I have always loved people, and really they are the subject in this collection of souls.

My long and short life has been shared with ghastly and frightening and witty others. Many have come unbidden, floating like splendid phantoms out of the chasm and drain, desk and chair, public transport, Heaven and Hell. Executioners on cheap flights to Israel. Raconteurs who've doubled as hit men. Fast ladies who have loved me and loathed me. Church ministers who've longed to become pedophiles, and tennis coaches who wished they weren't. I have chuckled with Johnny Cash.

They're all here, ready to spring. You'll meet them in this book: the more-than believable, the bizarre. As Fats Waller once wrote: 'You meet the nicest people in your dreams.'