European states not individual nations

[Mowser]

Terry

even straight bananas

Oh dear - and you were doing so well! The "straight banana" is yet another euro myth. Here's the regulation:-

As Commission Regulation (EC) 2257/94 puts it, bananas must be "free from malformation or abnormal curvature". In the case of "Extra class" bananas, there is no wiggle room, but Class 1 bananas can have "slight defects of shape", and Class 2 bananas can have full-on "defects of shape".

Of course, once the Daily Heil, Stun or the Torygraph gets a hold of it a good rumour helps sell newspapers. The sad thing is that normally sensible people fall for it.

[TerryC]

Mowser

I can't believe you fell for it also. What difference does the shape of a banana make? What has it got to do with some beaurocrat in Brussels inventing laws on the shape of bananas, surely to justify his position and nothing else. It was the same recently when a law was suggested that eggs should be sold by weight when everywhere in the world they are sold by 6, 10, 12 or even 15s. We all know the difference between small, medium, large and XL don't we. Imposing the metric system on Britain, what a total waste of money that was. This is beauocracy for the sake of beauocracy that is wasting millions if not billions of pounds when there is far, far more important things to worry about, child poverty, pensioner poverty, ever rising utility bills, curbing banking excesses etc, etc. Whatever happened to good old common sense in British politics and European politics?

I would be in favour of the EU if they were to put their house in order and get their accounts sorted and verified, stop wasting money, hold free and fair elections for every commissioner, president and foreign secretary and bring back democracy. The way the EU is set up at the moment it is not answerable to the people it is supposed to represent and that is wrong.

Have a good day each and every A.com subscriber.

[Mowser]

I can't believe you fell for it also.

Erm .. I didn't. The straight banana was a piece of fluff reporting by the usual suspects.

[markwilding]

Terry you keep going on about the EU accounts. If you want to know more about them you could do no worse than clicking this link.
http://europa.eu/press_room/press_packs ... dex_en.htm

Here's some more light reading about the budget
http://ec.europa.eu/budget/budget_glance/index_en.htm

By the way, those people who use their Spanish mobile in the UK or their UK mobile anywhere in Europe can thank the EU for stepping in and forcing the phone companies to reduce the roaming charges.

[lenox]

And then again - hands up who will be voting in their municipal elections in Spain next May? I can tell you that it's about 10% of those Europeans registered on the padrón (about half of us aren't even on the padrón).
You can still register to vote and, by doing so, immediately make a difference. That's the point of democracy.
Perhaps, if we all voted locally, better than half a million Brits, a tidal wave of angry mayors could one day straighten out the OP's European banana.

[janda_grant2]

All the non spanish people living here have had letters from the ayuntamiento in their own language telling therm how to register for a vote if ythey haven't done so already, and how to confirm their intention to vote if they have. So no excuses here. We have also voted for our european MP - again no excuses for not voting, so theoretically we can't complain if ther EU aren't representing our rights!

[Jool]

All the non spanish people living here have had letters from the ayuntamiento

So your little town is ok then but we have not had them over this way..........

The common market was very different to the EU monolith we now have, and whilst it has its strengths it is also an entity that has become too big for its boots and delved into too many areas of life that do not matter as much as issues that do such as universal health care.

[Retro P]

Terry C and all of you, the EU in it's conception was a wonderful Ideal however it has evolved into a gravy train whose sole purpose is to enhance the lifestyles of those who administer it, there is no way to curb it's power other than by armed revolution !!

[knowal]

That will be difficult, as the only people allowed to bear firearms are the Armed Forces, Police and criminals. Law abiding people have been disarmed.
Of course you could mean using clubs and knives.

[Mowser]

Let's hire The Village People and have a drive-by slapping.

[markwilding]

Terry C and all of you, the EU in it's conception was a wonderful Ideal however it has evolved into a gravy train whose sole purpose is to enhance the lifestyles of those who administer it, there is no way to curb it's power other than by armed revolution !!

[janda_grant2]

Jool - Why do you always have to be soooo sarcastic and rubbish what goes on in other towns? I didn't say EVERYONE had one just the foreigners living here. It's not my fault our local council wants to make sure everyone living here gets a chance to have a say in the next elections.

