Don't mention the war

This is one of the few buildings in Bremerhaven not to have received a direct hit by our boys in the 1940s - a bit over-the-top yes, but a lot better than the 1960s ones to replace the others that did.

I have mentioned before that our friend there is an extreme anglophile (for some reason), so his bookshelf is about 50% pictorial guide books to Blighty and his cars are always British.

Another symptom of this condition is his obsession with the old British T.V. series, 'The Avengers'. He has a complete DVD box-set of every episode of 'The New Avengers', and we watched one episode there when we had a bit of time to kill in his flat, as he worked elsewhere.

The one we watched (with Joanna Lumley flashing her legs, etc.) was set in the Scottish Highlands, where a group of Nazis who had crashed during WW2 had set up a fake monastery on a small island, and had kidnapped a scientist to revive Adolph Hitler, whose intact body they had kept in a freezer since the end of the war.

I had a bit of trouble getting the DVD player to work, as it was controlled by two separate remotes in unison, but eventually we became engrossed in the ridiculous thriller and sat back for the 50 minutes it took to play.

Toward the end of the film, all the monks are gathered in a chapel with John Steed at the back, also dressed in a brown habit. The 'abbott' announces to the 'monks' that the body of the beloved Fuhrer was shortly to come to life, and they no longer needed to pretend to be anything other than what they really were.

They all take their habits off to reveal full military, Nazi uniforms and begin to chant "SEIG HEIL!" over and over again at the tops of their voices. It was a warm day, the windows to the flat were open and the volume was turned right up, so I rushed for the remote control to turn it down before the neighbours became worried, suspicious, or both. I picked up the wrong remote.

Those bloody Nazis carried on screaming "SEIG HEIL!" for about 2 minutes, with me desperately trying to turn the sound down or off, without success.

I wonder what Thomas's neighbours think of him now, and if he has been reported to the authorities...