You may have read this in the Guardian about the 'accidental' invasion of Liechtenstein by Switzerland. The British press may be downplaying the story but we, on Continental Europe, are taking the matter very seriously. Europe cannot afford another Swiss Liechtenstein war.
As an EU spokesperson said, "The European Union was created to bind France and Germany together and prevent future conflict. The fact that Switzerland and Liechtenstein have repeatedly refused to join is regrettable."
Of course Swiss/Liech relations have been soured for years. Switzerland, or Greater Liechtenstein as the Liechs prefer to call it, have made countless incursions across the border - farmers looking for a lost cow, the odd panzer division looking for a lost mascot. And the Liechtenstein army, or Kurt as he's known to his friends, refuses to even acknowledge there's a border.
But what makes this latest incursion different is the rhetoric. Yesterday Kurt denounced the Swiss for yet again failing to ratify the Army Knife Proliferation Treaty. "How many different blades do you need on an Army knife?" he asked.
Meanwhile, in Switzerland, the Toblerone factories have switched production to the extra large family size Toblerone bars after discovering they made excellent tank traps. As one EU minister said, "a chocolate curtain is being erected across Europe. Nothing will be the same any more."
Now Liechtenstein have retaliated by placing all Swiss cuckoos under clock arrest.
Milk will be spilt...
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Newly declassified documents revealed this week that the Ministry of Defence recruited psychics during the Iraq War. They were used, according to an unnamed MoD source, to help look for WMDs, Osama bin Laden and new donors for the Labour Party.
Following standard government procurement policies, as used so successfully when compiling the 'dodgy dossier,' the MoD looked to the internet and with the help of GCHQ (or 'Google' as it's known in defence circles) they contacted twelve 'psychics' who advertised their services online. All twelve refused - even Miss Whiplash, a psychic dominatrix whose webpage proclaimed, 'I know what you want and when you want it.'
But she did not want to work for MI6 - she raked in far more working for the CIA on special rendition cases.
So the MoD lowered their sights and trawled the newspapers, bingo halls and window adverts until they filled their quota and hired a dozen volunteer psychics.
Being a government department subject to budgetary oversight, the MoD decided to test the 'Psychic Dozen' first. The first test involved sitting blindfold in a room and trying to 'see' objects hidden inside an envelope. A staggering 92% guessed the contents correctly - a letter. Thinking that the first test might have been too easy, the MoD substituted the letter for a variety of different objects and repeated the tests with pictures of Mother Theresa, an 'Asian Individual,' and a knife. Four of the psychics 'saw' weapons of mass destruction and were promoted on the spot. Another, Mystic Betty from Croydon, saw a tall, bearded man in a cave. An excited official rushed into the room. 'Whereabouts? Can you see where the cave is?' he shouted.
Mystic Betty concentrated harder. 'It's difficult,' she said. 'I'm seeing the letter L - does the letter L mean anything to you?'
'Laden?' shouted the excited official. 'Can you see Bin Laden?'
'Yes,' said Betty, 'I can see him clearly. He's talking to one of the Lizard People.'
'Lizard People?'
'Yes," said Betty. 'You know, the race of alien superbeings who live in the hollowed out core beneath the Earth's crust and from there manipulate the entire course of human history.'
Strangely, the tests were halted at that point. Presumably because they were getting too close to the truth.
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Once in a while you discover something so unexpected, so startling, that everything else has to be put on hold. For me, yesterday was such a day because I found something out about my father that had been a secret for over sixty years. And, in doing so, solved an age-old family mystery.
If only it hadn't taken sixty years...
So, yesterday I noticed a lot of hits on my website coming from a BBC site. I clicked on the link and tried to track down the source. No luck. But I did find an unexpected reference to a Dolley and HMS Bulldog. My father had been career Navy - a CPO when he died, he'd attended Naval school from the age of 11, enlisted at 15 and went to war at 19. And I was pretty sure that he'd served on HMS Bulldog.
So I clicked the link. And found an interview with an able seaman from the Bulldog talking about the North Atlantic convoys and the day they captured the German submarine U-110. My father was listed as one of the eight men mentioned in despatches for their part in capturing the submarine.
I was amazed. I'd known that my father had been 'mentioned in despatches' but had never been able to track down what for. His service record didn't say - which the MOD admitted was strange - and he'd never spoken of it. My mother had told me that once, after a large amount of drink, he'd started to tell her about something he did that had saved a lot of ships but he'd denied it all the next day and insisted she never speak of it again. He died in 1960 and the secret went with him. Until yesterday.
I Googled 'Bulldog' and 'U-110' and found the answer. My father was one of the nine men who retrieved the Enigma machine. The machine whose capture led to the unravelling of the German Enigma code. Which, for those who don't know, is widely regarded as one of the turning points of WWII. They even made a film about it - U 571. Admittedly the facts were lost somewhere between reality and the producer's brain but it was still a film based upon those actual events.
I kept reading. In May 1941 U-110 had been attacking a convoy when it was engaged by the destroyer HMS Bulldog, damaged by depth charges and forced to surface. Unable to use its main guns HMS Bulldog steamed in to ram the U-boat. The German crew abandoned the damaged sub leaving the enigma machine still connected as the captain believed the sub was about to be rammed and would certainly sink. But the captain of the Bulldog, realising the possibility of capturing the U-boat intact, veered away at the last instant.
A five-oared whaler - a large rowboat - was lowered by hand from the Bulldog and nine men were sent to take the sub. In rough seas they rowed across to the sub and using boat hooks attempted to grab alongside. The weather was so rough that the whaler broke up against the sides of the sub. But all nine men managed to clamber aboard and strip the slowly sinking sub, throwing the material - including the Enigma machine and code books - to another whaler that pulled alongside. They then tried to secure a towline from the Bulldog but the tow snapped. Which was lucky as Bulldog had to break off to engage another U-boat. The nine men battened down the now listing and slowly sinking sub as best they could and remained on board for another five hours while HMS Bulldog and HMS Broadway engaged a further six U-boats.
When the Bulldog returned, a towline was secured and the destroyer was ordered to make for Iceland. The next day the Admiralty changed their minds and ordered the sub to be 'accidentally' scuppered in case the German's discovered its capture. All the men involved in the action were sworn to secrecy. A secret that some of them took to their grave.
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