The last entry to my lowly blog attracted far more attention than I am used to.
Visits to my blog have been tripled all week.
I received a number of mails, my text was quoted on various sites, discussed and often distorted.
A number of people have done their damnedest to prove that they have no humour whatsoever and on more than one occasion, I felt compelled to try and explain what I was trying to say.

Here is an explanation that I wrote yesterday ...

Hi Graham

Thanks very much for your views on my blog.
My last entry drew a number of comments.
As you perhaps saw, one guy suggested I might be a functional analphebet. (He meant illiterate, of course, but otherwise his english is pretty good.)
I was being ironic about the fact that pamphlets urging people to protest against foreigners are posted through the letterboxes of said foreigners.
I did not expect to be quoted on so many sites.

The figures I used are the figures quoted in the SVP-pamphlet. They were provided by the Swiss federal police and are presumably accurate, I read the same figures in a number of newspapers. Admittedly, I deliberately exaggerated the facts to present what a foreigner or a Blick/Bild/Sun-reader may have understood. The way that some Brits and Americans I've spoken to did understand them.

It is a sorry fact that the English speaking nations find German a difficult language to master, as do Turks, Yugoslavians or Thai. Most Brits, however, do try to understand the newspapers and the rubbish that lands in the letter box, some literature gets misinterpreted though. I know a number of expats who found the pamphlet displeasing. Two even returned it to she SVP with a letter of protest.

As for Brits abroad, if you had travelled to Mallorca a few years ago, it would have been the Germans who left the bad impression while during the same period the Brits were rendering the Canary Isles unsafe and the Dutch some Greek Islands.
I think large numbers of young tourists of any nation promote the mutual feeling, that rompish spirits may be presented without retribution. I am speaking from limited (but unpleasant) experience, as I only rarely visit mass-tourist-resorts.

The fact that a Welsh flag flies outside 'my' house is also meant ironically.
Every second house up here on 'my' hill has a Swiss or Appenzeller flag flying. I find it amusing to present a different coat of arms.
My neighbours, of course, haven't caught on to the humor - they put it down to national pride and possibly think I'm not quite doing my best to 'fit in'.
The flag wasn't presented in Wales, because it would be just as witless as flying a Swiss flag here.*

I have lived on the continent for long enough to know what any European means, when he says "not that kind of foreigner". Still, people stand at pub bars and rant about foreigners without taking into account the fact, that they are standing next to one. I am permanently aware of the fact that I am - almost everywhere - a foreigner. Sitting or standing next to one of those ranters does not make for a comfortable evening. It can make an interesting afternoon in a sunny beer garden. I do, however, often feel an urge to protest.

I understand the sentiments that lead a 'neutral' country to play bank to Mr. Hitler. They have been condemned all too often in various publications. 
I'm glad to say WWII was long before my time and I don't see any purpose in prolonged pointing of fingers towards Switzerland, or even Germany for that matter.
I did mention the SVP being 'not-quite-national-socialist' in connection to Hitler when, on reflection, I should have stayed with the fact that five of the last seven titel-pages of their monthly magazine have carried anti-foreigner slogans.
No wonder the right-wing-radicals want to take over the Rütliwiese!**

Exaggeration of facts is part and parcel of irony.
You will find similar exaggeration in many of my other articles.
I'll do my best to present something just a little more pleasing the next time I sit down to write ...

*Witless: Without humour
**The Rütliwiese is the meadow (not a mountain as stated in an earlier post) where the official celebrations are held on the Swiss national holiday. It is supposedly the place where three Swiss gentlemen swore:
"We will be a single nation of brothers". The Swiss national myth.