Someone once said that all paintings of cultural icons ought to contain nods to other cultural icons. With this in mind I produced a small series of works on the same canvas over the course of about four months. First, an impressionistic sketch of the singer out of Ash, then Richard O’Sullivan from Robin’s Nest. Next came a fully bearded Che Guevara and, finally, Andrea Corr with facial hair.

I was about to give up hope when, suddenly, George Best appeared, or rather George Best as he looked at Louis Tussaud’s House of Wax on the front at Great Yarmouth in 1986.