People in Russia have been following the adventures of their president in a series of odd but intriguing feuilletons by Maksim Kanonenko at Vladimir Vladimirovich™. (You have to know that in polite usage Vladimir Putin is known as "Vladimir Vladimirovich").

Once Vladimir Vladimirovich™ was sitting in his Kremlin office looking at a graph of international oil prices on the presidential computer.

"Up, down," Vladimir Vladimirovich™ muttered, "there's just no stability." Vladimir Vladimirovich™ immediately pressed a button to talk to the deputy head of his Administration, Vladislav Yurevich Surkovayu.

"Listen, bro'," said Vladimir Vladimirovich™, "what do all these world oil prices depend on?"

"A lot of things," said Vladislav Yurevich thoughtfully. "For example, the political situation. Or gas prices."

"How's that?" wondered Vladimir Vladimirovich™, "Surely gas prices depend on oil prices?"

"That's the old paradigm," said Vladislav Yurevich incomprehensibly, "actually for quite a while now oil prices have been driven by the price of gas, electricity, vodka, and so on."

"Gosh," muttered Vladimir Vladimirovich™, "so where's the most expensive gas?"

"England," said Vladislav Yurevich.

"And how can we make it even more expensive there?" asked Vladimir Vladimirovich™

"Well," muttered Vladislav Yurevich, "you could - you know - one of their depots ... "

"And call the Ukraine!" added Vladimir Vladimirovich™ "Have them raise electricity prices in Europe!"

Vladimir Vladimirovich™ hung up and began to watch the graph of world oil prices.

After a few minutes the prices went up.

The latest ones seem to have a lot about oil in them. I find the punchlines less funny than the telling of the story. The one from a day or two ago had Putin dusting his office with one of Stalin's socks, etc.