Every summer Michael Blakemore and I go surfing at Biarritz, because on the right day the Atlantic waves remind us of Bondi. Despite the erstwhile glamour of its name, the faded old French resort is nowadays a place where it is possible to live modestly if you don’t mind one-star hotels, but even if we were forced to put up at the Palais it would still be cheaper than Bondi, because Sydney is twenty-six hours away by Boeing 747 and Biarritz is just an hour down the road by Fokker Friendship. So at Biarritz, instead of Bondi, we first settled down to collaborate.