NOW then, folks, I hope you are not reading this over breakfast or, worse still, over lunch. I don't want to spoil your appetite but it is, I'm afraid, my duty to do so with the latest despatch from the European Commissioner for Comical Ideas.

Ecci (as in eckie thump) has decided that this year, 2002, will be the last in which we good Europeans will be allowed to eat meat. Whilst this is good news for the veggies, it will mean more headaches for our farmers, butchers and lovers of a good steak. For, from next year, we shall be eating 'skeletal-attached muscle.'

As I said, sorry about the appetite. What could be more welcoming than to sit down to a nice, rare piece of skeletal attached muscle (SAM) at the end of a hard day's labours.

And if you think I have finally gone off me trolley, let me explain that this is not my phrase but that of some Euro-clown no doubt doing very nicely indeed on the payroll in the marble-floored Oh Ecci palace in Brussels.

It means (wait for it) ... meat!

It was, you will remember, the Oh Ecci officers who demanded we should have straight bananas (or was it cucumbers?); who did ban British elderflower champagne 'cos only the French are allowed to make champagne whereas any Tom, Dick or Harry between Manitoba and Manchuria can make Cheddar cheese.

Now, the word meat is to be banned and replaced by SAM, which sounds like Spam but is nowhere near as appetising. This is saying something because the only use I ever found for Spam was as a good fishing bait for chub.

They mean well, of course, our friends in Oh Ecci. The idea is to ban the use of the word meat in products like sausages, pies, burgers which, in fact, use all sorts of nasty bits from an animal, like its ears, nose, tails and even worse as part of their contents.

These will not be able to use the magic words skeletal attached muscle on their labels. This must have brought great relief to the manufacturers of junk food, for who would eat it with SAM on the menu?

Back in the 1950s, a whole series of books were published sending up the use of jargon by people wanting to get ahead in the world. It was called "one-up-manship."

One of the laws involved in this craft was The Peter Principle and it laid down that if you gave a man an office, a pen and a piece of paper, he would invent a job for himself which would eventually infect the company involved like a spreading virus.

Now we still have plenty of Peters in Britain but they are today completely outnumbered by the Pierres in Brussels. This is the international home of Pierre par excellence.

And what do they know about meat anyway? In Belgium, they live mainly on mussels, tripe and beer. No rostbif for them so they have nothing to lose by making we Brits eat skeletal attached muscle. Bon appetit!

* The Curmudgeon is a satirical column based on a fictitious character in a mythical village.