[frank]

Just caught the last half of a programme, Dispatches, called Riding Europe's Gravy Train! All manner of abuses, but some of the wages are incredible. Some British Commisioner on £250K ayear, and can retire on 60K, that greaseball Mandlesson, despite leaving 2 years ago, is still getting £103k a year.

[pigs-might-fly]

..........and then you have the Kinnock family who have taken milking the EU to a new level!
More seriously - any business, plc or ltd. co, whose auditors had qualified their client's annual accounts so utterly comprehensively, as has been the case with the EU for a good few years, would have been compulsorily wound up by now.
It is beyond belief that so much of all the contributing nations' money has disappeared into a black hole with no real idea of either where it has gone, or who is responsible.
The whole EU budget is a gigantic fraud on us all.
Ponzi and Madhoff were amateurs by comparison.

[Jool]

Janda wrote

All the non spanish people living here have had letters from the ayuntamiento in their own language telling therm how to register for a vote if ythey haven't done so already, and how to confirm their intention to vote if they have. So no excuses here. We have also voted for our european MP - again no excuses for not voting, so theoretically we can't complain if ther EU aren't representing our rights!

No sarcasm intended at all just trying to emphasise that we were talking about an entire monolith of numerous countries, and that one little town is not going to make much difference is it? Your town may have done it but none of them local to me have done as local forums are talking about it and posting info on what to do as the Ayuntamientos failed to do. Why do you have to be so b----y (female dog although it is insulting to dogs to say that) towards me?

[TerryC]

Hi all, I've managed to get to a computer and see you've been contributing in my absense. Seems to me to be 50/50 regarding the EU.

I see our leader is saying the UK will contribute to the £70 billion bail out of Ireland if it is called for. My question is, where have we got £7 billion to go lending it out? I presume we will have to borrow to lend it on, still if it ever gets repaid I suppose we will make a profit??????? I was always told don't throw good money after bad, still governments were never ones to learn lessons from history or do the seemingly sensible thing. Of course Ireland is our 6th biggest trading partner, bigger than all the other EU countries, which means we will suffer if they do go under. The £7 billion won't be all from the UK coffers either, we contribute to the IMF remember, so we'll be into Ireland for a lot more, phew, doesn't bare thinking about does it. I bet our banks are worried, or perhaps not there is always the bank of government top bail them out again if need be! On the matter of exports I thought the EU was our major trading partner, my goodness we haven't been lied by successive governments to support their position have we?

This one size fits all doesn't seem to work does it. The Euro because of the disparate nature of the EU economies is failing badly (perhaps good news for the exchange rate for us Brits with money in the UK). Which leads me onto my favourite subject, one size fits all government will not work either again because of the different nature of the 27 countries in the EU. A law for the UK will not necessarily be good for Rumania etc, you get the picture.

I suggest the UK stages a strategic withdrawal from the EU and simply replace everything that is required with treaties, protocols and understandings, and this is a serious point, I do not believe the UK (or expats) would suffer one jot from a withdrawal. As I've said before Europe needs our goods, services particularly, our knowhow and there is a great big world out there for us to sell to.

I think I might suggest this to the government if David Cameron doesn't already read this forum. (I bet somebody in Brussels has got the name TerryC firmly in their database!!!!!!!!

[Mowser]

The United States received the most British export goods last year, followed by Germany and France. The top trade partner for imports was Germany, followed by the United States and China.

(according to HM Revenue & Customs)

[Retro P]

Point No 1 Che Guevara and Fidel Castro proved that possession of firearms legally or otherwise is no barrier to Revolution

Point No 2 Fear not, the EU will implode within 5 years, why? because the likes of Romania and other Eastern block countries will never fit with the conservative concept of western Europe, in the end it will be down to money and as I have often boasted (see my past posts regarding sterling vs the Euro ) I am never wrong about money! not ever!

[julian]

"I am never wrong about money! not ever!"

except for when you are wrong
here´s one of your previous gems....

"Sorry to say this but, trust me, sterling will be worth less than a Euro by Easter 2009, I am never wrong about money!"

[markwilding]

Retro
You fell into that one.In the pub you can say 'Who me???? That's not what I said'... but on here it's all recorded for prosperity
But don't tell anyone else I told you this