For years it was generally considered by our venerable elders that no one should publish an autobiography until he or she is ready to drop dead. How times have changed. Yet in my own case, the original 'decency' probably applies. In fact, not so long ago a rumour went round the Spanish coastal town where I had resided for many moons that I had indeed fallen off my proverbial perch. When I suddenly appeared in the doorway of the English newsagent in the street where I had owned a piano bar, the girl behind the counter turned ashen white and nearly dropped the paper she was about to sell to an innocent customer.

'I've just come off the cross,' I brightly announced in Jewish mimicry. 'A little bit of blood.., but nothing too serious.'

She smiled awkwardly at my tasteless remarks, though I suspect she was glad I actually bought a paper and gave her the correct money - if only to convince her I was real and not an overly playful apparition. Just as well I had already written part of my story, I thought, since one day my passing will no longer be mere rumour.