Sky News - Eurovision

From Greg Milam, Sky News Europe Correspondent

Everyone’s trying to force Germany to send more troops to the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan – maybe they shouldn’t bother.

A report says Germany’s soldiers are too fat, don’t do enough sport, eat rubbish and smoke too much.

In fact, Reinhold Robbe, the parliamentary commissioner for the military, found that 40 per cent of soldiers aged between 18 and 29 are overweight, compared to 35 per cent of German civilians.

Rather politely he points out that it would be an "enormous advantage" on the battlefield if soldiers were in better shape.

Less politely, one officer described the army as "full of fatties, making us the laughing stock abroad where we're seen as overweight grumpy old men. Compared to the British, we're viewed as pathetic.”

In Herr Robbe’s “alarming results” he found that 70 percent of soldiers are regular smokers.

The defence ministry is looking at the results. Over a coffee and a bun, perhaps?

It was only last week that two German air force sergeants were reported to be facing court martial for trying to mass produce sausages from the blood of their comrades.

They’d already made some with their own blood and were caught when they tried to recruit fellow servicemen and family members. They told investigators they had “an interest in cookery”.

Maybe NATO’s foreign ministers, meeting in Brussels, are missing a trick in trying to persuade Germany to divert troops from the safe north to the dangerous south of Afghanistan.

Offer a free fry-up and some fags and they’ll be there like a shot.