Gerd Meuer mit Nobelpreisträger Wole Soyinka
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“We are not going to bomb Heidelberg,
because we are going to make it our
headquarters after the end of World War Two”

Wole is reading again in the most sympathetic of German cities, in Heidelberg. And before his evening performance we have dinner at the very popular Italian estaurant next-door. We have to wait for our meal. Suddenly Wole exclaims – discreetly – “Look at the woman there!” 
I see one of the waitresses, a blond Italian: “Yes, she must be eight months pregnant”, her tummy protruding prominently.
”No, I don’t mean that. Look at her backside!” 
I look at her backside, and sure enough there it is: a truly... African backside. I have been back to that same restaurant several times since, but I have never seen that woman again... I am sure she is a good Italian ‘mamma’.
Instead... when I was there the last time, this time without Wole, I had to go to the loo. And whom did I see on my way to the ‘conveniences’? A lonely eater, who let his Pasta in front of him go cold. This was because the young guy with a crew-cut was deeply immersed in a paperback book. Being the journalist that I am I took a close look at the title of the book he was reading.  
The cover said: “Understanding Irak”. When I came back from the loo that non-eater was still deeply immersed in his book. I told my un-believing friends about my discovery’, and since they thought that I had made the story up I sent them all to the loo. They all DID go, and came back confirming my discovery.
Heidelberg still being the European H.Q. of US military operations in Europe, the Near east and what-have you, I assumed that the boy from Oklahoma, Wisconsin or Northern Virgina was having his final pasta before being flown out next day to BAGDAD from near-by ‘Ramstein Air Base’.