ME and Sir Alex Ferguson (how's that for name dropping), along with Michel Platini, the French football icon, Gordon Taylor of the PFA, the President and officials of UEFA and half a dozen of my MEP colleagues had a meeting to discuss future European legislation to get over the problems of the Bosman ruling.

It's incredible that such an organisation as UEFA needs laws to make its richest member clubs act in such a way as to ensure that smaller clubs don't go out of existence and that clubs don't just pack a team with foreigners like Chelsea or Milan, where they have 18 non-Italian internationals on their books.

As was said, football is big business and voluntary codes just won't work. But what a nice guy Alex Ferguson is.

Also out were trades union representatives to lobby us about the takeover of United Biscuits by a firm called Finalrealm, which could have consequences for jobs in Carlisle, Manchester, Halton, Liverpool, Wirral, Blackpool and other places outside of the North West.

In total they reckon that half of the 6,000 jobs could be lost if the deal goes ahead. Hopefully we can help block the takeover at European level and get the case repatriated to the UK, so that it can be dealt with by our competition authorities. One of the things the European Parliament ensured last December was that school milk subsidies are available throughout Europe and I know are claimed in many schools in the north west.

Imagine my surprise when at a meeting of the Budget Committee, which I Chair, it was brought to my attention that the small cartons of milk available for members who don't want tea or coffee had clearly marked on them "for schools use only" (had it said for schoolchildren I could have understood).

So I asked for an explanation, which came back the next day to say the firm that made the cartons had a fire and could only supply in the school cartons. Hope it's true!

The array for MEPs range from sports personalities to celebrities with everything you can think of in between. One such celeb is Dana, as in Eurovision Song contest and "All kinds of everything". Elected as Independent Irish MEP, Dana Scallon is making her mark.

At an ecumenical breakfast in the Parliament she led the discussion on what her faith meant to her. She spoke in her beautiful dulcet tones and had everybody spellbound. When she finished, I fully expected a round of applause for her. What she didn't touch on though were the controversial topics like abortion. Even so, she certainly had the knack of holding her audience. The food shortages in Ethiopia were also discussed. Thankfully, the EU is very active in long-term development needs in Ethiopia and is the biggest donor of food aid to it. Whatever criticisms are levelled at the EU, its track record on aid stands up pretty well considering the amounts and number of countries involved. It's just a pity we can't redirect some of the money involved in football to countries like Ethiopia -- even on a voluntary basis.

TERRY WYNN MEP