In the first few minutes of The King’s Speech, Prince Albert Frederick Arthur George, otherwise known as Bertie, is utterly humiliated in front of 100,000 people in a packed stadium. If the man who would be crowned George the VI had come to the throne at an earlier time, he might have succeeded in impressing his people by doing little more than parading past in full dress uniform. Instead, at the beginning of World War II, the King has an enemy almost more menacing than Hitler himself – the radio.

Heard of Amdan? Maybe in school when friends shared a few crude jokes about him. Or maybe he was likened to someone who is tough, manipulative and crafty- someone you wouldn’t want to cross. While ‘Amdan’ is a popular slang word in Sinhala and Tamil language, its origins go far beyond the Indian Ocean; to about a century ago in troubled Germany.