Always one to copy trends rather than set them, I decided to have my own Paris transport strike. I was on a ticket-buying “grève” after the last metro strike, and I figured that if any inspectors stopped me for a ticket, I could always just show them my rendered useless Emir Kusturica concert ticket – it should be worth about 30 carnet tickets.

This “political” act didn’t last very long, because the truth of the matter is that I’m a bit of a wuss. If I don’t have a ticket, my shiftiness is written clearly across face. I dabble in it, but I’m not made for prolonged fare-evasion.

Anyway, my strike had me thinking about my favourite European fare evasion stories, and what I’ve done to get out of paying the fines. There was one time in Graz where we just forgot to get tram tickets (honest!) and an imminent train to Vienna saved my skin, but not that of my Austrian companions.

Another time in Berlin, I had a non-validated (intentionally) child (unintentionally) ticket. My friends there suggested that I do this on the way back from the airport, and as we realised that I was pinged, we subtly separated and they merged into the crowd. As I got off with the ticket inspectors, they discretely disembarked and waited for me a safe distance away. I – alone, in English and all mock sincerity – feigned that I was genuinely surprised that I had to pre-buy my ticket and I was waiting for the conductor to come around, like in St. Petersburg trams.

My academy award winning performance, however, would have been on a tram in Sarajevo, Bosnia. I was caught by the ticket inspectors who gave me a grilling in a mish-mash of Deutchlish (or is it Engleusch?) and I did my confused innocence routine. They asked for my address, I didn’t know it. They asked for my money, I didn’t have it. In the end, I suggested they come to my Turkish Quarter hostel, because I only knew it from a bit of left-right-left ad hoc navigation. They kicked me off at the next stop, but first brought me up next to the driver, who obviously didn’t realise they were in the middle of a bad cop-bad cop routine. He started gesturing with hand signals in no uncertain terms that they might have fancied me. Oh man, could it get any worse? He could have just said it; I wouldn’t have understood… but instead he thought it would be far more ingenious to mime it… ai-ai-ai!

Come to think of it, I have been fined once – on the Helsinki metro. I had no qualms about giving them my Russian address. There wasn’t any way that was getting paid – it was once a blue moon that our mail actually made it to me anyway!