As regular readers of this newsletter will know, judges in many countries are constantly being asked to decide whether a container is a "package", or whether it is rather the items inside that count for limitation purposes. Perhaps the British Department of Health can help.

Each December, the UK's Plain English Campaign makes a number of awards to companies and organisations that have produced outstanding examples of clear English in their publications. It also makes several awards for the worst examples of gobblydegook during the year. This year one of its Golden Bull awards went to the department of health for this definition of a container (admittedly a slightly different type to the ones the Club insures) in the Medicines for Human Use (Clinical Trials) Regulations 2004:

"'Container', in relation to an investigational medicinal product, means the bottle, jar, box, packet or other receptacle which contains or is to contain it, not being a capsule, cachet or other article in which the product is or is to be administered, and where any such receptacle is or is to be contained in another such receptacle, includes the former but does not include the latter receptacle."