s states. One example is Egypt a state that in a few short years could be at war with herself. The BBC have a story called ‘Egypt Islamists' wait for power’ by Yolande Knell, BBC News, Cairoit talks about how Islamic brotherhood is the most popular party in Egyptian politics ( they are technically illegal) there have been waiting for decades to grab power from the ruling NDP. The increase in oil prices is now endangering the Egyptian state the government. One other article also from the BBC ‘Voter turnout low in tense Egypt’ from the 8th of April shows how unstable the country is most Egyptians are earning less than two dollars a day. If the Islamic brotherhood was to gain power in Egypt however the results would be disastrous. The Sinai peninsula is part of Egypt and backs straight on to Israel and Gaza (where due to Israel’s blockade of the territory weapons and oil are now being smuggled in) the result is the Sinai like predicted in the recent Egypt’s Sinai Question Middle East/North Africa, Report N°61, 30 January 2007 by the International by the renowned think tank Crisis Group . The result is that what in the developed world hard to control increases in the cost of living could cause international disasters in the developing world.
By Ian Rosmarin 24/5/2008

Today we live in a world where at the touched of a button you can get revenge...

How easy it is with technology, in Afghanistan with a touch of another button they can blow up a helicopter.

In the film Lord of War which I watched a few days ago they talked about child soldiers. I come from a scientific background (even though I'm studying to do law). I hope the weapons designers of the future do not develop weapons that can be used by children. What with the knife crime in London you do not need a civil war in the country the children to kill each other.

The one disturbing point however of the film was the idea that an arms trader could be protected by his own government. However what we have seen with the Iraq war with hundreds if not thousands of private contractors is anything to go by it is a growth industry. Would the shortages of the necessities like oil and water I can see it becoming an even greater industry. Oh brave new world hail the new revolution the .com arms trader.

Today I saw a film with Will Smith which was actually very good. It was called Hancock it was about a superhero with problems. Unlike other superhero films I've seen the main character was deeply uneasy about himself. He had problems with alcohol and often children would see him with very few clothes on. Hancock was truly not your average superhero he spent much of his time sleeping on park benches and when there was an emergency he needed to be woken up. Added to that most people did not even really like him. The result was deeply flawed superhero in many ways he was almost an anti-hero.

Then Hancock saves the life of a PR man and on the advice of the PR man he agrees to go to prison for all the criminal damage to Hancock has done. In one scene he throws a basketball be on the perimeter fence he flies out of the prison just to get the ball but causes an alert then goes back.

It later on transpires one of the main character's problems is that he does not even know who he is. Sure enough later on he finds out but us the audience this is unfortunately never fully explained all I will say is that he's not the only one of he's kind and his immortal and guessing at this point that there will be a sequel and I'm fairly sure that there are more than just two of them...

yours Ian Rosmarin

I had sex with a friend on Sunday...

I'm not saying who they are just was the first time I had made love to a friend not a girlfriend.

Only an hour ago I talked to a female mate from law school we found ourselves talking about the subject. They were surprised that I had never had sex with someone who was not my girlfriend at the time. When I look at my life I realise that really my view of the world is not a 1990s view or even a 1980s view but often a 1950s view maybe even a 1920s. Sex for both men and women has changed an awful lot since early last century.

Or has it changed at all...

Queen Victoria once said that the upper classes understood sex and the lower classes just had sex the problem with the middle-class was that they got hot under the collar about sex. The result has been that sex happened before marriage however it was hidden. My personal thought has been that our present attitudes towards sex have been around since world War two when people did not know if they would be a alive the next day never mind the next year. As time has gone by attitudes towards sex of relaxed more apart from sexually transmitted diseases like for example HIV.

And on that note I finished this posting of my blog...

Life...
The last three or so weeks I have been working for a printing company called FC Print. I've been trying to do their sales in Potters bar but yesterday was the most eventful day so far. It started off by me going down the high Street in Potters bar (actually we've got two high Streets in Potters bar but that's another story). I went into each shop that was not a chain, chains always print their own cards apparently. Till I reached this industrial estate on the far side of town.

It did not look much a few old buildings some with rusty roofs most made out of steel. Its a hilly area of town concrete streets where if you fell you could injure yourself badly. Most British businesses like these have fewer than 20 people working for them. There are estimated to be over 43 million British businesses most of them based at home or in industrial estates like this one. Most of the boss’s are old man or women who know the industry like the back of their hand this is the UK today. Other people working knowledge industry or the financial services as a credit crunch has demonstrated these industries are more susceptible to recession. Napoleon called Britain a country of shopkeepers today I would not call Britain a country of shopkeepers but a nation of entrepreneurs. Most of the buildings actually look like glorified warehouses in the air you could smell a mixture of oil and wood chip. It was what they actually did say in the industrial estate that interested me as I gave out each one of my business cards. I'm not going name the companies my last entry in this blog almost got me into trouble for naming people.

They tended to fix cars one sold spares for minis and the other was repairing vintage cars another was repairing racing cars. One of the small companies are walked into I went to see the boss and he had a mean black violent dog. My uncle has a company in Sheffield that make mouth guards all these firms reminded me of them. I don't think today were in a post-industrial Britain it's just our industry has scaled down and when you want to see industrial Britain life you have to go to the industrial estate at the small businesses. Maybe we don’t have mines, ships yards or car factories but we still have industry.

Ian Rosmarin

The last three or so weeks I have been working for a printing company called FC Print. I've been trying to do their sales in Potters bar but yesterday was the most eventful day so far. It started off by me going down the high Street in Potters bar (actually we've got two high Streets in Potters bar but that's another story). I went into each shop that was not a chain, chains always print their own cards apparently. Till I reached this industrial estate on the far side of town.

It did not look much a few old buildings some with rusty roofs most made out of steel. Most buildings actually look like glorified warehouses in the air you could smell a mixture of oil and wood chip. It was what they actually did say in the industrial estate that interested me as I gave out each one of my business cards. I'm not going name the companies my last entry in this blog almost got me into trouble for naming people.

They tended to fix cars one sold spares for minis and the other was repairing vintage cars another was repairing racing cars. One of the small companies are walked into I went to see the boss and he had a mean black violent dog. My uncle has a company in Sheffield that make mouth guards all these firms reminded me of them. I don't think today were in a post-industrial Britain it's just our industry has scaled down and when you want to see industrial Britain life you have to go to the industrial estate at the small businesses.

Ian Rosmarin