We don't need another hero

After hundreds of drunken children were found stumbling around the Song Festival Grounds during the Õllesummer festival despite City Hall's crusade to save them from unethical traders, Jaanus Mutli has decided that it's all the organisers fault. "We did everything we could," he said*, "but it just wasn't enough. And now measures are going to have to be taken." And there is, of course, only one man to take them. Mutli outlined the uncompromising steps Tallinn is set to take to safeguard the future of its innocent and impressionable young citizens in a press release issued today: "The organisers are really going to have to think about setting an age limit in future."

This, needless to say, didn't sit well with the organisers, who, like I said, have been working hard to market the festival as more of a family event of late. However, their reaction was possibly not as helpful as it may have been, considering their alleged target audience. "It's nobody's fault but the parents'," declared festival director Marje Hansar. "They've obviously raised their children appallingly if they're letting them go about getting drunk. I can't be expected to take responsibility for them." She has a point, although blame in the first instance surely has to be laid at the feet of the kids themselves? Bugger not being responsible for their own actions in the eyes of the law.

Not that there's much point in playing the blame game, as our Jaanus has a point and all. Õllesummer is exactly what it says on the tin: a beer festival. You can dress that up as much as you like with sausages in buns and balloons and concerts for all ages, but it doesn't change the fact that the whole thing is founded on something which is meant to be illegal to supply to anyone under the age of 18. Now I'm not much bothered either way; kids are always going to want to try things they're told they're not allowed to, and they'll always find ways of doing it, so you're faced with a choice: make it an 18+ festival on principle, or abandon all pretence and just let people get on with it.

* Or words to that effect: all 'quotes' appearing in this article are rendered in a paraphrased and exaggerated style for dramatic effect.

Protecting the children of Estonia

Hot on the heels of the folk festival for wee ones, Õllesummer, Estonia's answer to Oktoberfest, comes to Tallinn's Song Festival Grounds this Wednesday for five days of beer, food and concerts. It is arguably the most popular festival on the Estonian calendar, drawing people from all over the country, elsewhere in the Baltic States, and beyond. This year's programme is an impressive list of local artists - including, appropriately enough, Tanel Padar, who was caught drink driving by police last weekend. ("I sincerely regret it," he revealed in a heartfelt press statement. Hard to tell whether he means driving under the influence or being caught doing so.)

A glance at the line-up for the final night of the festival is a good indicator of how it's being marketed these days: while most of the other concerts are predominantly rock and alternative, the big guns for the finale are an early evening performance by the country's newly crowned, first ever Pop Idol, and a tribute to ABBA. You see, attempts have been made in recent years to turn Õllesummer into more of a 'fun for all the family' event rather than just a great big piss-up, but this in turn presents its own problems.

Recent studies revealed that the average age at which Estonian children get their first taste of hard liquor is something like 11 or 12, with most claiming to have experienced a hangover or worse from excess consumption of alcohol by 15. Beer in this country is sold in plastic bottles that make it look remarkably like soft drink, and is available in just about every kiosk. Ditto breezers and such. Basically, alcohol is everywhere and kids clearly get their hands on it at absurdly young ages.

But parents who are worried about packing their kiddies off to Õllesummer - the same kids who were only there the other day in their knee socks and knickerbockers - lest they act like every other 12-year-old in Estonia and head straight for the beer tents need fear no more. Tallinn's Vice-Mayor, the tasty Jaanus Mutli (pictured), has reassured the mothers and fathers of the land that while he is in City Hall, no child shall get wiped out on Saku Originaal.

Mutli will be unleashing a herd of inspectors from the Consumer Protection Division of the City Enterprise Department on the festival to carry out raids on unscrupulous vendors. It will be interesting to see whether the Vice-Mayor and his team employ the same tactics as Mutli himself did recently in exposing the underbelly of Tallinn's taxi trade. He and the then Mayor, Jüri Ratas, donned wigs, fake moustaches, fake tan and lots of designer labels in black and pretended to be Italian business men for a couple of days, seeing how many taxi drivers would rip them off. (Answer: most of them.) Amusingly, the pair allowed themselves to be photographed in their disguises, presumably for posterity. They looked like knobs. Proved a point, though.

It just makes me wonder whether the Mutli crew will be employing their underage offspring and neighbours' children to see if they can get away with buying beer without being asked for ID. What a coup it would be.