After hanging in Japan I flew to Germany. Unfortunately there’s only two ways to get from Tokyo to Stuttgart. One is via HEL, which in February I thought might be a recipe for getting snowed-in, and the other is via hell. OK it’s not that bad, but after my last experience I was wary.

The fun part is you get to fly over Russia, which if you think about it is completely insane. Forty odd years ago you’d have been in a U2 getting shot down. Even if Russia has friendly skies I’m still not sure I’d like to land, it looks pretty freakin inhospitable down there.

In the end the flight was pretty good, and I didn’t get stuck for two days at Heathrow, which was nice. A taxi ride later and we were being offered schnapps at the lovely Hotel Böhler.