So here I am on the bank of the Rhine at Dusseldorf, staring at a giant cast bronze ear and wondering what I’m going to do about the dead body in my hotel bathroom.

If that sounds disorienting, believe me, you don’t know the half of it. I’m pretty sure I know less than the half of it too, and frankly that’s not a very comforting thought. I don’t mind reading this kind of thing in the airport bookshop, on the flysheet of the latest pulp thriller, but I am seriously unamused to have it jump off the page and screw me up in person.

OK – eighteen hours ago I was landing at Dusseldorf airport, only mildly lagged (having come via Rome, where I’d been for two days) and just wanting to get to my hotel room and flake out. I haven’t spelt since then. Or slept, come to that. The first thing was, once I’d unpacked and had a shower, I had one of those sushi cravings. I don’t know what it is about sushi, but every once in a while it grabs you by the buds and nothing else will do. Fortunately I knew what to do about that.