Six weeks ago I crossed Brussels to collect my new car from the garage. I had bought it two months earlier, but red tape here is long and tangly, and it took a while for the right authority to send me the required number-plate. It was a stressful journey: I got off the train at the wrong stop, took forever to find a connecting bus, and when an hour and a half after leaving home I reached my destination, I realized I’d left the number-plate in my hallway. I was debating whether to start a new three-hour round trip or take an expensive taxi when the sales lady, seeing my sorry state, took pity on me.

‘We’ll make you a temporary false one,’ she said. ‘Just change it once you get home.’

Great, but where was home?

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