We read:
"The captain of the Oceana had enough. "We don't want that kind of Germanic behavior," Christopher Wells joked to his mostly British passengers about the squabbling over deck chairs on his cruise ship. In today's politically ber-correct days, such staples of British humor are verboten. Mr. Wells now stands accused of racism.
The two-week Caribbean cruise almost ended in a brawl last month. Some holidaymakers infuriated other guests by using towels to reserve deck chairs, otherwise empty, for hours. Such behavior is, in the British holiday imagination, firmly associated with Germans, who are reputed (fairly or not) to have pioneered this use of the towel to hog prime suntanning spots....
The Oceana's captain must by now regret what he probably considered an innocent jest but for which he was forced to apologize. Some of the passengers reported the skipper (who has a German wife) to the U.K. Human Rights Commission.
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