Thursday's child....

Is Junker! In he goes! wee, plop.

The PM of Luxembourg is going to hold a referendum on the Treaty establishing a Constitution despite it being dead as a dodo. Or, indeed, a doo-doo.

I heard yesterday that all 55 MPs in Luxembourg voted to establish the Treaty, with 5 not taking part in the vote. Maybe they found something more worthwhile to do with their time than vote on something which is notgoing to be taking place. How much money are they planning to waste on asking the people of Luxembourg, a country with a population of 400,000 (less than Croydon, but far nicer, I should imagine) whether they want the European Union to become even further integrated and federal, when those in France and Holland - i.e millions of people - have said that it's not going to happen.

Apparently, Junker will resign if he loses the referendum. The 'no' vote currently stands at 45% but it rising, so there's a good chance for him he won't have to fire himself. But still, Junker, I think you're missing the point....

Two today, since I was so busy yesterday

Tuesday:

Today, I am putting the Economic and Monetary Committee of the European Parliament into room 101, excluding Dr Whittaker, Lars Wohlin and Peter Skinner, and the secretariat, who are fabulous.

Why? Because I'm not entirely sure they aren't a sabotage camp set up by multi-nationals to squeeze out small businesses, and make our entire world sponsered by McDonalds and Glade plug ins.

The other day, I was taking notes on a report and a member started talking about economies of scale. "great", said she, the Economics graduate. "Let's see what they think about this." Well, nothing. They had clearly just opened a GCSE economics text book, picked a phrase out of it to make it seem as though they use something about economics, and then failed to continue this line of thought. Why did they fail to follow it? I think it maybe because they don't actually know what economies of scale are. I firnly believe that these kind of policies should be left to experts and the governments of nation states, who can be held directly accountable.

I'm sure they mean well, I'm sure they are trying their best.

Wednesday:

Superglue. Have just stuck my fingers together.

It's monday, I can't cope...

...with talking about anything which is going to use more than 5 brain cells. I was going to talk about Tony Blair and his new job being the President of the EU (I bet that caused some frantic panting on his behalf - fantasy or what?!?) but I´m bored of it already. So, this week I am going to do a special feature on things I would put into Room 101. Five items, so one each day of the week.

Monday is:

Geraniums.









They are the scum underclass of flowers. Always to be found in the biology department, half dead on the windowsill, or in window boxes of hotels of the kind where the cleanliness of bedlinen is not to be taken for granted. The colours are hidous: both on their own and together. Salmon pink is bad enough, but with RED? I ask you. Mother nature is clearly not a gay man.

One thing I won't be putting into Room 101, though, is my new Gina shoes. They are the highlight of my year.

I'd keep it strapped to your body in future, Miss...

I'm back. And it was more complicated than I had originally planned, because I had my wallet and passport removed from my possession whilst I was in France. How nice of these people, on seeing that my bag was a little too heavy, to make it lighter for me...

I managed to get back to the UK fairly easily, which was greatly appreciated as I didn't want to live in an empty office for a couple of weeks, living off the dust mites hibernating in the upholstry. Getting back to Brussels, however, was a different story.

I think it's fair to say that customer service is not a required skill at the UKPA in London. Having been slumped in a wheelchair at a casualty desk in Belgium with a receptionist who was 'too busy' to see me, I thought I had seen it all. But the sheer bloody-mindedness of the fuckers at Victoria left me speechless. FOUR VISITS it took me to get a passport, with problems ranging from them not being convinced I had an appointment, even though I had a booking reference, to my friend not being able to fit his double-barrelled name on my passport photo all on one line, as he did on the passport form. "You should have friends with shorter names", I was helpfully told by one jumped up little jobsworth called Mr Stick-it-up-your-arse Paperpusher who refused to sign my form.

I have two degrees and an IQ of 148. I should be able to manage to fill in a form, but these days you need a degree in fuckwittage specialising in anally retentive behaviour to get anything out of this government. I swear, I'm not letting this new passport out of my sight: I can't go through that again....

What part of 'no' don't you understand??!

Fantastic black wedge sandals from LK Bennet - How come no one told me there was a duty free shop in Terminal 1?

It's been a while since I've updated my blog, because I've been a busy little bee. Last week I flew off to Paris to hear the results of the French referendum on the EU Constitution in the place where it was all happening! Unfortunately, I decided to finish off my bottle of wine in the restaurant first and so was in a taxi practising my French (you know the kind - ou est la plume de ma tante) when the results happened. Am I sad and disappointed? No! Because 1) The French told ol' sproutland exactly which orifice to stick their 'tidying up exercise' into and 2) There was much champagne to be drunk.

Then, of course, there was the result of the Dutch referendum, which was no less delightful but did involve less drinking. We were in Brussels for that, gate crashed the socialist press conference (and thank goodness for them that we did - someone needed to turn up!) and then toddled along to the Commission to hear what the big knobs had to say about another country saying 'NO!'.

Well, what did they have to say. Things that made me want to shake them, if I'm honest. Apparently, the Dutch only voted no because they were unhappy with domestic issues and the French voted no because they weren't aware of the facts. This is despite all citizens receiving a copy of the document. Maybe, just maybe, they were upset because despite a hugely unfair campaign, with the 'yes - hand your country to unelected bureaucrats' getting 85% of press coverage and gazillions more spondolies to spend, sanity prevailed.

So, Mr Kinnock (yes, I heard you on the BBC the next morning...for God's sake man, you lost an election to John Major how much lower can you sink?), Mr Barroso and Mr Junker. We don't need educating. We don't need our tax money to be spent on propaganda, we don't need to be patronised into being told how to think. We want you to listen to us and understand that no means NO. We don't want a constitution for Europe, we want individual sovereign states who govern their own country. Stop strangling us with regulation, stop taking our money, stop punishing the third world with your agricultural and trade policies and let us run our own country!