The EU and Expiry Dates

Of course, if your Retail Purchase Consultant is over a month past her Tickle-By Date, then you will – quite obviously – reconsider the replenishment of your radishes. In days gone by - as you will know if you are beyond a certain age – the freshness, or otherwise, of retail emporia staff was something best judged by other criteria and a Tickle-By date was not even heard of. There had – in the years leading up to the UK joining what was then the Common Market - been a few localised attempts with putting a Poke-With-A –Stick-By date on some operatives of a few local councils. However, thanks to stiff opposition of the unions who took a dim view of people poking their members with a stick – and thus infringing their inalienable right to be fast asleep on the job – and therefore instigated mass walkouts by council workers, some of which – in those days of leaner local councils – were actually noticed.

The hopelessness of the Heath government and the instigation of the three-day week, however, brought such practices to an end, especially when some public service workers objected to having to work for three whole days every week.

However, the vast, bloated and – mostly – pointless EU Bureaucracy needs to find some way of filling its time, no matter how desultory. Recently it has much to its glee, discovered whole areas of the daily life of its worker units that have yet to be regulated with Tickle-By dates, and even the re-introduction of Poke-With-A –Stick-By dates, already mandated to be introduced in the next few years. In addition, there is even some talk of introducing EU-wide Workplace Fondling Diversity Quotas before the end of this decade.