We could use some German efficiency

THE Germans think of everything.

Someone said this in an advert on Irish television more than 20 years ago. Extensive research (Google and asking around) doesn’t yield a precise answer to what the ad was for. I remember it may have been said by a woman in a suggestive put-a-bit-of-butter-on-the-spuds-Andre kind of way.

The words pop into my head as a reassurance whenever I’m struggling to operate some sort of mechanical doodah. If the contraption has the reassuring GMBH or AG imprinted on the shiny metal surface near the manufacturer’s name then I know it’s made in Germany in a factory run by a stout man with a moustache who plans on retiring to West Cork. Whatever difficulty I’m having getting it to work is probably my fault. The doodah I’m wrestling with now is the lever that turns a train seat into bunks beds. We’re in our compartment on the overnight train from Paris to Munich.