... there's quite a few ex-Army types here who get away with a level of profanity that would have seen them hauled before personnel/HR back in Blighty. The Germans seem to have accepted that this is perfectly normal for Brits.

My favourite phrase was some years ago when a German girl asked some guy to check something on our X25 network... His response after a cursory investigation: "The fuckin' fucker's fucked" :-)