The dinner was part of efforts to woo the then influential Fifa vice-president Jack Warner, who has since quit football in disgrace.
The motif recalls images of fetchingly louche youths in the light-in-darkness style of Caravaggio, which was then influential, but with a blithe speediness that is utterly remote from the Italian's frozen radiance.
Purge followed judicious purge, first aimed at the Ba'athists' rivals, then the army, then the party, then influential, respected, or strategically located people whom he deemed most liable, at some point, to cry halt to his inexorable ascension.
Watkins would not have chosen the Sunday Express, but his stint writing the then influential Crossbencher column proved to be a passport to the higher reaches of columnar journalism which he sought.
In France, where Fuller was soon to become a revered auteur, the fear that South Street might offend the then influential communist party led to the film being dubbed into French as Le port de la drogue and the villains becoming dealers in narcotics rather than agents of the Kremlin.
After early attempts at carving out a career as a photographer, Russell and his future wife Shirley-Ann began making short films with a fantasy/parable bent – in contrast with the socially engaged spirit of the then influential Free Cinema movement.
