>There's been a lot of beefing about the price of gas over in the USA, on the UT recently. Here prices have started to come down (one garage, in 2 hikes, by 5p a ltr) but I've heard nowt of suc from the US. Is it that only the bad news gets commented on and people lose interest when times improve?

I can't speak for the U.S., but here prices went up 13 cents overnight, and then another nickel during the day. the prices then dropped 9 cents after they realised that Ike did less damage than anticipated. Overall, an increase of 18 cents and a drop of 9 cents doesn't give me happy enough goosebumps all over to make me want to write about it.