A case of har har, Herr

The obstacles facing closer European Union were starkly illustrated by a story in the foreign pages this week. No, I don't mean the inflationary pressures which pushed the euro to a new low after near-panic selling on the Asian markets. I was thinking more of the one-paragraph item in Monday's paper, about a study in Berlin which suggests the standard EU condom is too big for German men.

As this is a family newspaper supplement, I'll deal with the issue as delicately as I can. But the survey included the finding that: "The average German [named body part] is about 3.5 mm to 4 mm too narrow for the standard EN600 condom." This led to the condom "falling off" half the men studied, according to the report, which added that the EN600 guidelines were set in 1996 to establish "a uniform standard across Europe".

I know my readers are mature enough to ignore the obvious parallels here with the European economic situation. Such as the traditionally low German inflation rate; or the well-known correlation between small [named body part] size and the possession of big, flashy national currencies.

I know also that you won't be making any comparisons between, for example, Britain's nervous reluctance to let go of the exaggerated fig-leaf that is sterling, and the confidence with which Ireland has whipped off its bath-towel and swaggered into the euro shower with the big boys.

And it's a good thing that we're not being flippant, because this is a serious issue to which I intend to return after I mention another recent story from the foreign pages, also sex-related.

This was the one in which a French science journalist and former trainee astronaut claimed NASA had conducted experiments to see which, if any, love-making positions were feasible in zero-gravity. He claimed the problem was tackled during one of NASA's four shuttle flights in 1996, when everything needed for such experiments was in place, including astronauts from all the main gender groups.

The claim - which appeared shortly after a NASA craft celebrated St Valentine's Day by orbiting an asteroid called Eros - was denied the very next day by the Americans, who said they had not conducted any such experiments and had no plans to do so. But whatever about NASA, one thing should be obvious: the French are doing it. They're probably conducting cooking experiments to see which cordon bleu recipes are feasible up there, as well. Indeed, I suspect the science journalist's claim was a ploy to flush out the opposition. With space tourism soon to become a reality, gravity-free love could be the next big thing, especially among the traditionally guilt-rich cultures, such as Catholics and Jews. Space tour operators will have slogans such as: "Fly with us and we guarantee you lose your baggage!"

France is well-positioned to exploit the new trend, having already colonised huge areas of Earth-bound sex. One only has to combine the adjective "French" with such harmless words as "kiss", "knickers", "letter", and "lieutenant's daughter", to see this. The French also pioneered the use of heavy breathing on a pop record (in the unlikely case you've succeeded in forgetting, it was called Je t'aime). And, for reasons I wouldn't even try to explain, the use of sexy French accents has become compulsory in the advertisement of Irish butter.

I need hardly add that the word "condom" also has a French origin; although, according to Norman Davies's Europe: A History, similar methods of contraception were used from ancient times. He quotes one Roman writer advising lovers to "wear the liver of a cat in a tube on the left foot". And while it was Renaissance man (probably) who identified the correct body part, at least the Romans were moving in the right direction.

The forerunners of the modern product were known as the "umbrella" or the "English overcoat" (for cold-weather sex, presumably); but, according to Davies, "it was the mysterious Captain Condom, said to have been either physician or commander of the guard at the court of Charles II" who gave his name to posterity. (In more recent times, the French rugby team included a forward called Condom, who was one of the reasons the Irish team never reproduced their training-ground moves in Paris.)

Which brings me back to the German problem - because the French are again responsible; indirectly, since it was Napoleon who patented the idea of a standard European fit from the Atlantic to the Urals. And I wonder if the French aren't more directly to blame.

The thing is, enjoyable as it would be, I can't believe the Germans are notably deficient compared with their European neighbours, especially their nearest ones. Could it be that EU-employed French scientists deliberately overestimated the diameter of EN600 as a plot to undermine the morale of France's most dangerous rival? Safe in the knowledge - or so it seemed - that no male anywhere would ever admit publicly there was a problem.

It's just a thought. It's hard to know what Napoleon would have made of the German difficulty, either way; but my guess is he'd be sympathetic. After all, as I revealed in this space recently, his own physique has been traditionally understated by a mistranslation of old French height measurements. His famous 5 foot 2 was the equivalent of 5 foot 6 in the Anglo-Irish system, as you know; EU standard size, for a man of his time.

Frank McNally can be contacted at fmcnally@irish-times.ie