Always beware the Hun in the sun

World Cup fever is spreading; much to C's and my own surprise, we bought a hulking big German flag yesterday while out shopping for other things. Yes, it was dirt cheap, but it still felt a strange thing to do. Cultural conundrum, I s'pose; Germans in general aren't usually seen waving our flag around, not even on bank holidays or anything like it. Slap a bumper sticker with the black, red and gold stripes on the back of your car and you'd be singled out as a Nazi instantly. I kid you not - that's how paranoid "we" are about any national symbols. So, in a sense, it feels good to now have a big German flag residing next to my (even bigger) Union Jack in the flag cupboard. Not sure what C thought about it - it was her suggestion to buy the thing! Who knows, maybe this world cup thing can help Germany recover from at least a part of its national identity crisis? Now, wouldn't that be interesting? This here (courtesy of boystoys.co.uk) probably won't help us overcome our paranoia, though I do find it very amusing. I wonder what the world would say if us Germans started producing that kind of "propaganda materials" with other people's flags on? Culture, eh?