Have noted that, in Hamburg, all the U-bahn station names look decidedly like they’ve been come up with by five year olds: e.g. Baumwall (Tree Wall), Hoheluftbrucke (High-Air-Bridge) and not least the delightful Schlump, which is just one f short of the German word for smurf.

Have noted, too, that I’m not cut out to be a criminal. Walked to the station this morning with the smug air of someone who’s got exactly the right change for the subway in ten cent pieces, then got distracted by – and bought – a €1.50 secondhand edition of The Joy Luck Club. With only a fifty euro note in my wallet and the nearest cashpoint a subway trip away in itself, there was nothing for it but to ride black.

Riding black – a fine term in German that just doesn’t quite translate. Schwarzfahrer, so the ticket-less are called. This was first brought to my attention in a short film called, usurprisingly, Der Schwarzfahrer, in which a strapping young man of African descent gets on a Berlin metro and finds himself seated next to an old bag who rubbishes on non-stop about delinquent immigrants taking everyone’s jobs.

Somewhat miffed, our dark-complexioned fried snatches her ticket just as the ticket collector approaches, and swallows it in one fell gulp. Naturally, no-one believes her, and she gets thrown of the train for being – here’s the irony of it – a Schwarzfahrer, or ‘black rider’. Get it?

Needless to say, though, I was petrified the whole seven stations’ worth of stolen trip. But I didn’t get caught – in fact, it was kind of a rush…