The Worst Good Idea All Year

 I can’t cook.

 At all.

 I had a burrito the other day, wrapped in foil, and was genuinely on the verge of microwaving it until I remembered that that was bad. Not because I know about cooking, but because I saw an episode of “Brainiac” that showed what happens when you microwave foil.

 If I have to toast a sandwich under a grill, I’ll stand there, bent at the waist, glaring at it intently, because I know if I turn my back for more than a few seconds I’ll end up fucking things up somehow. Food doesn’t like me. We don’t get on.

 So I’m a little worried by recent suggestions that we, as a society, need to get rid of sell-by dates.

 This is out of character for me; I’m on record in several places as having called for the removal of most safety instructions. So, in one of those moments that make me suspect that there is a God, but he’s just straight-up fucking with me, they’ve decided to get rid of the one safety instruction that is probably keeping me alive.

 I know that my lack of food knowledge is a product of my own ignorance, and that there’s no excuse for it, but it bears reiterating that I really am an idiot when it comes to food, and should be supervised by an adult when it comes to cooking, or, failing that, at least by some clearly marked instructions that let me know what’s safe.

 There are plenty of other warning labels that need to go. That one you get on hairdryers, for example, that says “Do Not Use in the Shower.” Surely, if we did away with that one, the resulting spate of deaths wouldn’t be much of a drain on society?! “Silica Gel: Do Not Eat.” If we removed that warning, the worst that the human race would suffer is the loss of the sort of people who eat packing material from suitcases. “No Smoking” on petrol station forecourts. “Not To Be Taken Orally” on products and medicines that are patently not for internal use. There are dozens of glaring examples of things that functional people shouldn’t need to be told, but that are still printed in big, bold letters everywhere you look, just for the preservation of fuckwits.

 But no; instead there’s a movement to scrap sell-by dates, and the only people that’s going to take out of the equation are hapless culinary ham-fists* like me.

*Ham doesn’t actually come in a fist, does it?!