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Issue 7 2013 Freight Business Journal


We had to do a double-take when we received the latest press release from Air Charter Service. Its recent charter of an Etihad Boeing 747-8 freighter at Hahn Airport – the first of its type at the German gateway, hence the water canon salute – was for the transport of dealcoholisation apparatus, to São Paulo, where it will be used to reduce the alcohol concentration in Brazilian beer during the FIFA World Cup next year. Yes, that’s Brazil in 2014, not


No beer please, we’re Brazilian


Doha in 2022. Managing director of ACS


Germany, Stephan Blank, says: “FIFA has decided, as of 2014, to ban alcoholic beverage consumption within the stadia of World Cup matches.” And clearly, the party-loving


Rio de Janeirians have been somewhat nonplussed by the football body’s request “In Brazil, non-alcoholic beers are simply not produced, so they are having to dealcoholise the beer that they


Free energy - tomorrow


Californian boffins say they have made a breakthrough in the quest for viable nuclear fusion, paving the way for unlimited energy without depending on fossil fuels. According to the BBC, scientists at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Livermore used 192 beams from the world’s most powerful laser to heat and compress a small pellet of hydrogen fuel to the point where nuclear fusion takes place. This, apparently, was the first time that the amount of energy released through a fusion reaction


actually exceeded the amount of energy being absorbed by the fuel. Nuclear fusion has been known


about for quite a while. In the 1970s, the conspiracy theorist in your local pub would tell anyone who cared to listen – or not – that there was a way of powering a car just from water, but the oil companies had paid the inventor millions of pounds (or billions of dollars) to keep schtum. What the bloke in the pub didn’t tell you was that, until now, you actually had to put more energy to power the


lasers than you got out of the fusion process – a drawback if you’re trying to put all the world’s oil majors out of business. Now all we have to do is wait for the scientists


to perfect the


technology and scale up the technology to the point where it can be used to power a ship or an aircraft - another 50 years perhaps? I don’t think you can use it as a bargaining counter in negotiations next time your carrier wants to put up his bunker adjustment factor.


The spirit of Dick Turpin lives on Paint job


If the setting of the Audi viral advert film ‘The Duel ~ Man vs Machine’ seems familiar you’d be right – it was produced at Sheerness Docks in Kent. Ad agency Rubber Republic commissioned the filming of a bizarre paintball battle involving a blue Audi estate car, YouTube phenomenon Damien Walters and 007 stunt driver and Top Gear ex-Stig Ben Collins. If you haven’t already seen the film, it’s on Youtube. Medway port director


Miles


Hearn said it was “an opportunity we simply could not pass up. As a leading importer of new cars to the UK we’re used to accommodating


high-spec vehicles on our quayside, but it’s fair to say that ‘The Duel’ goes a little beyond our usual day-to-day operations.” In case anyone is wondering at


the complete lack of ships and cars in Sheerness, the explanation is that the film was carried out during an exceptionally quiet August weekend. In fact, says Miles, vehicle imports topped 316,000 in 2012 and are set to climb to around half a million. Mind you I’m not quite sure what


the message of the ad is meant to be. That Audis are useless for paintballing, unless you cheat?


Many are the annoyances that oppress today’s international traveller. Security screening, sniffer dogs interfering with parts of you you’d really like leſt undisturbed, queues to get through security, queues to get onto the plane, queues for passport control...the list is pretty endless. Many of these burdens are


Actually, the RS 6 Avant is claimed to be the world’s fastest estate car. A slightly strange claim to make - a bit like saying you make the world’s most streamlined wheelbarrow or something.


Small NVOC / Family Owned Bifa / Fiata Member -


Looking to Purchase Retirement Sale or otherwise - Similar Size NVOC / Freight Forwarder / Small Haulier


Looking to Grow our Existing Client Base - Confidentiality Guaranteed - Need not be Profitable


Reply in strict confidence to: PO Box 101 FBJ Station House Aigburth Station Mersey Road Liverpool L17 6AG


imposed by governments and supra-national agencies and one would like to think that those in charge of running our airports and transport systems were doing what they can to ease the resulting burden on their customers. But oh no.


Take Liverpool John Lennon, gateway to the friendly, warm-


hearted Scouse heartland. Departing from there the other day, I found I hadn’t any of the little clear plastic bags you have to put your 100mL bottles of shampoo and shower gel in before they pass through the scanner. Most airports happily hand fistfuls of these these out, mainly to ensure that the security queue doesn’t grind to a halt completely. But not in Liverpool, where


you are directed to a machine into which you insert a 50p bit in exchange for two small bags. (Tesco will sell you a complete roll of sandwich bags for about the same amount.) Quite what you do if you’re a foreign visitor who has already disposed of their


remaining British change in the charity box isn’t explained. At Schiphol airport recently I put


my card into an ATM and punched in 50 euros. The machine obligingly spat out – a 50-euro note. Just the thing to present to an Amsterdam tram driver, if you want to learn some colloquial Dutch. No matter, I thought, I’d ask the


nice lady at the nearby foreign exchange desk if she could give me some change – nothing too ambitious – two 20s and a ten would have been fine. “I can, but it’ll cost you 50 cents,”


she declared. Clearly the milk of human


kindness is a scarce commodity in Schiphol.


Container Transport Company Wanted


A progressive and expanding transport group is seeking to acquire a Container Transport Company


With operating centre / depots anywhere in England. Ideally headquartered in or near a major container port


Annual turnover in the £5m to £15m range preferable and with genuine expansion opportunities available


Or email po101@fj-online.com


Reply in strict confidence to: PO Box 102 FBJ Station House Aigburth Station Mersey Road Liverpool L17 6AG


///FREIGHT BREAK


do have and that is the job of this apparatus,” Blank explains. It all sounds very un-Brazilian


to me. Perhaps I’ll just go and see Whyteleafe FC instead next year.


Or email po102@fj-online.com


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