Go bananas ~ how much curved bananas contributed to * Brexti *

People love to eat bananas ~ but some throw the skins on the streets quite carelessly – which can make people tumble down and hurt themselves.  Some decades ago, intentionally throwing them on street / public place and laughing when people tumble was a joke ! ….. there is thin line between such foolishness and comedy as some could hurt themselves badly stepping on a banana.   Go bananas : would mean ‘to go crazy mildly’ – and have bananas contributed to Brexit in any significant way ?

One hundred and forty thousand punnets of strawberries ripened to perfection, 256 players dreaming of singles glory, 19 courts trimmed with precision - all for two weeks and one tournament. In what would be 130^th edition of the Championship, British number one Johanna Konta is seeded 16^th  - the first British woman to get a protected place in the draw since 1984 - and will fancy her chances of getting to the second week. Then there is Marcus Willis coming through 6 qualifying matches to make it to … yes, Wimbledon.  It was just five months ago that Marcus Willis considered bringing his journeyman career to an end after a Futures tournament in Tunisia. Frustrated and disillusioned, 25-year-old Willis stopped travelling and turned to coaching and club league matches before a brutally honest pep talk from new girlfriend Jennifer convinced him he could still compete on the tour. It did the trick. World No 775 and British No 23 Willis completed a remarkable run through Wimbledon qualifying – his first tournament since January - to reach the main draw at the All England Club, coming back from a set down to beat Russian Daniil Medvedev 3-6, 7-5, 6-3, 6-4.

Nothing of that would cut the ice – the only news that is being flashed everywhere is the withdrawal of             British from the European Union, often shortened to Brexit (a portmanteau of "British" or "Britain" and "exit”).  United Kingdom (UK) joined the precursor of the European Union (EU) in 1973. Withdrawal from the European Union has been a right of EU member states since 2007 under Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union.  On 23^rd  June 2016, in a referendum on the country's membership, 51.9% voted in support of an exit (17,410,742 votes) and 48.1% (16,141,241 votes) to remain with a turnout of 72.2% and 26,033 rejected ballots.

Boris Johnson and Michael Gove are preparing a “dream team” bid to take control of the leadership of the Conservative Party in the wake of the most dramatic week in modern British political history. David Cameron is to step down. Furious European leaders today told Britain it must 'urgently' trigger the formal process of leaving the EU today, despite David Cameron insisting the Government will wait until October.  As they scrambled to save the EU project at an emergency meeting in Berlin, the foreign ministers from the six founding member states increased the pressure on the UK Government to enter talks over the complex process of separation immediately. They also discussed plans to combat the contagion of Britain's historic Brexit vote spreading across Europe over fears that Britain's departure threatens the future of the EU altogether. In a sign of the hostilities to come European Commission president Jean Claude Juncker warned Britain not to expect an 'amicable divorce,' adding: 'It was not exactly a tight love affair anyway.'

Founding EU members held a crisis meeting on the future of the bloc after Britain's seismic vote to leave the union and the resignation of David Cameron. French President Francois Hollande says the British vote to leave the European Union poses questions "for the whole planet."            The City of London is at risk of losing its prized "EU passport" that allows firms based in the capital to operate around the single market, a member of the European Central Bank Governing Council has said. Losing it would likely trigger an exodus of firms to the eurozone.

Earlier, launching the Vote Leave battlebus with an impromptu speech in Cornwall, Boris Johnson had listed several factors he said mean the Brexit camp had “right on its side” – and one was this claim -  “absolutely crazy that the EU is telling us how powerful our vacuum cleaners have got to be, what shape our bananas have got to be, and all that kind of thing”.  Now you know what is ‘Go bananas’ …. battle lines were drawn-up highlighting banana regulation. The  example often cited was 'legislative heavy-handedness' - EU ban on 'bendy bananas' and crooked cucumbers. It was oft repeated that a 1994 EU regulation specified that bananas must be 'free from abnormal curvature' and cucumbers needed to be straight.  EU rules also governed the shape of many other fruits and vegetables — cucumbers, for example, needed to be almost perfectly straight.

Many of these specifications were abolished in 2008, though the banana guidelines remained on the books. Later many press including MailOnline, Guardian, BBC clarified that EU rules do not ban any kind of banana, no matter how straight or curved it may be. What they do, however, is classify the pricing of bananas according to their shape: The best ones must be "free from malformation or abnormal curvature;" the next best can have "slight defects of shape;" and the cheapest or poorest quality can display "defects of shape." And though this grading scheme might discriminate against a perfectly good but defectively shaped banana, it hardly amounts to a ban.

The bendy banana saga is perhaps the most notorious of what has come to be known as the Euromyth. Over the last two decades, British tabloids have exploited the U.K.'s deeply ambivalent relationship with the European Union by publishing exaggerated, funny and often completely unfounded stories about how the "barmy bureaucrats in Brussels" are out to destroy old English traditions and the British way of life. Coming up with creative scaremongering is something of a national pastime for the press. Such myths pertained to every aspect of life:  often it was the standard trick  to take a general guideline and interpret it as a caricaturist would – as mischievously and outrageously as possible.

Before understanding the economic repercussions across the country and its impact across the globe, MailOnline reports of a  buccaneer raking in £220million.  It is all about Crispin Odey, a hedge fund tycoon who reportedly made more than £220 million for himself and his investors yesterday after betting on Brexit. He is one of a handful of hedge fund bosses to have hit the jackpot after taking big ‘short’ positions on company stocks and sterling, betting on their value falling in the aftermath of a vote to Leave. Hedge fund boss Crispin Odey, gambled sterling would collapse if British voters decided upon Brexit.  The 57-year-old, who manages more than £8 billion and has an estimated personal fortune of £900 million, revealed that in the run-up to the vote he had invested heavily in gold, a safe haven amid market turmoil, and bet on the pound falling against the dollar.       The tactic paid off handsomely yesterday as investors rushed to buy gold, pushing its price to a two-year high as both the pound and the FTSE 100 fell sharply. He had bet against housebuilder Berkeley Group, which fell in value by more than a fifth yesterday and stocks including Lloyds, which dropped 21 per cent and ITV, down more than 20 per cent. Mr Odey had commissioned a private poll ahead of the referendum to steal a march on the financial markets.

So what you feel would is impact on Indian economy !!

With regards – S. Sampathkumar.

25^th June 2016.