Roger Helmer MEP

Monday Feb 23rd: At a dinner at the Abbey Lodge Inn, Woodhall Spa, Lincs, with Jim Bradwell, President of the Woodhall Spa Rotary Club. Jim is married to Cllr. Patricia Bradwell of Lincs County Council.

I do dozens of lunch and dinner events, and I hear a lot of Graces said before meals.  On the whole I prefer the serious and reverent Graces to the jokesy ones.  But on Monday Feb 23rd at a dinner of the Woodhall Spa Rotary Club, I heard a Grace that I have to share with you (and I apologise in advance to any reader who finds it a touch irreverent).
 
“We thank thee, Dear Lord, for the European Union.  We thank Thee for the butter mountains we can slide down, and for the wine lakes we can swim in.  Most of all, we thank Thee for the Italian accounting practices that make it all possible.  Amen”.
 
(Actually this is a little unfair on the Italians, who discovered double-entry book-keeping around 600 years before the European Commission caught up with the idea).