Douches in Their Natural Above

There are actually guys like this in Tallinn too...unfortunately they are not held up to the rightful opprobrium that they seem to get in North America, say, and are in fact lauded here as being something to aspire to.

Indeed anyone who calls them out on their behaviour runs the risk of themselves being called a douche, and worse things than that.

Kinda sucks, huh_

Death of Summer in Estonia

I usually date the end of summer from two events, the swallows (and swifts, and martins) leaving, and the English Premier League starting.

 These two would usually more or less coincide in Britain; here in Estonia the swallows are sensible and have already been gone about a week and a half (at least that's the last time I saw any, anyway).
The Premier League however started today, and with an unexpected away win for Villa at Arsenal.

True, we had luck on our side with the reffing at least of one of the pens it seems, but start as you are going to finish, Villa. Three relegation battles in a row the last few seasons but this year the faith in Lambert and the young players is going to pay off I think.

Nonetheless, summer is definitely over :-(

Clarification On Yesterday's Post

Seems the debate between Martin Helme and Postimees' Abdul Turay I'd mentioned yesterday did take place after all, with Mr. Turay 'winning' by most accounts. Would be interesting to have seen footage of it.

Estonian Former President Speaks Out On Race Issue

Having said yesterday I wasn't going to write about politics, I've done gone done it again. Well noone's reading so it doesn't matter.

Former President of Estonia Arnold Rüütel, the first president after the reestablishment of independence in 1992, has spoken out against a conservative politician's remarks last week about black people in Estonia needing to be sent back whence they came.

Good for him (Rüütel) I say. He's an old guy and may not be up with the sensibilities of us younger, particularly ex-pat, residents here, but it's welcome anyway, especially since there seems to have been little or no reaction to the comments from the political elite here.

The conservative party which Rüütel is honourary chairman of, and which the original speaker, I won't dignify him with his name, belonged to, do not currently hold any seats in the Riigikogu (Estonian parliament) so one could dismiss them as the work of a fringe crank, whose daddy happens to be party chairman and a former Estonian ambassador to Moscow. On the other hand the coverage has given it the oxygen of publicity, so the cat is out of the bag, along with any other cliché
you care to mention.

For their part some of the prominent ex-pats here have aired their views; apparently Abdul Turay, a black British journalist here, was scheduled to have a closed debate with the author of the comments, and Stewart Johnson, a standup comic, had also put feelers out in this direction. Not sure what's happened on that front since then.

Kristina Ojuland Booted Out Of Reformierakond

I wouldn't normally blog about politics, particularly not Estonian politics although I try to keep tabs on what's going on.

The latest development has been the sacking of Kristina Ojuland, high flyer in the classical liberal Refomierakond (R-kond) or Reform Party here in Estonia.

The party forms the greater part of the coalition government and its leader Andrus Ansip has been prime minister of Estonia since 2005.

Ansip has already announced he will not be seeking reelection as party leader and so it would be sage to assume as prime minister either, but the party has been riven with scandal and back biting for the past year at least.

The principal incident was the sacking of former MP Silver Meikar for apparently blowing the whistle on illegal donations to the party (and we're not talking about mega bucks here) a scandal which also implicated Kristen Michal, former Justice Minister and something of the coming man within the party.

Whatever really happened, Meikar lost the engagement and was effectively branded a liar by the prime minister himself.

In this latest development Ms Ojuland, platinum-blonde representative of Estonia at the European parliament, former foreign minister and a long-serving member of R-kond was accused of vote rigging, concerning the casting of an e-vote from an elderly voter who in fact had no access to the necessary technology that would have enabled them to do so.

The election in question was an internal party affair rather than a national or regional one.

In a brief tit-for-tat, Ojuland pointed the finger at corruption within the party as a whole and gave her own press conference just yesterday before finally being shown the door.

I personally don't quite know who to believe, Ms Ojuland was no stranger to controversy and her tenure as foreign minister was tainted by the disappearance of some documents that were her responsibility. On the other hand, Ansip's style has been, at least since I've been in Estonia since 2009, notably authoritarian and uncompromising. John Major he is not.

Well, I said I wouldn't usually write on such issues so I´ll cut it short there, readers with Estonian might want to see this article, or in Finnish, or, er, in English.