Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[booder]

I'm dithering now, maybe £750 is too much to indulge oine's self.

I'm a failed hedonist.

Get there and win the lot

[tikay]

A curious tale in The Times yesterday. All very petty by UKBA, but nothing new there.


Sailors on board ten supertankers moored off the Devon coast since March have been deprived of one of their few luxuries — duty-free goods.

The crews have been barred from their stocks of duty-free cigarettes and alcohol after a series of raids on the vessels in the past week by officials from the UK Borders Agency. Crews have been told that as they are in UK waters they will have to buy supplies on shore if they wish to smoke and drink.

The tankers, each carrying up to 250,000 tonnes of crude, have been anchored off Torbay awaiting a rise in the price of oil. Up to 200 crew members are believed to be affected. It is thought that their duty-free stocks will remain under bond until the ships leave British waters.

A UK Border Agency spokesman said: “As part of their routine activity, UK Border Agency cutters have been operating in the Torbay area, and officers have boarded a number of commercial vessels. These ships are moored off Britain and as such the people on board are liable to pay duty on taxable goods like everyone else.” Kevin Mowatt, the director of Torbay’s marine services, had some sympathy for the sailors: “I think it’s unfortunate. The crew, when they come off watch, will not be able to access their bond.”

[pokefast]

What does goods under bond mean?

[tikay]

This was the bit that caught my eye......

The tankers, each carrying up to 250,000 tonnes of crude, have been anchored off Torbay awaiting a rise in the price of oil. Since March!

Which poses a few questions. What do the Crew do all day & night? I don't suppose the living quarters are exactly sumptous. It must be worse than being in prison. 8 months without the boat moving!

But the real curiosity was the logic whereby it's economically optimal to pay the daily "rent/lease" on a Tanker, & it's Crew, & wait for a little upward blip in the spot oil price graph.

And all the while, commodity traders are forward buying & selling oil, taking ppositions, taking cover, using complex derivatives & financial instruments. But those tankers are using the basic, most simple strategy. Waiting.  But the crude oil on them is being traded, on the Markets!

The mind boggles.

I wonder, worldwide, how many Oil Tankers are moored offshore, full of oil, awaiting oil price movements?

[tikay]

What does goods under bond mean?

Effectively, Duty-Free goods when the vessel is NOT in a duty-free zone have to be placed "under bond" (stored securely, & not for sale).

If you buy Duty Free at Heathrow when outbound, you cannot consume the product until you are outside the tax juristiction - x miles offshore.

[pokefast]

I risk making an ass of myself here but hey ho.

But if i buy duty free cigarettes in Spain i can consume them here. So if they have aquired duty frees from anywhere other than here,why can they not consume them in British waters?

[GreekStein]

I risk making an ass of myself here but hey ho.

But if i buy duty free cigarettes in Spain i can consume them here. So if they have aquired duty frees from anywhere other than here,why can they not consume them in British waters?

hard to smoke cigarettes in water mate

[tikay]

I risk making an ass of myself here but hey ho.

But if i buy duty free cigarettes in Spain i can consume them here. So if they have aquired duty frees from anywhere other than here,why can they not consume them in British waters?

The cigarettes do not belong to the Crew, they are sold to them, I assume, by the quartermaster or whoever. The Tankers have, I dunno, 4,000 or 5,000 ciggies "in stock", & as they were purchased elsewhere, & that's above the duty threshold, Tax is payable on them, just as you'd pay tax if you bought more than your allowance into the UK.

I think.

[Karabiner]

This was the bit that caught my eye......

The tankers, each carrying up to 250,000 tonnes of crude, have been anchored off Torbay awaiting a rise in the price of oil. Since March!

Which poses a few questions. What do the Crew do all day & night? I don't suppose the living quarters are exactly sumptous. It must be worse than being in prison. 8 months without the boat moving!

But the real curiosity was the logic whereby it's economically optimal to pay the daily "rent/lease" on a Tanker, & it's Crew, & wait for a little upward blip in the spot oil price graph.

