Munich.

We left Cologne at 6 am. Yes folks, 6am. This was what we tend to call in the music industry “a little early for my liking,” but we were terribly mature and stoical about it and only cried for the first 10 minutes of the 7 hour drive.

Having slept for a few hours we watched Bavaria roll by, the countryside is beautiful, even in the rain. The villages look like cartoon illustrations. All of the houses are enormous. How can everyone afford to live in enormous houses like this? We are told that these Bavarians are a rather conservative bunch.

In between radio sessions in the afternoon we visit the Hofbrauhaus (for those of you who don’t know, this is basically a big vaulted hall where tourists get lashed and pretend to themselves that they’re having an authentic Bavarian experience.) Without shame we succumb to the ritual of drinking 2 litres of lager in 45 minutes and eating cabbage whilst an obese man with a moustache plays the tuba in the corner.

Official Secrets Act are impressed with german radio. They have amazing playlists. Do they have an enthusiastic listenership? We sure do hope so.

Atomic Café is full of drunk teenagers who ask us questions like “What are your thoughts on life in general?” We take it as a compliment that our music inspires such ambitious conversation.

At the end of the night we head for the van only to find that the key has snapped in our hero tour manager Johnny’s pocket. We do the natural thing that any sane group of drunk foreigners would do and give it to a stoned chap on a skateboard who claims he’ll be able to weld it back together at his flat around the corner. Ten minutes later he returned with his tail between his legs and a lump of congealed metal in his hands. I don’t actually know how we broke into the van and found the spare key (I was back at the bar)… But we did…