If you want to make an information request to the EU's directorate-general for employment, its webform asks you to indicate which of the 27 member states you are from. Strangely it also offers you one other option - you can say you come from Wales.

Why the employment DG has made this unique concession to Welsh nationalism is not immediately obvious. But this is one of the intriguing minor mysteries about the operation of the European Commission's access to information processes which is revealed in a report published yesterday by the campaign group Access Info Europe [1.32MB PDF].

Access Info asked the commission's main policy DGs for their internal guidance on how to handle requests made under the regulation on public access to EU documents [120KB PDF].

They were prompted to do this by the leak earlier this year of a vademecum from the trade DG. This internal handbook advised officials to write two separate reports of meetings, a factual one which could be easily disclosed and an assessment or evaluation which could be held back without the need to redact passages from just one document.

It also warned against "recording statements which may turn out to be politically embarrassing for those who have made them". And the guide added: "Avoid making personal comments in e-mails with third parties which may be the object of disclosure... (eg don't refer to the great lunch you have had with an industry representative privately or add a PS asking if he/she would like to meet for a drink)."

The commission defended these instructions on the grounds that they "make it easier to get reports out" and "avoid having to go through blanking out" documents, although the handbook has since been rewritten.

The new Access Info survey reports on what it calls "serious problems" in how its requests were treated, outlining numerous obstacles to access and discrepancies in the procedures of other DGs.

Although most complied, the competition DG refused to supply its guidance since it had been "prepared for purely internal purposes". (Contrary to first impressions the photograph does not show the Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes looking in a bucket for her department's policy on this - in fact, this is her announcing a crackdown on price-fixing in the plastics industry at a press conference earlier this month).

And the campaign group criticises DGs who leave it unclear how members of the public should file requests, demand personal details from the requester, and make the process difficult for people who don't know English.

But as for the actual guidance obtained by the research, "the main finding was that after the shock of reading the DG trade vademecum, none of the documents released held anything particularly controversial. They were in the main part professionally written documents designed with the obvious intention of helping officials handle access to documents requests".

I've always wanted to find a way to write the headline above - now I just have.

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Sweden has had a freedom of information law for nearly 250 years - in fact, since its Freedom of the Press Act of 1766.

Tell people that date and they often think you've got the century wrong, by one if not two hundred years. Everywhere else in the world, FOI is a phenomenon of the past 50 years.

This Swedish tradition of transparency has had a powerful effect on the country's culture in many ways, as for example the BBC recently reported on Parliamentary expenses. But how and why did Sweden adopt this principle so far ahead of any other state?

It arose out of a period in eighteenth-century Swedish history known as the "age of liberty", and the main mover behind the act was an MP and Finnish clergyman Anders Chydenius (at that time, Finland was part of Sweden).

But there were other determined campaigners in the period leading up to the Freedom of the Press Act, one of whom was Peter Forsskal.

A new book published today contains the first translation into English of an uncensored version of his pamphlet Thoughts on Civil Liberty, 250 years after the censored Swedish original was issued.

As the commentary in the book makes clear, the Swedish head-start on FOI was not due to greater advances towards civil rights in general. In fact, Forsskal wanted his country to catch up with others, so that Swedes would have "liberty to think and write as one has in England and Germany".

The innovative approach taken in Sweden was the way the Freedom of the Press Act paid attention to state documents, treating guaranteed access to government records as part of ensuring full and open public debate - or, as the Swedish constitution puts it:

"Every Swedish citizen shall be entitled to have free access to official documents, in order to encourage the free exchange of opinion."

The botanist Carl Linnaeus, who taught Forsskal, chose the stinging nettle as a plant to name after his former pupil. This may have reflected his personality - but freedom of information often stings too.

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The quality of Gordon Brown's handwriting and spelling has been a big feature of the news this week, following the letter of condolence he sent to Jacqui Janes whose son was killed in Afghanistan.

His writing is adversely affected by his poor eyesight, which stems from the childhood rugby injury that left him blind in one eye. But how much has it changed over the decades?

It's taken me a little time to search through the collection of documents the BBC obtained under freedom of information from Edinburgh University about the period Mr Brown was Rector there in the 1970s.

He was elected to this post while a student, and I've written before about the disputes he then had with the university authorities.

But here is an example of what his writing was like 35 years ago. This was in his early 20s, after he had sustained the rugby injury but before what may have been further deterioration in his sight.

It's neater than the letter sent to Jacqui Janes and reproduced by the Sun, and in a thinner pen than the thick felt one he now uses.

But the "i"s are not dotted, several of the characters are written unclearly or merged with their neighbours, and he spells "sincerely" wrong - one word that he did get right in his message to Mrs Janes.

And what is he saying in this letter? He's telling the university authorities that as he lacks proper secretarial help he can't submit the paper he's been working on "in a readily presentable form".

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