Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

What I heard was that Engels and Marx were visiting alien noblemen. One had slighted the other somehow- I don't know, maybe Marx had looked at Engels cock-eyed or something. The custom of these aliens was choosing a distant planet to stage the duel, and instead of fighting with daggers, they use empires as their weapons. Engels the Alien chose Germany (and all its respective allies) and Marx the Alien went with Russia. The average duel of this alien species takes about a thousand years before one comes out on top, but this was a short, sharp quickie. It was finished after only a hundred: Marx the Alien won in 1945. The two of them, satisfied that they'd followed customs and procedures to the letter and their honour had been settled, then boarded their respective spaceships and went home just in time for tea.