As any of you who have been to the Belgian coast during the summer know, it’s not the place to go to get away from it all. Of course, a few spots of rain will leave you alone on de dijk – the promenade, and at low tide you can sing to the waves without attracting much attention.

I’ve given that earworm of a song by actor Tom Waes three months to fade, but “Dos Cervezas” – “Two Beers” – still plays in my head at unguarded moments. Tom fronts a TV show on channel één called Tomtesterom, in which he takes up challenges, including Hoe word je een sumoworstelaar – How do you become a sumo wrestler? and Hoe tem je een wild paard? – How do you tame a wild horse?

It’s the knock-on effects that are often overlooked. Take the longoverdue law banning smoking in the workplace. In recent years we’ve all passed office buildings with smokers huddled against the wind inhaling the last of their cigarettes before tossing the peuk – the fag-end into the gutter.

A little-known fact is that the word “accident” is one of the oldest in the English language. Whether the Dutch equivalent ongeval is equally old is for someone else to answer. Certainly, accidents have always seemed to be waiting to happen: there are buses to be fallen under and ladders to be fallen off.