Under directive 09/447/EC, the terms “spitting distance” and “a stone’s throw” could soon be disappearing, particularly from promotional literature.

EU spokesman Johann Rohan said today, “It is clear to me that St Neots is not “a stone’s throw” away from Cambridge. Neither is your own riverside park “spitting distance” from the Market Square.

“This can be very confusing, especially for foreign visitors who already get confused by your insistence on using archaic Imperial measurements for almost everything.”

The directive aims to officially define a stone’s throw as the average distance a stone can be thrown in Brussels with a prevailing north-easterly wind, when the weight of the stone is a known factor. This value is apparntly 26.3 meteres, although how legislators arrived at this figure is really anyone’s guess. A 7,335-word report compiled by oft-quoted Expert Scientists into why spitting distance is defined as “about three feet” is also available.

Rohan added that a number of other expressions were also under review, in particular the threat of knocking someone “into the middle of next week”, which may lead non-native speakers of English to believe that time travel had at last been cracked. Avoiding international confusion in the UK is no new minefield, as the last decade has seen Jif change to Cif and our beloved Opal Fruits to Starburst.

Councillors hit back at the policy. “What a load of old shit,” said Bob Farms, councillor for mystery Hardwick parish. “These are traditional common-use English expressions, and the EU has no right to interfere with our colloquialisms and odd sayings.”

Rohan responded that a “load” of “old” shit was specifically two metric tonnes of faeces which is three weeks and one day old. He added that anyone caught using outdated expressions after 1st December this year would face a fine of up to half a Rowley Million, and this would also apply to people who still call Somerfield “Gateway”.

Council leader Julia Wayward said, “It’s a load of absolute bollocks.” The legislation does not yet specify how many bollocks a load comprises.