Even after having falling inside several beer bottles, as wasps have a tendency of doing in Summer, I haven’t been swatted just yet.

Not seeing any TV news or reading any news or blogs for an entire week feels quite liberating. Especially so when you discover that some armed fugitive person has been running around the countryside in the UK and can imagine what the breathless rolling news coverage from the BBC will have been like.

Anyway, sod the news – here are some things they do in Estonia that ought to be adopted back in the UK :

• Traffic lights on all but the busiest roads turn to flashing amber denoting ‘give way’ after around 9pm until around 6am the following morning. If two cars approach, the right hand rule is used to determine who goes first. Very few accidents result from this and there is no pointless waiting at an empty junction on red.
• The main road through a lot of rural towns and villages has one speed limit in the daytime and one at night with a simple sign at each end of the village giving the speed and hours of operation. Having seen suggestions of a blanket 20 mph limit in the UK, this could be a very neat way of keeping everyone happy at bugger all cost.
• Bottle recycling machines are everywhere just like any other European country. Leave an empty bottle anywhere and you can guarantee that it will be taken within about 5 minutes either by a homeless guy or some enterprising old lady eeking out her pension. The result is very little litter compared with the open dustbin that is most of the UK countryside.

And, here are a few reasons to like Estonia when compared to the UK :

• A spectacular array of excellent beers at very reasonable prices (and their laws allow indoor smoke rooms in pubs as well).
• Nemiroff Ukranian Birch Vodka – makes Smirnoff taste like something you would use to remove the fleas and ticks from a badger.
• A complete lack of Health and Safety signs and similar nonsense – people swim in lakes and rivers (cold water doesnt kill outside the UK), no barbed wire on electricity pylons (stupid people get what they deserve), campfires are encouraged at beaches and lakeshores (there are signs for the places everywhere).
• Tobacco is not taxed into oblivion thus removing the incentive to smuggle.
• They do not have car tax or TV licences.

Anyway, I will leave you with the following video and go back to enjoying a newsless existence for a few more days.
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