Pav’s Patch; Live life on the edge - go to Serbia

IS health and safety getting you down? Would you like to visit a city where all the boring rules we have to adhere to are broken on a daily basis?

Then can I recommend Belgrade, the capital of Serbia?

I was there a short while ago, and while I must stress from the start that the people couldn’t have been lovelier, it was an incredible place.

Want a no-smoking table in a restaurant? No problem, just don’t be surprised if people take no notice of the signs.

My first brush with the lack of health and safety measures came on my second day there — when I almost fell down an open manhole. Work was going on in Republic Square, one of the city’s main focal points, but no one had bothered to put out so much as a cone.
Taking a car ride, I automatically went to put on my seat belt, only to be told: “No, leave alone. Is Serbia.” “I’ve seen you lot drive,” I replied. “I want my belt on.”

The Serbs are a truly amazing people, and never more so than behind the wheel. Normally a very polite and friendly bunch, they really lose it when they start to drive. They scream and shout, and screech up to zebra crossings, stopping millimetres from the pedestrians.

I asked my friend if we could take a look at the British military cemetery and he stopped and prepared to reverse. A horn immediately blared and he shouted back something about the other driver’s mother and her pet dog. He’d have been attacked over here.

One of the most interesting places I visited was the Tito Museum. Considering he was a communist dictator, Tito didn’t live a bad life. He and Mrs T dined every day at a long table, eating food off Dresden china. They were so far apart they must have used megaphones to communicate.

And the gold! There is a huge room full of solid-gold items which were given to the marshal as he moved around the world living a millionaire lifestyle.

There are huge cars, too, and uniforms covered with gold braid. And yet he won every election with at least 99 per cent of the vote.

While I was there, a curator was delighted to learn I was from Manchester — Bobbee Chalton (no mention of Beckham) — and he gave me a CD. It is a sort of 50 Tito Golden Greats. Songs like “Comrade Tito We Devote Our Lives to You.”

As you might imagine, it’s never been off the record player.