The Environment Agency's perfect catch-22.

(From Guardian Unlimited)

Here's a story of almost comical bureaucratic entanglement, delivered by a quango I'd like to support, but which is sometimes not easy to love.

In February 2008 a campaigner and researcher called Andrew Wood made what should have been a straightforward request to the Environment Agency . He wanted a copy of a report it had asked a body called the Environmental Services Association (ESA) to write.

Don't be misled by the name. The ESA is not an environmental pressure group: it's a trade association representing waste disposal companies. And what it wants is the green light to incinerate, as cheaply as the rules allow. Whoops -- …