On Tue, 09 Dec 2003 09:16:53 +0100, Martin Hotze
wrote:

I say, a couple of your border guards can be real martinets.)

martinets?

A martinet is a person with police or military authority who makes a
point of using all of it, especially to incovenience people or for
self-aggrandizement.

It's how I came, one day, to be liable for the import tax on a bicycle
which I didn't own, since my roommate didn't speak the best German. No
argument to the contrary would phase him; he was bound and determined
to collect that import tax, even though the language on importation of
personal goods was very clearly explained, and the both of us were
very properly registered in a nearby Austrian town.

100 whole shillings, that time. I filed a complaint with the border
authority before I left the country. An official there explained that
it should never have happened at all.

Rob