Latvia

As the voice of a bunch of curmudgeons, I periodically have to prove that people are actually reading what I publish. Happily, Blogspot.com gives me statistics on just such things. Unfortunately, it pretty much shows how few people give a crap about curmudgeon thinking, but the Societé is quite impressed when I show them all the international interest in curmudgeonry.

Out of all the countries in the world, Latvia popped up. Latvia. I vaguely knew it was Scandinavian or Eastern Block-ish, but the details of where it was and such escaped me, so I consulted my trusty iPhone. My hopes were that I could prove to a pile of curmudgeons that this was an important emerging market. 

Regrettably, the numbers told a sad story of simply being bored when you live within spitting distance of the arctic circle. The entire country of Latvia is about the size of Wisconsin with a population of somewhere under half of it.

The good news for the Societé, I quickly pointed out, was that Latvia was indeed an old-world type place (perfect match for curmudgeons), and Estonia, Lithuania and - dare I hope - Belarus couldn't be far behind.

Whooee.