Emerging from the August slumber

It’s clear that people are gearing up for the “rentrée” on Monday – my diary is filling up with meetings after several quiet weeks. And it’s also obvious that with the prospect of a general election looming, and EP elections next year, we’re going to have a lot of work on our hands over the next few months. Just this week, the acre story has reared its head again (am I allowed to say that there’s some irony to be found in Conservative MPs talking about the awfulness of the EU getting rid of the acre, when all the EU decision does is recognise the status quo in the UK, a measure brought in by the last Conservative government…?). We had the cakes. We know that we have pesticides and electronic tagging of sheep coming up. Who knows what else is waiting there for us?!

Off to Brussels this weekend, which will include watching the Challenge Cup Final with some friends. If you need a laugh, read Jon Wilkin’s analysis of the Saints team. The man is a comedy genius. Also getting my hair cut, finally, so will no longer look like the evil lovechild of Leo Sayer.

I tried out for a band last night, but I’m not very hopeful – I had made clear that I was looking to do this for fun, not as a career choice, but they do want to do a lot of gigs and festivals and things. Loved their music though, so I can only wish them the best of luck!

Taking the biscuit (and the scone, cupcake, fairy cake…)

Euromyths are funny things. They can be because one individual inspector gets heavy about something. They can be because EU rules are usually minimum standards and a country has chosen to go further when putting them into national law. In a few cases the myth itself is that they’re a myth, when we accept that the rules say what people say they do, even if we want to change them. And sometimes they are just total nonsense, which with 5 minutes checking would never make it out there. We had one of those this weekend, with the “news” that EU rules are stopping people eating the cakes that they enter into cake-baking contests and the like at village fairs. I will quote directly from the guidance that we issue to the national authorities that implement these rules:

Operations such as the occasional handling, preparation, storage and serving of food by private persons at events such as church, school or village fairs are not covered by the scope of the Regulation. This is made clear in recital 9 of Regulation (EC) No 852/2004. The second sentence states that: “Community rules should only apply to undertakings, the concept of which implies a certain continuity of activities and a certain degree of organisation”. The term “undertaking” is integrated in the definition of a “food business” (in accordance with Article 3(2) of the General Food Law (Regulation (EC) No 178/2002), a “food business” must be an “undertaking”).  Somebody who handles, prepares, stores or serves food occasionally and on a small scale (e.g. a church, school or village fair and other situations such as organised charities comprising individual volunteers where the food is prepared occasionally) cannot be considered as an “undertaking” and is therefore not subject to the requirements of Community hygiene legislation.

So the European Commission’s view is that cakes prepared in the framework of local fairs should not be subject to the requirements of Community hygiene legislation. Which I’m very pleased about, because I love the cake stalls at fairs, particularly in the light of my cupcake problem. (The best I have ever had, for the record, were in Grand Central Station, New York. Mouth still waters at the thought of them!). I’d be interested to know how this idea made it into the Scottish Rural Women’s Institute or any other groups, because it clearly isn’t part of our rules.