Right, here goes

Back in the late 1980s, I was working for a large teaching hospital in Yorkshire with a world renowned neurological department. I'm no medic but had built up a useful working knowledge of the field through my job in the press office, I also still had fluent French at this time and rusty, though basic German.

Thus it was that I was sent to a week long conference in Strasbourg of the European Neurological Society as one of the delegation from our unit. And very educational it was too, in more ways than two. On the second night, I was down in the hotel bar chatting with some other delegates, acting as translator between a very attractive French neuro-surgeon from Brest called Nicole, a guy called Sandy that I'd met the previous day from Glasgow and Heinrich Ko - whose father was Korean and whose mother was East German. He was a fascinating guy, very bright but really short - I should think 5' 1" at most. As well as being a researcher at the university of Potsdam and one of the key men in E.N.S., he was also a 4th dan Shotokan Karate black belt and runner-up in the European championships the previous year.

The drink was flowing and I was doing my best to follow all the conversations as well as attempting to flirt with the lovely Nicole, but I could tell that both Sandy and Heirich were keen on her too. I had to go to the toilet and when I got back to the table, Sandy (who'd had a few more than the rest of us) was leaning over Nicole virtually dribbling down her top. I could see that Heirich wasn't too happy about this but his German protestations were not registering on the young Glaswegian. Then he prodded Sandy in the back and made his feelings clear.

"He says you should stop that and go to bed," I translated to Sandy.

"Tell him he's a short-arsed little Korean kraut and to mind his own business, will you?" he slurred as he slowly stood up and wobbled to his full 6' 2", red-headed, broad-shouldered maximum height.

At this point, Heinrich picked him up, carried him to the door, out of the hotel and taught him some manners. I guess Sandy hadn't reckoned on meeting such a wee 'ard Est-Ko inside ENS.

I thang you!
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Wed 15 Oct 2008, 10:49, Reply)