July hasn't been good for the Germans. Or the soap dodgers. Or Italian cars.

Last week the EU hit VW and BMW with $1.3bn of fines because they "illegally colluded to restrict competition on emissions-cleaning technology in diesel cars," EU Competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager told the world. Merc maker Daimler only avoided getting pinged because the company dobbed on the other two.

Now I realise to many of you a billion dollars sounds like a bit of money. But when you sell a combined $500bn a year worth of metal and your market cap is $290bn then it's probably not the end of the world. Well, it's not because VW's share price took a hit when the decision was announced and the next day screamed up 13 bucks. BMW's did much the same.

You remember Dieselgate. The EPA in the home of the freer than Sydney and Melbourne found VW, makers of Porkers, Audis, Bugattis, Lambos, Bentleys, Scania and many more had intentionally programmed the engine to make the emission controls only work when the cars were being tested. But John, surely they only did it in a few cars? No, 19 readers, one friend but no family, they only did it in over 11 million cars.

A federal grand jury indictment in 2019 says Audi execs realised there wasn't enough room in the vehicles to meet VW design standards for a large trunk and high-end sound system while holding a big tank for fluid to treat diesel emissions. So, they and co-conspirators designed software to cheat on emissions tests so they could get by with a smaller tank for the fluid. The music from the high-end sound system was super but nitrogen oxide emissions were up to 22 times above the US limit.

Volkswagen pleaded guilty in 2016 to criminal charges, a few top execs got the flick, a few down the line people went into permanent lockdown and the rest of the top brass in the universe's most profitable big carmaker just carried on.

Anyway, I said it had been a tough week for the Italians. Well, because one 25-year-old, who we suppose was of Italian descent, anticipated his country's stunning victory when players stood opposite a net and tried to get a big ball past a defender three times and hired a $350k Lambo Huracan in Birmingham. After the match, at exactly one minute past midnight, rent a car man found a very handy light post near a pub with hundreds of dejected but otherwise happy soapdodgers pouring out of a pub. Ten of Birmingham's finest fireys attended but there were no injuries except to the Lambo.