NOW we all know about Europe's obsession with regulations.
The continent is the mother of all nanny states, controlling every aspect of life, from how many holes are permitted in Swiss cheese to the colour of a farmer's cows, apparently.
Well, European consumers are starting to jack up at being told what they can or can't eat, starting with mis-shaped fruit.
There is a regulation forbidding shops to sell odd-shaped fruit such as bendy cucumbers or straight bananas.
But with food prices on the rise, the bureaucrats are under pressure to dump the laws, which results in 20 per cent of fruit and vegetables being discarded.
If not-so-round apples and crooked carrots were allowed, prices could drop by up to 40 per cent, retailers argue.
Sue Henderson, spokeswoman for supermarket Sainsbury's, was spot on when she said: "We have been struggling to fit a square peg in a round hole for too long."
