dazu noch eine nette geschichte über die gastgeber (wie üblich von hier ) +++ SAUR KRAUT

What with the World Cup set to kick off (Fiver frantically checks wallchart, only to find it's been replaced by a poster of Claude Makelele's missus) some time soon, there were all manner of press conferences in Germany today. But not many of them can have been as feisty as the one involving the host team. By the time the Fiver tuned in, captain Michael Ballack was looking more flustered than Boris Becker in a restaurant cupboard, as local hacks interrogated him over the calf injury that'll keep him out of the tournament opener against Costa Rica. The exchange went like this:

Ein hack: "I said, captain?" Ballack: "I said, wot?" Ein Hack: "I said, captain?" Ballack: "I said, wot?" Ein hack: "I said, captain?" Ballack: "I said, gott im Himmel wot do you want?"

OK, that's not verbatim. But the next bit is. Except that it was in German, obviously. Unless all those TV films are right and there's no such thing as other languages: foreigners really do all just speak to each other in heavily-accented English. Anyway ... +++