Raptus Regaliter

Cologne is home to the broadcasting might of the RTL company. RTL (Radio-Tel Luxembourg) is what used to be radio Luxembourg, before it got smart, got with it, got into satellite, moved out from it's mum's and went off to the big wild city of Cologne. RTL now provides probably the biggest amount of satellite TV in Germany. You have to have it to watch "Big Brother", which we were all sick of long before Channel 4 even cottoned on and plunged rapidly down-market.

Those of you familiar with dear old Radio Luxembourg may take some cue from C4's rapid fall from grace as to the quality of RTL. It's good for films. It's bloody awful for anything else. Fortunately, unlike the UK, where satellite dominates, Cable is fitted to every block of flats, and all the main satellite channels are piped in, which means that there's usually something watchable going on. Abominable, bad taste, but watchable, in the same way as a slow-motion car-crash is watchable. Other channels are Pro Sieben (new crap), Sat Eins (slightly older crap), Kabel Eins (very old films), and VOX, which is nothing to do with the guitar amplifier. Vox seems to specialise in a poor mixture of the above, and naff unerotic porn.

Now, there was a time when I did not possess a television set, when I first came to Germany. I decided to rectify this once I had enough money. I promptly went out and bought myself a decent TV one lunchtime. This was noticed by a fair creature of Brazilian loveliness that frequented my german class, who had allowed me to take her to the cinema to see Hugh Grant woo Julia Roberts in a version of a London borough rendered strangely neuter by the lack of the smell of piss. She had not, as yet, allowed anything more than a chaiste kiss at the door of her apartment.

Angelina, for that was her name, approached me and my Television set, and said that perhaps it would be nice for the two of us to watch it together, to practice our German. The way she flashed her eyes made it clear that some practice of a totally different kind might just be on the offing, depending on my card-playing abilities.

So, the TV was duly installed and connected to cable. I and the Brazilian temptress with the flashing eyes, and, it must be said, the comedy spanish accent, went off to the local cafe for a light lunch, came back duly refreshed, and hit the books for a while. Then we decided to watch the TV.

On it came. On came Vox. A strange creature, peculiarly feminine, yet disturbingly masculine, swam into view. This, we learnt from the captioning, was named "Lilo Wanders". Certain attributes looked as though they had something in common with the product of a similarly-named company. Puzzled, we continued to watch, our vocabularies proving to be completely unprepared for what we were experiencing. "Lilo" was presenting a programme entitled "Wahre Liebe". The net effect was sort of a german version of Eurotrash presented by Danny La Rue, but far, far worse.

The strange creature disappeared, to be replaced by one even stranger. This one was obviously a woman, but had seen better days. Despite her age, this mutton was well and truly dressed as a lamb. A lamb that had spent far too much time watching Hammer Horror Movies and experimenting with unbelievable amounts of eyeshadow. This should have been warning enough, but unfortunately, my provincial upbringing and her catholic childhood in a Brazilian backwater just hadn't prepared us for anything like this. We sat transfixed by this woman, as she began to carve something out of a large raw potato with her inch-long nails. We were able to glean from the narrative that the woman was from New York, and she was some sort of sculptress.

An "erotic" sculptress.

Imagine our horror as this dreadful, dreadful sleazy woman proceeded to carve a penis out of the potato, claiming that she preferred the feel of a freshly-sculpted Maris Peer to anything that the local sex shop had to offer. Imagine the embarrassment as she hollowed out the inside so she could connect it to a squeezy bottle of mayonnaise, to simulate certain masculine biological functions. Imagine the utter loathing that set in as it was explained that she would, for a suitable fee, make an accurate model of a customer's organ in potato flesh, and then "Perform" with it for the customer's pleasure. Imagine that you'd just eaten a meal, the ingredients of which consisted of a substantial amount of potato and mayonnaise. Imagine the whole sexual act transformed into the most hideous, crude, unerotic pantomime, right in front of someone who you've been desperately wanting to Get Down To It With For Ages, extinguishing any spark of lust in both your loins.

Of course, we could have turned it off. The remote control was on the table, within easy reach of either of us. Of course, we should have laughed it off and got it on, and proven that it didn't have to be that way.

But the sheer unbelievability of it had gotten to us, and pinned us to the road like tiny rabbits in the lights of an oncoming juggernaut. An oncoming Juggernaut driven by a gothic nightmare and containing an unspeakable cargo of large dildos freshly sculpted from raw King Edwards.

After that, well, the moment had been killed stone dead, even accounting for hot latin blood. I walked Angelina all the way to her flat, but her only utterances were "..ay!" and "..weeth a Potato!".

I didn't even get a kiss at the door.

The relationship never really recovered from the blow. We had a few near misses, but somehow it just never really worked. I was allowed to take her to see the, frankly disappointing, remake of "The Thomas Crown Affair" featuring the disappointing Rene Russo and her equally disappointing breasts. (I cringed when she flopped them out on-screen) Finally Angelina decided she'd had enough of Germany and emigrated.

To New York.

I've a horrible feeling that she was trying to tell me something.

Doubtless many of you will also tell me that I'm sexually-repressed Brit in my comments box, and you'd probably be right, but I've more than made up for it since then.

Of course, if you really had any sympathy in your soul, then you'll go straight to here and express it by voting for me. And Newell, as well. I have no shame. Or chips and mayonaisse, for that matter.