And so to the EU, where never a week goes by without some little green idea becoming more rounded and closer to the point of serving.

These, my friends, are the real Brussels sprouts.

Just detectable behind the wall of blaring sirens that is Brexit was the distinctive tones of Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan, MEP, holding forth on the desirability of convergence.

Expressing his confidence that we are moving steadily towards 100% convergence, Ming gave us all a fascinating glimpse of that relentless logic that has catapulted him from councillor to member of the European Parliament faster than you could roll a decent medicinal cheroot.

As a townie I know it will benefit everyone in rural Ireland,” he declared, before going on to divulge that he was “excited” by the prospects of 100% convergence.

Hmmmm. Why exactly would a townie know what will benefit rural Ireland? How would Ming – or any other ‘townie’ – react if the proposition was reversed?

How about this one: “As a complete and utter culchie I know that converging the commercial rates payable by business premises in our rural towns will benefit everyone in rural Ireland.”

I think we can all guess what the response to the idea that would be.

Boyzone and Berlin

But we are back here to the old idea touched upon previously by Jack: Farmers’ land is somehow a group possession and we are all somehow entitled to have an opinion on (or access to).

Similarly, farmers’ direct payments are somehow a communal payment or revenue, something that doesn’t really belong to the individual farmer and can be judged not on how it benefits him or her, but on how it benefits the wider community.

This is a deeply unsatisfactory idea, but it is one clearly perceptible in Ming’s throwaway remarks.

In what way do we position your farmland so that it benefits the wider community? In what way do we structure your direct farm payments so that it benefits the wider community? Farmers are the only section of society whose property and possessions are viewed through this communal lens.

As it happens, Jack Russell has no particular issue with the idea of convergence; it seems to arise from some woolly idea of equality, the idea that a farmer is a farmer and that someone milking 160 cows in Cork is not a superior class of ‘farmer’ to someone with a few sucklers down the road from Ming in Roscommon.

And yes, of course, both are farmers…in the same way that Boyzone and the Berlin Philharmonic are both bands.

The truth is that differentiating between farmers on the basis of skill, commitment, scale and investment is as logical and downright obvious as it would be in any other field of human activity.

Why, just take Ming’s own direct payments. Hands up who’s in favour of a 100% convergence between the payments made to county councillors and MEPs? I mean, they’re both politicians, aren’t they? Why should they be treated differently? On what basis?

Jack has got his paw up. He’s “excited” by the thought of 100% convergence.

Soup

One other thing. In explaining the intricacies of the EU’s Multiannual Financial Framework and the impossibility of knowing for certain that any increase in the EU’s budget will be spent on CAP, Ming resorted to a culinary metaphor:

When you’re drinking the soup you can’t choose to take out the potatoes at the end of the day because you don’t like them.

Even Jack Russell knows that you ‘ate’ the soup.

Please don’t tell me that Ming is over there with the bowl lifted up to his lips, slurping away, with the soup dribbling down his goatee, making a show of us in front of the French and all those lads.

I’ll bet you Mairead McGuinness isn’t sitting beside Ming while he’s there drinking down the bowl of lobster bisque or whatever it is they’re expected to gag down in the parliament’s canteen.

I sincerely hope we don’t have to insist on a 100% convergence on basic table manners.