Here’s the “Call my Euro-bluff” section from an episode of QI I stumbled across:
Subscribe
-
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
-
Like us on Facebook
-
Subscribe to our feed
-
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Most Read
Search
Op-eds
-
The Brexit Referendum – 10 years on (Callum Robertson)
-
One year on, and I’m still finding it hard to feel pride (Rebecca Jones)
-
Andy Burnham’s housing challenge: Why his own arguments demand more than Labour’s current plans (Iain Donaldson)
-
ALDC’s by-election report – 18th June (Joe Nutt)
-
Mathew on Monday: Starmer’s resignation and an increasingly ungovernable country (Mathew Hulbert)
Sparrows Can't Sing Q&A with Barbara Windsor and Murray Melvin
A bargain at 23 guineas?
20C night
Recent Comments
Rif Winfield
There is little sign that Labour's much-vaunted 1.5 million homes programme during the current Parliament is going to come to fruition, even with the planning r...
expats
Tristan, % differences are largely meaningless.. Germany boasts a nominal GDP of approximately $5.4 trillion, making it Europe's largest economy. The UK's no...
Peter Martin
"In the decade since that day.......We have missed out on roughly 6-8% of growth" Where does this figure come from? In any case, we didn't actuall...
Richard Flowers
Dear Rebecca, It is you who gives me hope and lets me take Pride. Thanks to your tireless work, and other members of the Plus committee and community, you�...
George Thomas
Have just come from the latest post discussing Welsh Lib Dems struggles to a post regarding better transport. Does this mean support for retrospective funding f...
7 Comments
That was good. I remeber watching the Europe QI programme.
Still good two years on.
But aren’t there actual standards about the curviness of bananas (the class I/II categorisation). The “defence” is whether this is EU legislation or not not but there’s never a discussion about whether it is sane to have such regulations at all (which do result in a lot of food getting wasted etc)
@Hywel
I think the purchasers wanted it (a classification), because their customers wanted it.
People avoid misshapen fruit/veg when they are paying by the weight, illogical as this might be.
Not sure about bananas, but I know that the legislation on the curvature of cucumbers was UK legislation well before it became an EU directive. Of course many of the rules on standard sizes, shapes and measurements were part of international agreements before anyone in the EU had even thought of making it the law. Leaving the EU wouldn’t solve any of it.
Although I do like QI and the fact that someone is putting people right on EU rules, it did strike me that the Tories or the Daily Mail would try and use this episode as further evidence that the BBC was a bunch of Labour-voting, euro-supporting luvvies. Just like Stephen Fry in fact.
@Andy
But the fact that most fruit in Tesco etc is Class 1 is usually printed in incredibly small text so I’m not sure many customers look for it.
No-one has ever asked me how curvy I wanted my banana to be (Prob a good job Frankie Howerd isn’t here!) and such classification does mean that Class II fruit and veg rarely makes it into the supermarket meaning prices are higher (and children grow up with a weird, “racially pure” idea of what fruit and veg looks like.
This is part of the classification of Class 1 bananas (according to t’internet anyway)
“- slight skin defects due to rubbing and other superficial defects not exceeding 2 cm2 of the total surface area; ”
As regards size:
“The minimum length should not be less than 14.0 cm and the minimum grade not less than 2.7 cm.”
That must mean that every banana sold (or at least classified) has involved someone in measuring the length, circumference and any marks on the skin. This for a product which in the main people actually pick for themselves and is often sold by weight.
I don’t believe that’s the biggest issue needing attention today.
@Anders
As I usually point out at this point, despite attempts to deny it there IS EU legislation on the curviness of cucumbers, (or at least was untill recently – the good news is a whole raft of such legislation has been repealed) the fact that it used to be UK legislation doesn’t make it right.
An episode of QI you ‘stumbled across’ – someone’s been watching too much Dave…
Kim: nope, it was a Dave-free piece of research that unearthed this. I was actually looking at beta versions of some of YouTube’s new features. Whether that is better or worse than watching Dave, I’ll let you judge…