Some years ago Kate went to Almería in Spain, where most of the European Westerns were filmed, and brought back a present: a twisted and rusty old nail she took from the remains of the set of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. When I was growing up I never realised that the colour of the sky was different in different places. I thought the distinctive colour of the sky in movies made in Almería were the product of some quality of the film stock they used, or simply the patina of age. But when I saw the photographs that Kate took I recognised the colour of the sky, which was already as familiar to me as if I had been there myself.