african action boys own adventure

Gee must admit I find the old ROC a bit of old fashioned excitement. Even in this strange market. They have found quite a lot of heavy oil at shallow depth at Massambala, in the hundreds of millions of barrels 20% extractible, but no addition to the share price. Now they have shown that the same shallow "pre salt" structures that are the big paydirt in S Cabinda offshore, extend onto the land section under the ROC ground. The locals seem to have put down their kalashnikovs for now. There are oil shows and the rock is porous but no commercial oil in this hole much, but wait, it isnt the good part of the dome. They know where this is now, and wait for the next exciting episode as they drill it. If they hit it will Roc spike up or will the Oz market ignore it because anything in Africa is too dodgy? Where is Angola anyway?
Once I had a bit of fun. Gave a large number of workmates, graduates all, a blank map of the world and asked them to write where various places were. A competition. Just to get an idea of what they really knew, but didnt tell them. They loved it at tea break, did it in teams. 120 places in all most fairly easy. Well, Angola was in South America (You know Amazon...Angola) Nigeria was about where Uganda is, etc. and the best bit was the graduate of the University of Kuala Lumpur. He put Moscow where Vladivostok is. Seriously. Well, he did get it on the right continent. And Fairbanks they all reckoned (Capital of Alaska) was in California. Why? Oh, didnt Douglas Fairbanks live there?
Well, it puts things in a bit of perspective. If most people dont know where the hell most thigs are in the world outside the english speaking countries, how are they going to have an informed opinion about it?
I cheated. I have spent quite a while banging around Africa. Its fun and dangerous.