“‘Double Scaatches for everyone,’ he shouted, to no one on particular. ‘Hey, Paul, you don’t mind getting them in do you?’ He threw his Amex card across the table at me; it landed on my lap.”

A busy day today, all told. Michelle Act(i)on-Bond and Anna Melville-James have come to visit us in the Valle for what commentators are already calling ‘Double-Barrelled Name Thursday’.

But in between yet another airport run to Malaga, a couple of rounds of water-balloon dodgeball and an evening bar crawl from Nescaria to Juan’s, I actually managed to get some work done. As a result I’m pleased - nay, thrilled - to announce today’s Book Extra... The Gallery - a virtual colour plate section of photos of people and events featured in the book.

From belly dancers to The Bobby Loch - all human (and alcoholic) life is there - but these are only the beginning - there are dozens more photos to come between now and publication date, so do keep hitting refresh.

Oh - and and there’s a caption competition too - send your alternative captions for the photos to the address on the Gallery page. Funny ones will be published on the site; very funny ones (as judged by me) will win a copy of the book as soon as it’s out. The competition ends until I can’t afford to buy any more copies of my own book to give away.

Ok, that’s all from me for tonight. Go -  gawp.

...

Oh - no - wait - I almost forgot to thank the slightly alarming number of people who have already downloaded the Prologue. I won’t jinx anything by saying what the feedback has been yet, sufficed to say that, narcissism notwithstanding, putting the first extract of the thing into the wild was hella daunting so any kind of response is an indescribable relief. Thank you. More on that soon.