There will now be a twenty minute interval!

I’ve just been informed – though not in my Dad’s letters – that the German word for “twenty,” is dangerously close in sound and pronunciation to the German Word for penis.

Apparently my wife invited the good people of Cologne to enjoy an “interval of penises” half way through her show last week.

I don’t know if she is winding me up or if it is in fact true………

Hang on, I’ll nip up the other end of the house and see what our German dictionary thinks about this……………

……..well, Collins was not easily forthcoming on the subject but with persistence I discovered that the two words are Zwanzig and Schwan, a clear difference on paper but for someone improvising a moment on stage and prone to a heavy lisp, I can see that there might be a problem.

She had previously been known to shout loudly at custom officials at Berlin airport who were trying to x-ray her – “I’m a snake, I’m a snake” instead of the more conventional “I’m pregnant”.

(“Schlange” and “Schwanger”).

I think these sorts of difference should be taught very early when you are learning a language, but rarely are. It would avoid………..

…………no, I take that back. We SHOULDN’T teach these things. The world is a much more interesting place when the French say “shit” when they mean ‘sheet”.

Does anyone have any more examples?

My Dad’s letter turned out to be an anticlimax in comparison to Krissie’s linguistic faux pas - revealing firstly how absent I was from the end of his life and how ill my mother was towards the end of hers.

I knew both of these facts and I didn’t really need reminding - though it is true that much of that period seems to be obscured by the steam and mist rising from Copenhagen.