Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Blue Ribbons And Dustbins

There's a tight link between the county fair and the display of baked goods. Winning a blue ribbon for the best apple pie in the county is a prize much sought after, and being able to sample the best apple pie in the county is a treat worth paying for.

Unless you're in Europe, in which case you're not to touch that entry. By law, it must be chucked in the dustbin.

In a bid to direct every single minute fragment of life, the European Union has decreed that baked goods in competition must be destroyed after the judges have tasted. Once Joe Mellett of the Mayo County Council has nibbled on Mrs. Hartnett's whisky cake, it must be removed and treated like hazardous waste. That's how restrictive, and ridiculous, the European Union has become.

Mr. Mellett is still in shock over the latest directive from Brussels. Who would bother to bake a beautiful cake for the agricultural fair baking competition if they knew it was going to be dumped in the landfill as soon as a few crumbs were consumed? He's afraid that people won't bother, and that's the end of the baking contest at the fair.

What truly boggles the mind is that there's a bureaucrat somewhere who actually thought about this, and came up with a law to regulate it. No doubt it's some clever lad whose mother couldn't bake a cake if her life depended on it, and he's hell bent to eliminate the source of her failure.

It's all about making it fair for everyone, those who can and those who can't. Now no one can.

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