Berlin

I loved those two books!

Not at all. I entirely deprecate all irving.

Why?

Just a joke, ordalie: treating Irving Berlin not as a personal name but as the grammatical equivalent of Praising Berlin or Avoiding Berlin. I irve, you irve, he irves; we irve, you irve, they irve. Not irve.

By the way, the combination of a French person, Germany back then and a pun encourages me to repeat a joke gathered from France by the late lamented Miles Kington, jazz musician and humorous writer.

It is just after the Second World War. Two former German officers who were stationed in Paris for part of the war have fond memories of the place and would love to holiday there, but realise Germans might not be flavour of the month there. So they decide to pretend to be English. They buy English clothes (they must have had private means, these guys, as even former officers were a bit short of cash in 1945-6 Germany) and they practice their English assiduously. Finally they're ready to go to Paris. They arrive and see a pleasant small cafe. They go in.

"Do you speak English?" one asks the waiter.

"Of course," he replies.

"Two martinis, please!" the German says.

"Certainly," says the waiter. He sets off, but looks back and asks:

"Dry?"

"Nein, zwei!" the German replies.

By the way, for this story I also need to describe life in the 1930s British Diplomatic Corps. I think I can get the culture pretty well, but the internet hasn't been as helpful as I'd hoped on titles and positions. I've got the basics on CURRENT job titles and roles, but they may have changed. Any info would be appreciated.