Cheese, vultures and Bumbling Boris.
From what I heard on the radio this morning, bumbling, bouncing Boris has been backtracking, saying that the people who voted for Brexit because of immigration (which is most of them) voted for the wrong reason!! The real problem with the EU, says he, is lack of transparency and accountability.
No, really? In that I agree with him, wholeheartedly. It doesn’t however mean that we have to opt out. What we do is work at improvements from within. That’s what we do.
Everyone can think of an instance of EU legislative idiocy. Let’s consider French cheeses. A few years ago a ruling demanded that all French cheeses should be made from pasteurised milk, because…..wait for it…….unpasteurised milk might contain salmonella and salmonella is bad for the pregnant women. Now, wouldn’t it be easier for pregnant women to give up, for the duration, eating that lovely Camembert from the farmer’s market in Normandy? But I forgot – it´s too simple a solution.
Another instance comes to mind – last year I was walking in the Pyrenees and at one hair-raising stretch came to mind the sad story of the woman who, a couple of years back, had fallen from a cliff not too far away. By the time the helicopter of the rescue service arrived (a mere three quarters of an hours later) there was only bone and a bit of cloth left. Her body had been completely devoured by vultures.
What has this to do with bumbling EU bureaucracy? It’s like this – for many centuries, farmers in the Pyrenees were used to leaving the carcass of a dead sheep in a place where the vultures would find it. In the system of transhumance, sheep are taken up to the cooler uplands for the summer. It’s inevitable that a sheep or two die during that season. Letting the vultures have the body is a quick, clean and efficient way of disposing of the remains.
However, an EU ruling made it illegal for the farmers to do this. They had to dispose of the carcasses in some other way. Don’t ask me why. The result is that this efficient, natural cycle was disturbed and vultures were going hungry. And it also changed their feeding habits. A bird that had been a scavenger became a predator and began to attack other creatures, including humans. My hope as I was crag-hopping was that if I were to fall, I would die quickly rather than having a vulture feeding off my flesh prematurely.
This is an idiotic state of affairs. But daft decisions based on total ignorance shouldn´t mean that we ought to clear off completely and fragment the EU.
As I said above, everyone has a favourite story such as the two I have related. Perhaps we should make a compilation of Silly EU Rulings. At the very least, it should make an amusing loo book.
No, really? In that I agree with him, wholeheartedly. It doesn’t however mean that we have to opt out. What we do is work at improvements from within. That’s what we do.
Everyone can think of an instance of EU legislative idiocy. Let’s consider French cheeses. A few years ago a ruling demanded that all French cheeses should be made from pasteurised milk, because…..wait for it…….unpasteurised milk might contain salmonella and salmonella is bad for the pregnant women. Now, wouldn’t it be easier for pregnant women to give up, for the duration, eating that lovely Camembert from the farmer’s market in Normandy? But I forgot – it´s too simple a solution.
Another instance comes to mind – last year I was walking in the Pyrenees and at one hair-raising stretch came to mind the sad story of the woman who, a couple of years back, had fallen from a cliff not too far away. By the time the helicopter of the rescue service arrived (a mere three quarters of an hours later) there was only bone and a bit of cloth left. Her body had been completely devoured by vultures.
What has this to do with bumbling EU bureaucracy? It’s like this – for many centuries, farmers in the Pyrenees were used to leaving the carcass of a dead sheep in a place where the vultures would find it. In the system of transhumance, sheep are taken up to the cooler uplands for the summer. It’s inevitable that a sheep or two die during that season. Letting the vultures have the body is a quick, clean and efficient way of disposing of the remains.
However, an EU ruling made it illegal for the farmers to do this. They had to dispose of the carcasses in some other way. Don’t ask me why. The result is that this efficient, natural cycle was disturbed and vultures were going hungry. And it also changed their feeding habits. A bird that had been a scavenger became a predator and began to attack other creatures, including humans. My hope as I was crag-hopping was that if I were to fall, I would die quickly rather than having a vulture feeding off my flesh prematurely.
This is an idiotic state of affairs. But daft decisions based on total ignorance shouldn´t mean that we ought to clear off completely and fragment the EU.
As I said above, everyone has a favourite story such as the two I have related. Perhaps we should make a compilation of Silly EU Rulings. At the very least, it should make an amusing loo book.
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