Several years ago, I began working on an idea for a book about my life as a writer and journalist in Spain. The book, I imagined, would include all of the people I had interviewed during the last 20 years or so, along with those whom I had met who had made an impression in some way. I quickly decided that this would be far too big a task, as the list of interesting individuals was vast to say the least, and so I had to rethink the project. I then began searching through the archives of the SUR in English for interesting interviews I had conducted for the newspaper, along with other files I had dusted off after many years of sitting dormant in my studio. I soon realised that the book would focus on the expat artistic scene of the Costa del Sol and set about compiling a suitable list of candidates to be included. This proved much harder than I first imagined, not because there was a lack of interesting people, but because there had been so many. After almost three years of working