Ippoippo

… Japanese style!

Bloody hell, that’s pretty crazy.

There was a report in the FT today, with more ‘bad news’ being slowly leaked out by the IEA.

“Structural demand growth in developing countries and ongoing supply constraints continue to paint a tight market picture over the medium-term,” the IEA said in its Medium-Term Oil Market Report, released on Tuesday in Madrid.

“Poor supply-side performance since 2004, in the face of strong demand pressures from developing countries, has forced oil prices up sharply to curb demand,” the watchdog added.

Crude oil prices surged on Wednesday more than $2.50 to $142.73 a barrel, but still below Monday’s record high of $143.67 a barrel. The report also said that current oil prices were “justified by fundamentals.”

You can also read what The Energy Bulletin say about that report in the FT.

Japan is a market pioneer again: the first industrialised nation with no butter

Is this the first signs of Market failure?
As the article sub heading states…

An explosion in grain prices and a slide away from self-sufficiency is causing global crisis. And wealth is no guarantee of insulation

Another story, which also mentioned in passing

Yesterday, Japan was forced to secure emergency butter shipments as the rocketing price of feed and resulting drop in milk production has left the country’s supermarkets with sudden shortages of a basic foodstuff.

A bit of tongue is all you need to make a lady happy :)

Heee heee, school boy snigger!

Seriously though, Yuko is pretty chuffed at the moment. In Japan, cow tongue is a very popular meat for cooking with, especially on Barbecues and other Korean type cooking.
So, in Japan it’s very expensive. Beef is expensive anyway, but tongue is really expensive here.
However, in the UK beef is cheaper than Japan. But that’s when you compare sirloin steak with Japan.
When it comes to tongue, most Brits seem to shy away. It looks like we only eat fillet, steak and anything you can roast. Tongue…. nah we don’t do that in Britain.

So, Yuko decided to ask the butcher in the farm shop where she works if he can get some cow tongue for us. No problem. He can’t sell it usually so he could get it easily for us and changed only £2.50 for it. In Japanese money, that works out as 530 Yen at the moment.

やすいぃぃぃぃーーーーーーー [Yasuiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]

… or in another words…. “F**king ‘ell, that’s really cheap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

I guess I can’t complain. I really liked tongue cooked Japanese style and it’s a good way to get beef on the cheap.

(Message to ‘M’ and ‘G’. You ate tongue when we went to Korean BBQ place during our wedding festivities weeked…)