The great thing about Nature is that it's round and flat and covered in pepperoni - no, wait! That's the great thing about pizza! No, the great thing about Nature is the clever way it has perfected those checks and balances that allow it to bring everything that has gone astray back into equilibrium. For instance, when the demand for a commodity rises beyond the amount of that commodity that Nature has available in stock (even after checking in all its pockets and down the back of the sofa), it engineers things so that the price of that commodity rises. This curbs demand, which drags the price back down, and so restores balance and decorum in the world.

Take the price of oil, which has climbed to record highs this week. On the one hand, oil is now so expensive that some field hospitals can no longer afford to run generators that power their defibrillators. On the other hand, oil now costs so much that just by waving in front of a patient's eyes a sheet of paper showing the latest price of a litre of unleaded you can trigger a powerful enough shock to make a defibrillator superfluous. See what I mean? It all works out neatly in the end.

Obviously, it can be hard to say precisely just how expensive oil is. Economists are quibbling about the “real” price, adjusted downwards to take account of inflation, and the “nominal” price (although economists always keep to themselves which petrol stations allow you to pay in these “real” prices as opposed to the higher “nominal” prices displayed on the pump). But we, the public, don't need economists to tell us that the price of oil has got out of hand. We can sense it instinctively through various telltale signs. Such as:

When you tell the petrol pump attendant to fill your tank, he now asks: “Would you like it gift-wrapped?”

Oil tankers are now protected by phalanxes of blue-tracksuited Chinese secret service men.

Suddenly there are more mentions in newspapers of oil than there are of Paris Hilton.

Godparents are laying down five litres of super unleaded for their godchildren.

Stung by defaults on the sub-prime property market, banks are moving into ten-year fixed-rate deals on diesel.

Sotheby's and Christie's announce they are opening “Fine Oil” departments.

Restaurants in Verbier catering to billionaire Russian oligarchs begin making salad dressing to a recipe of one part 16-year-old balsamic vinegar to three parts Premium Unleaded.

Furious consumers are so eager to finger the culprit guilty of hiking oil prices to such peaks that, as a protective measure, O.J.Simpson is writing a book called If I Did It.

But you know what really tells you that anxiety over oil prices is hitting a peak? It's when Hollywood starts wanting a slice of the action. That's why for their new film, Ocean's Fourteen, George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon will carry out their heist on a six-pump petrol station in Altrincham.

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