Cancel That Sukhovei, My Taxi's Here
Just 24 hours after whipping us all up into a frenzy, the same people that told us yesterday that there was a sukhovei coming, today say that it's missed it's bus and might not make it after all.
I bet the nice people at Google were wondering what was going on yesterday, all of a sudden popular searches like "Michelle Obama's jugs" or "Steven Gerrard, knobjockey" were being replaced by some Russian word that nobody had ever heard of.
It seems that cooler air forming over Siberia is about to spoil all the fun and stop the "naturally occurring weather phenomena" from erm, well, naturally occurring like.
I've never been so disappointed since my first marriage. I should have suspected something was wrong when she wanted the theme tune from Ski Sunday to be played as her wedding march. It was indeed all downhill after that.
Anyroad this sukhovei thingy, I can even spell it correctly without looking it up all ready, is off - at least for now.
From what I am hearing it may have been too late to cause much damage anyway, as it seems that plenty of that has already been done.
The Russian Institute for Agricultural Market Studies, or IKAR, have dropped their wheat production estimate to 55 MMT, from 57 MMT last week and 61.8 MMT in 2009. That's a reduction of 11% on last year. Barley output will fall even more, by 19% to 14.5 MMT, they say.
Both of those may prove to be still optimistic on the back of what is being described as Russia's "worst drought in a decade".
Of course we heard all this last year too, as you may recall. Then it seemed to be a case of trying to con aid money out of central government. When it was made clear that times were hard and there was no money in the kitty, things suddenly and dramatically improved at the eleventh hour. A bit like England's World Cup campaign, but without the improvement bit.
Will that also be the case this time round? Somehow I doubt it, I think that this could be more of a "cry wolf" scenario judging on the reports I am hearing. Maybe that is why the market seems to have taken so long to react to the news? Nobody believed it was that bad the first time round, as "they always say this every year"?
The bus that the sukhovei has missed must also have been picking "Stan" up from the airport as he still remains incommunicado.
I bet the nice people at Google were wondering what was going on yesterday, all of a sudden popular searches like "Michelle Obama's jugs" or "Steven Gerrard, knobjockey" were being replaced by some Russian word that nobody had ever heard of.
It seems that cooler air forming over Siberia is about to spoil all the fun and stop the "naturally occurring weather phenomena" from erm, well, naturally occurring like.
I've never been so disappointed since my first marriage. I should have suspected something was wrong when she wanted the theme tune from Ski Sunday to be played as her wedding march. It was indeed all downhill after that.
Anyroad this sukhovei thingy, I can even spell it correctly without looking it up all ready, is off - at least for now.
From what I am hearing it may have been too late to cause much damage anyway, as it seems that plenty of that has already been done.
The Russian Institute for Agricultural Market Studies, or IKAR, have dropped their wheat production estimate to 55 MMT, from 57 MMT last week and 61.8 MMT in 2009. That's a reduction of 11% on last year. Barley output will fall even more, by 19% to 14.5 MMT, they say.
Both of those may prove to be still optimistic on the back of what is being described as Russia's "worst drought in a decade".
Of course we heard all this last year too, as you may recall. Then it seemed to be a case of trying to con aid money out of central government. When it was made clear that times were hard and there was no money in the kitty, things suddenly and dramatically improved at the eleventh hour. A bit like England's World Cup campaign, but without the improvement bit.
Will that also be the case this time round? Somehow I doubt it, I think that this could be more of a "cry wolf" scenario judging on the reports I am hearing. Maybe that is why the market seems to have taken so long to react to the news? Nobody believed it was that bad the first time round, as "they always say this every year"?
The bus that the sukhovei has missed must also have been picking "Stan" up from the airport as he still remains incommunicado.