A Load of Bull - An Englishman's Adventures in Madrid

In the late 1980's Tim Parfitt talked his way into a job at Condé Nast in London and, from there, into a six-week stint in Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue. Six weeks turned into nine years, and helping out turned into running the company. Tim Parfitt never saw a Costa and he certainly never bought an olive grove. Instead, he discovered a booming city in hedonistic reaction to years of facism, where the evenings lasted until dawn, sleep was something you only did at work, and five hour lunches invariably involved a plate of bull's testicles. Frothing with a language designed to make foreigners dribble, hospitalized by tapa-induced flatulence, and constantly frustrated by the unapproachable beauty of the women parading through the Vogue offices, he nevertheless falls in love with a city, a country, and its people—despite the fact he hasn't a clue what they're on about. Tim Parfitt's rise from unwanted guest to paparazzi-pursued mover in Spain's glamorous social scene is a hilarious comedy of errors.