Man of the People

A startling, in-depth piece of investigative journalism by those tabloid trashbags at SL Õhtuleht has revealed that the Estonian president, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, is up to his eyeballs in debt - having run up millions of kroons in car, home and property loans from a variety of banks and credit institutions. Placing him in pretty much the same boat as every other upper-middle class Estonian.

My advice to him would be: make use of SMS loans while you can. There have been rumblings - from those who clearly don't need them - that such 'dial-a-dollar' schemes are subversive and wrong, but come on, think of the convenience! Next time the president is at Säästumarket and realises his almost 85,000 EEK monthly salary won't be enough to cover his value pack of cheesy wieners, all he need do is make a quick call and voila! They'll be exploding in the fire quicker than you can say "he'll be paying them off for months to come at a ridiculously exhorbitant rate of interest".