Gem of the day

The concept of digging one of our most precious resources - oil - out of the ground and burning it for fuel hardly makes much sense, so as the world's oil majors cling desperately to the century-old business model you'd expect bumps along the way.

Even better is the double embarrassment Shell has faced over the past 24 hours:

• Being forced to shut down Arctic operations for 2013 after spending billions of dollars, with no results to show
• Acknowledging solar is where the money's at, a business Shell quietly exited 4 years ago

All of which only makes the company's "Let's Go" stakeholder campaign even more ironic.