The difference a letter makes

Now, before I start, let me tell you that the Croatian language is notoriously difficult & if by any unlikely chance that any one of you are planning to learn it, my advice is to forget about it. It is, unsurprisingly, not spoken by many outside Croatia, and thank God about that. You must all be scratching your heads now, wondering why the hell I'm telling you all this, so let me justify my reason in doing so.

Right, this incident took place only last month. You know the way when two nations play a football match, they always sing their respective national anthems before the match kicks off? (Bear with me all you non-football fans). This was right before the England vs Croatia game started. There was a famous English singer, Tony Henry, who was assigned to the unenviable job of singing the Croatian national anthem. Naturally, he didn't understand a word in Croat, and had learnt the anthem by heart. It all went smoothly until the last verse. He was supposed to sing 'Mila kuda si planina', which means 'You know my dear how we love your mountains'. Instead, he sang 'Mila kura si planina', with the only difference being the 'd' in 'kuda' was replaced by an 'r'. When translated, it meant 'My dear, my penis is a mountain'. Amazing ain't it?
So, you're probably wondering whether the Croatians are now calling for his head. Actually it's far from it. They think the blunder helped to relax their players, who were seen chuckling while singing their national anthem, and also believe that Mr Henry actually played a key role in defeating England on that fateful night. They've actually invited him to sing their national anthem during the upcoming Euro 2008 finals, saying he's a lucky omen!

Heck, we may actually see an Englishman during the tournament!