I HAVE an appeal for information. On my travels around the Baltic States, I keep seeing these things in the rooms in which I stay - smoke detectors. Nothing strange in that, but I have noticed that they all seem to be still in their packaging.

If you look closely, you’ll see that the plastic casing around the smoke detector is intact, which rather mitigates against its ability to detect any smoke. I’ve witnessed this same phenomenon in all three Baltic States and have drawn up two possible explanations:

1. Guest house owners know that they have to install smoke alarms but don’t know how to do it properly.
2. Guest house owners know perfectly well how to install smoke alarms but don’t like the bother they cause when they go off, so leave them in their plastic cases.

In each case the smoke alarm has been prominently positioned, switched on, its little red light winking at you in sinister fashion throughout the night.

Is this a classic case of complying with EU safety regulations in letter but not in practice (i.e. they are installed and functioning, but just happen to be inside plastic sheaths)?

Or is there a more innocent explanation? All suggestions welcome.

IT’S ALL the rage to have a slogan for your business these days, as if the fact that you are called ‘Pete’s Plumbers’ isn’t enough to convey the basic concept of being a plumber called Pete and therefore available to unblock sinks, plug in washing machines etc.

The 21st century equivalent would be something along the lines of ‘PP Liquid Redirection Solutions - Liberating The Community’s Pipes‘.

Baltic Features has been lacking a mission statement so far. The obvious one is Making A Living By Writing but it somehow lacks the necessary idiot-grinning, forward-thrusting positivity.

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Spot the pedestrian

Q. How do you know when you’re in Riga’s pedestrian zone?
A. If you’ve just been run over by a car, you’re in it.

Luckily (for me, not sure about for you), I have not been run over by a car. However, I am getting fed up of having to dodge the traffic in the Old Town’s alleged fussgangerzone.

Walking in the pedestrianised zone is not advisable. Latvians obey an unwritten law that dictates that the emptier the street, the faster you must drive along it. Because the traffic in the pedestrian zone is slightly thinner, it is also slightly faster. On narrow cobblestone streets with no road markings.

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