A few years ago I made a documentary about some hare-brained military endeavour in the Second World War. And one of the octogenarian interviewees, who’d charged down a machinegun nest while armed only with a pearl-handled butter knife, told me, as is the way with all these wispy-haired old boys, that he’d done nothing special and that, if called upon, he felt sure the younger generation would do exactly the same thing.
That last bit surprised me because my dad certainly never thought I’d be capable of much in the way of bravery should Johnny German get uppity again. He figured I’d be too busy in my bedroom trying to put some meaning into Dave Greenslade’s lyrics even to notice.
And I certainly don’t believe
