Monday, 28 June 2010

Cracked

With the Eurozone in meltdown and the entire ghastly union facing everything up to and including civil war, the EU leaps into action and proposes a ban on selling eggs by the dozen. Instead, all products must be sold by weight and weight alone instead of number of items. Why? Because it's officious, confusing, pointless, expensive, and generally a way of rubbing the common man's face in the petty tyranny that Brussels dispenses as a matter of course.

If it wasn't so scary, it would be entertaining.

Update: The British government says that it will fight this ban. If it keeps to it's word, it will be a small indication that Whitehall still has a something resembling a spine, but great changes often start with the small.

My hope is that the government's opposition will take the form of a full-throated denunciation of not just the legislation, but the assumptions and ambitions behind it. My expectation is that it will be a mere quibbling about wordings and exemption.

Roll on the collapse of the EU.

Update: The EU claims that there's no truth to the story, though I wouldn't trust their saying that the Earth has gravity without jumping up and down a few times.

4 comments:

jayessell said...

This reminds me of the novel 1984
where a guy complains he can't buy
a 'pint' of beer at the pub due to the
metric system!

Chris Lopes said...

Interesting article. It's yet another example (like we need another one) of an over educated elite not understanding how the real world works. To state the obvious, products are sold by the numbers because (a) they are made that way (just try and get a chicken to lay exactly 100g of egg) and (b) they are used that way (again, just try and get a cook to use exactly 100g of egg in a recipe). Trying to regulate against reality is almost always a bad idea.

On the other hand, if this quote from the article ('It makes the British public want to just pull out of the whole thing altogether.’) is correct, perhaps the EU idiots will have provided a greater service than they could have possibly imagined.

1971thistle said...

Ah, yes.

Just to let you know that in my local supermarket - in Brussels, home, of course, of straight cucumbers - I buy my eggs in half-dozen, dozen, or two dozen packs...

Chris Lopes said...

"I buy my eggs in half-dozen, dozen, or two dozen packs."

The EU will make you pay for your crimes against humanity.