Tuesday, 6th September 2005.

"Yes you did, you invaded Poland!"

Yesterday afternoon, John was telling us about a less-than-pleasant encounter he'd had with a cantankerous German author, who'd labelled him 'unprofessional'. Said author had received a PDF of the proofs of his article, and was dissatisfied with some of the layout - problems that had occurred largely due to his own sloppy work. John had tried to resolve them as best as he could, but this particular academic just wasn't playing ball.

"Personally, I just think the man's disgruntled because he knows we won the World Cup."
"Oh, not that old chestnut," I said with an overly theatrical sigh. "When are people going to give it a rest? The simple fact is that Germany's played uniformly better football over the past forty years, and all we have to go on is the odd exception. We were the underdogs, and we've never let them forget about it."
"I suppose so."
"Besides, do you really think that the German football fans lie awake at night commiserating over one of the few times we managed to beat them? 'Klaus? Klaus, vot is it?' 'Oh, I cannot sleep, Dieter. It is zis '66 thing. Vot did that idiot Schon think he was doing?'"
"Ah," said Davida. "But that's not all, is it?"
"How do you mean?"
"That's not our only victory over them."
"I suppose not. But don't forget that World War II wasn't really fought against Germany in as much as it was fought against Nazism."
"That can't be said of the Great War, though, can it?"
"No," said John. "That was the assassination of...now, wait a minute, what was his name...Ferdinand, the Duke - "
"Franz Ferdinand?" I interrupted.
"That's it, yes!"
"Brings a whole new meaning to the words 'Take Me Out', doesn't it...?"