German in a jam

SIR – A while back, I asked the European Commission the tongue-incheek question whether we back home in Germany would be allowed to call our jam Marmelade again as a sweetener to overcome the bitter aftertaste of Brexit.

To this the Commission prosaically replied more than a month ago that they did not have any plans at present to change to the directive in question, and I left it at that.

You can imagine my surprise when I saw that The Daily Telegraph had turned this rather innocent banter into a story about an angry German demanding his Marmelade back (report, July 11). Rest assured that I am rather fond of marmalade (the British version of it), that I even like Marmite, your sense of humour and all the rest of it, and that I shall be sad to see Britain leave the EU.

After this experience we shall duly abort any attempts to export our sense of humour and go back to exporting cars instead.

Jakob von Weizsäcker MEP Brussels, Belgium