Malta

"Britain has fewer road deaths by number of cars than any of the other 27 countries in the European Union, apart from Malta," according to Alexander Chancellor writing miserably about his fate at the hands of the fuzz when he was caught on a drink-driving charge. Never mind about the point he was going on to make, I was stalled from reading on a for a while at the name "Malta".
I was on holiday there some years ago and three things struck me: it seemed like a country that had at some time in the distant past been part of volcanic fallout - there wasn't a blade of grass to be seen anywhere, the ground was like shale, no fields, no bushes, can't remember if there were trees. Secondly, the place was full of crooks trying to sell you "time shares" - one young chap came up to me and asked me to dip my hand in his bag to see if I would be lucky; I did and he immediately told me with great delight that I had won a holdiay to the Caribbean. "Just pop in the house down there and...." "They'll try to sell me a time-share place" I put in. He shook his head and went on to explain something but I said, handing him back my Caribbean prize "Here, you have the holiday in the Caribbean." Thirdly, I remember the cars there. They all seemed fifties and sixties - if not earlier - British cars which were just about roadworthy. Everyone drove like maniacs but, as Chancellor says, there were few accidents. One of the reasons is, I believe, that there are no traffic signals; when they arrived at a cross roads they gave way to bigger vehicles. Simple way to clear up road casualties: no traffic signals.
O yes, there is another thing I remember about Malta, something that killed off what little socialistic principles I had retained from my youth, the state red wine. It's was about 50p per bottle and it was dreadful stuff. I thought "if the state can't do better than this then something's wrong with the state."