And all the while, commodity traders are forward buying & selling oil, taking ppositions, taking cover, using complex derivatives & financial instruments. But those tankers are using the basic, most simple strategy. Waiting.  But the crude oil on them is being traded, on the Markets!

The mind boggles.

I wonder, worldwide, how many Oil Tankers are moored offshore, full of oil, awaiting oil price movements?

I bet there aren't too many moored just off the coast of Yemen.

[pokefast]

I risk making an ass of myself here but hey ho.

But if i buy duty free cigarettes in Spain i can consume them here. So if they have aquired duty frees from anywhere other than here,why can they not consume them in British waters?

The cigarettes do not belong to the Crew, they are sold to them, I assume, by the quartermaster or whoever. The Tankers have, I dunno, 4,000 or 5,000 ciggies "in stock", & as they were purchased elsewhere, & that's above the duty threshold, Tax is payable on them, just as you'd pay tax if you bought more than your allowance into the UK.

I think.

Thankyou.

Got you now.

Oh yes,why are SP showing so many repeats at 9pm these past 2 weeks?*

* feel free to tell me to buggar off if you can't/don't want to answer!

[kinboshi]

I risk making an ass of myself here but hey ho.

But if i buy duty free cigarettes in Spain i can consume them here. So if they have aquired duty frees from anywhere other than here,why can they not consume them in British waters?

The cigarettes do not belong to the Crew, they are sold to them, I assume, by the quartermaster or whoever. The Tankers have, I dunno, 4,000 or 5,000 ciggies "in stock", & as they were purchased elsewhere, & that's above the duty threshold, Tax is payable on them, just as you'd pay tax if you bought more than your allowance into the UK.

I think.

Yeah, the law's there to stop a ship coming into British waters with a stock of ciggies, booze and whatever else - and then allowing people to go over in small boats and purchase the goods without paying duty.  The buyers wouldn't be doing anything wrong of course as they're just buying goods from a shop in the UK (it just happens to be at sea).  Well, that's my take on it anyway.

[pokefast]

I risk making an ass of myself here but hey ho.

But if i buy duty free cigarettes in Spain i can consume them here. So if they have aquired duty frees from anywhere other than here,why can they not consume them in British waters?

The cigarettes do not belong to the Crew, they are sold to them, I assume, by the quartermaster or whoever. The Tankers have, I dunno, 4,000 or 5,000 ciggies "in stock", & as they were purchased elsewhere, & that's above the duty threshold, Tax is payable on them, just as you'd pay tax if you bought more than your allowance into the UK.

I think.

So if the ship gave them to the crew instead of selling them,could the crew then smoke them?

[tikay]

I'll come back to the Sky Poker question later.

For now, google tells us that today is the anniversary of the invention of the barcode.

Too heavy to C & P here, but if you have 10 mins to spare, take a butchers at this....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode

Barcodes are associsated with supermarkets, but that's a mere fraction of their uses. In 1977, only 200 Grocerey Stores had them. I wionder what the figure is now?

I used to know a guy who could read barcodes! Think his name was probably kinboshi, or JonMW.

[lazaroonie]

I risk making an ass of myself here but hey ho.

But if i buy duty free cigarettes in Spain i can consume them here. So if they have aquired duty frees from anywhere other than here,why can they not consume them in British waters?

you dont buy duty free cigarettes in spain - since the EU decreed that there would be no duty free goods for people moving between EU countries. what you buy in spain is cigs with spanish duty paid on them. Becuase of the EU agreement, you do not need to pay duty on them again when you come back to the UK. Effectively this means there is no limit on the number you can bring back (for personal use), but in reality the customs would take a dim view of you bringing in a container load.

[pokefast]

I'll come back to the Sky Poker question later.

For now, google tells us that today is the anniversary of the invention of the barcode.

Too heavy to C & P here, but if you have 3 hours to spare, take a butchers at this....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode

Barcodes are associsated with supermarkets, but that's a mere fraction of their uses. In 1977, only 200 Grocerey Stores had them. I wionder what the figure is now?

I used to know a guy who could read barcodes! Think his name was probably kinboshi, or JonMW.

fyp