Butchers Hook and Cleaver (Smithfields)

Colonel Manfred von Holstein, Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines

Guten tag, mein freunden. If I may, I am vanting to pose a few questions to you before I give my feelings for zis pub in Smissfields. So bear viz me, as you British are so fond of saying, no?

I am believing zat it is important that ve all put our cards on the table here, so as to speak? To help you viz ze appreciation of Colonel Manfred von Holstein's views.

After all, ve are all ze good friends now and I don't vant any – shall ve say – misunderstandungs. It vould be such a shame for our two great nations to be fighting once more; ve have so much in common.

So I vould ask you please to consider my friendly questions ….very…..very….carefully. Zey are in a rhetorical manner, I am believing.

Firstly, I am vondering if perhaps you are ze sort of person who is thinking that the Germans are all madness makers, ze bullet heads viz large vives who are vearing ze bosom-halters?

Maybe you are thinking zat, perhaps a man from ze fatherland is drinking in a pub close to Smissfields meat market because ve cannot be more zan ten yards from ze supply of brockwurst and knockwurst?

Or possibly, you regard me as a comedy figure Ja? Ze round German who is vearing a shiny uniform and pointy hat. A man who is one day dreaming of marching once more on Moscow in ze snow?

ENGLISHER SCHWEINHUNDS!!!

How dare you are to make zis assumptions about Colonel Manfred von Holstein! You know nichts, viz your high tea, and "hello, how do you do" and varm beer.

You dare to assault me viz unvorthy stereotypes and are laughing at my one performance in ze vintage aeroplane race to France? Britisher pig; you are not vorthy to lick ze hobnail boots of one so steeped in history and from such noble Deutschland stock.

Ya, I end up peddling ze vater. But zen Ja, I am ze German hero, flying by ze seat of my pants and an instruction manual - ja! How you English say – bluffing my vay to flying the damn plane across the vater….vater that so cruelly stopped our advance in 1940.

And if it hadn't been for ze damn bird – zis Englisher seagull - I might vell have taken the prize away from Yanky Doodle, not ended up tread ze vater from ze frame of my fine machine.

So it ends in shame and humiliation, you are thinking? Maybe I am vondering if zis is how you are seeing it.
 
(chuckling) you think I am making ze joke?…. Ja? ….. and now you are all driving ze German autos and getting beaten on ze penalty kicks in your own European football games. No so clever now are ve Tommy!!

Ja, Germans like me, ve are ze butt of ze cigarette jokes. You are not taking us seriously. Like the people in zis fine pub, viz its huge chandeliers and airy, curved bar that call me Fritz and Adolf and pretending to play instruments in ze oompah band

But one day, you will laugh no more schweinhunds. You vill be falling before the feet of heroes like Colonel Manfred von Holstein. And you, not me, vill be buying ze first pint of cool Carling in zis fabulous London bier kellar.

Manfred von Holstein's rating for The Butcher's Hook and Cleaver – 8 / 10

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