Do you remember that moment when a famous American tele-evangelist ruffled feathers in his church community as he was caught driving on the wrong side of the road with a prostitute in his car? I've often wondered which transgression Jimmy Swaggart's church judged to be the more despicable: driving on the 'wrong' side of the road or being accompanied in that misdemeanour by a woman of ill-repute.

The world easily divides into places that drive on the right and those that favour a 'keep left' rule of the road. Europe falls, on the whole, into the first category, although there are four member states in the European Union where those of a sober disposition try, on the whole, to keep to the left: Cyprus, Ireland, Malta and the United Kingdom.