The EU or The Killers?

Stunning revelation of the day – the EU’s health and safety rules almost cost me my brand new MP3 player. I lost one and bought a tiny ScanDisk replacement but it was so quiet it couldn’t be heard on a train or in the car. So, greatly disappointed, I decided to junk it and see about buying something more expensive (this one cost about £35 and I decided it was my own fault for trying to get one on the cheap). In passing I read some reviews of it on Amazon and one of them announced that because of EU health and safety regulations, it was set to play so quietly as to be almost inaudible. The advice was to re-set it to North America rather than Europe. I did that and, voila, it works pretty well. Pleased though I am to have found a simple solution to the problem, I am still gobsmacked that EU rules mean the thing was set in such a way that it couldn’t actually perform the task it was designed for. There are plenty of better reasons for despising Brussels and all its works, no doubt, but as I write this listening to The Killers at a reasonable volume, I can’t think of one.