The plan sounds simple enough on paper. Del and Rodney buy a dodgy “government-surplus” oil rig from a bloke in a pub, which is already a red flag the size of a double-decker bus. They’re not drilling for oil, you see—they’re buying the license to drill, which is like buying the right to enter a lottery you haven’t actually bought a ticket for. It’s the most optimistic kind of stupid, the kind we all admire from a safe distance.
Del’s logic is a masterpiece of flawed reasoning. He’s convinced the North Sea is “awash with the black stuff,” and all he needs is a piece of paper and a bloke with a boat. I’ve had that same feeling when I bought a “fully working” espresso machine for a tenner, only to discover it needed a three-hundred-pound part. The gulf between “owning the license” and “actually having the oil” is about as wide as the Atlantic Ocean.
The Business Plan of a Madman
The beauty of this episode is how it mirrors every dodgy business idea you’ve ever had. You know the one—the app that does nothing, the hand-painted pet rocks, the subscription box for left-handed scissors. Del’s “oil consortium” consists of himself, Rodney, Grandad, and a dog they don’t actually own. It’s basically a group chat with no Wi-Fi. You can almost hear the universe sighing as they set sail in a rust-bucket boat that looks like it was assembled from spare parts.
And then there’s the actual “drilling.” They attach a garden hose to the side of the boat and lower a brick on a string. That’s it. That’s the sophisticated oil exploration equipment. It’s the sort of engineering you’d see in a school science fair that got cancelled for safety reasons. Yet Del struts around like a Texan oil baron, barking orders and adjusting his gold chain. It’s the confidence that gets you—the absolute certainty that a brick on a string will change your life.
Only Fools and Horses - Licensed To Drill - Mirror Online
