Be honest, if I told you the bureaucrats that run the EU were going to make Bavarian barmaids who dress in traditional but revealing dirndls like this and this cover up their assets, you’d cry “What a bunch of boobs!”

“Yet surely,” you’d continue, “there must be a good reason why they’d do such a thing, right? To halt the objectification of women, maybe? Um, to make them wear non-gender-specific uniforms?”

No, no, and no. It’s to protect them from the sun! You see, thanks to Paul Belien at The Brussels Journal we’re now aware of the European Union’s Optical Radiation Directive, about to be voted on, in which employers face heavy fines if they fail to protect their employees against the risk of sunburn.

When it dawned on the Bavarians earlier this week that the directive would entail that their dirndl-dressed barmaids cover up their bosoms when serving drinks outside, there were fierce protests against the EU. “This is European law-making at its most pedantic,” said Munich’s lord mayor, Christian Ude. The organisers of the world’s biggest beer festival, the Munich Oktoberfest, called the proposed ban “an attack on the traditions of [their] region.”

Go read the article and see why if you want a picture of the future of life in the EU (the latest iteration of the socialist nanny-state), imagine a pillow smothering a human face – for ever. (Usual apologies to George Orwell.)

[Edit] Oops! Forgot to tip my hat to Davids Medienkritik for the original link.