The CEVNI test

That's the written test on the Code européen des voies de navigation intérieure, to you pal. And I have to take it so that I can apply for an International Certificate of Competence to operate a motorboat on the Amazon. Not that the Brazilians give a stuff about whether I know the European waterways regulations or not, as they don't actually apply in Brazil. So, for example, the direction to the effect that

un feu ordinaire rouge et un feu ordinaire blanc ou un feu clair rouge et un feu clair blanc,placés à 1 m environ l'un au-dessus de l'autre, le feu rouge étant le plus haut,

may be required from time to time, is likely to be as unintelligible and irrelevant in Brazil as it is in the UK.

Never mind - don't you just love senseless bureaucracy? Especially European - especially French - bureaucracy. Jeux sans frontiers, indeed.