EU Wastage (Or now for something completely different)

EU Wastage

(Or now for something completely different)

There has been a great deal of unwarranted negative criticism of the European Union regarding the criminal wastage of European taxpayer’s money. It was not so much the negative criticism triggered by the auditors refusing to sign off on the EU’s budget for the last 18 consecutive years through suspected fraud or even the European occupied counties having their paper currencies exchanged for smaller and less colourful notes, or the British having to surrender their black passports embossed with a Silver Lion and a Unicorn rampant “requiring in the name of her Britannic Majesty to allow the bearer to pass without hindrance and to afford the bearer such assistance” blah blah blah and replaced with a nondescript sort of puce one also available to the rest of world who would like to call England home.

A visiting African despotic dictator wanted for crimes against humanity noted a large painting on the wall of the reception area in the European Parliament building in Brussels depicting a stylised picture of a family of primary coloured Moor Hens swimming in the middle of an ever decreasing, or increasing concentric circles depending on the observers point view, on a Dandelion yellow pond.

The African despotic dictator I refer to asked the name of the artist as he would want to commission a similar painting for one of his many palaces. He was told the artist was the second cousin twice removed of the European Arts and Sciences minister and has been painting now for at least six months. The reputed price of said painting was 20 Million Euros. The be-ribboned uniformed African gentleman grinning from ear to ear asked mischievously if it was a painting by numbers job.

He was also very impressed with the Water Feature in the foyer depicting Aphrodite wearing a diaphanous gown squirting water out of a trumpet looking thing surrounded by Angels with a Lions at her feet. When asked about the significance of the Lions he was informed they were not aware they had any significance, it was just the Sculptor had some marble left over.

Then there was that ring thing like an enormous Badgers Sett that tunnelled under half of southern Europe. Its purpose was to discover the origins of Earth, or was it Jupiter? The Hadron Collider which every school child knows detects Higgs Boson. They had already been warned there was a possibility that hurling molecules or was it atoms around at the speed of light could have disastrous consequences for a science that had not been proved or tested and worse still could take out in a blink of an eye most of Southern France, Switzerland and possibly Andorra.

With much pomp and Gallic/Germanic scientific pride resting on this huge scientific event at switch-on an incident that later became known as the 2008 Quench Incident the Hadron Collider vaporised a Chinese made double pole double throw switch which in tandem took out what was thought to be a slow blow fuse rated at 10 amps resulting in the dimming of most of the lights in southern Europe and causing underground tremors in Turkey ……. Not many people know that.

Later investigation found that a unqualified Polish sub-contractor in the absence of a 10 Amp fuse had employed the use of a 1 inch diameter Stainless Steel, round head six inch long Whitworth bolt which happened to be lying around which he substituted in the absence of a 10 amp slow blow fuse. The S/S bolts rating, if it had a rating at all was estimated at around twenty two and a half million Amps or more and would have also failed a trade ‘slow blow’ certificate of authentication.

It does not end there I am afraid. When Croatia became the newest member of the European community its National flag was hoisted with much fanfare and ceremony but later it was discovered another Polish contractor had inadvertently hoisted a marine distress flag in its place signalling “I am abandoning my vessel and requesting assistance”. Why the Croat consular officials did not twig this anomaly have me totally baffled, I suspect too much Cherry Brandy was consumed in the Commissions canteen

‘All characters or events appearing in this article are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.’