It was a seminal moment in the life of any foreigner living in Germany.

Today, a German flatmate – one who speaks excellent English, and thus is a most excellent friend - presented his car keys with a flourish and informed us that it was high time we took our first spin on the infamous German Autobahn.

Hell, yes! Given that there was an abnormal growth in his car that he referred to as the ‘clutch’, I passed on taking the wheel myself but Lozz didn’t hold back, whooshing us down the speed limit-less Autobahn at a hearty 180kmph.
(Is that all, you say? Well yes, considering the wheels of his little Golf had already started rattling in a most threatening manner.) And that was fast enough for me - I swear that over the sound of Robbie Williams on the radio I heard the sonic boom as we broke through the sound barrier.

All credit to Maz: he played it cool despite Lozz keeping up a running commentary of ‘Shit. Roundabout. Shit. Traffic lights. Shit. Merging traffic. Shit’ and switching on the windscreen wipers every time she needed the blinkers. In fact, I think he only physically ducked once, and that was fair enough given that due to her mysterious penchant for the left hand side of the road she came within inches of giddy-upping several taxis and a semi-trailer.