Winder’s personal asides delight me and often express a curious ambivalence towards things he tries to disdain.   The marzipan lamb even comes with its own photo in his book, and the caption, ‘Here is a photo of him admiring a little matchbox portrait of Kaiser Wilhelm II’. I would have eaten it (the lamb, not the portrait of the Kaiser).

‘Convulsed with self-hatred, I bought a marzipan lamb with a facial expression of such happy imbecility that it had to be brought home.’

See the quote-mosaic review of this wonderful, lively, engaging book.  

Source: Simon Winder, Germania (London, Picador, 2011), p. 324