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So we got an e-mail from a PR, offering up “an
id theft expert” who “is available for interview or expert comment on any
stories you have regarding id theft or fraud”.

But, I wrote back, how do we know he is who
he says he is?

Unsurprisingly the PR didn’t get my little
joke.

But it made me chuckle.

Our brothers and sisters over on the Daily
Star (We’re the Daily Star Sunday, remember) are having uproarious fun with the
Germans, after claiming their new all-black World Cup kit may have
unfortunate historical overtones.

The German tabloids love this tongue-in-cheek
xenophobia as much as we do and so have not hesitated to fan the flames.

Two facts emerge: one is that Bild’s man in
London has a top sense of humour, ordering our lads to “Send me ze e-mails!”

And that one German insult for us Brits is “fish-and-chip
heads”.

See? 
Every day’s a school day.

Just to bang on about Afghanistan for a
change.

Hamid Karzai made all the right noises this
week: reconciling the low-level Taliban, stopping corruption, blah blah blah.

He talks a good game – particularly when he
wants many millions of pounds from the west.

But you have to doubt whether he can
deliver.

Judge him by his actions, like reappointing
the controversial Abdul Rashid Dostum as the much-ballyhooed Afghan National Army’s
Chief of Staff.

OK, Dostum’s the leader of the Afghan Uzbeks so
you might have to deal with him, but should such a job go to a man who once
punished a thief by tying him to the tracks of a tank and ordering the driver
to put his foot down?

And Karzai didn’t cover himself in glory
when Irishman Michael Semple was thrown out of the country.

Mr Semple, a UN Afghan expert working on
just the sort of reconciliation schemes which are now all the rage, gave his
version of events on the BBC this week.

You can still catch it here– well worth a
listen.

PIc Caption: Would you throw this beard out of Afghanistan?

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