Anyone who'll give me a set of Scottish pipes, then teach me to play them. Anyone that uses a spokeshave. Christopher Hitchens – I'd love to do his portrait, after coffee. Mark Knopfler, because he plays guitar like it should be played (but Clapton ain't too bad). Thomas Quasthoff. Umberto Eco. The man that discovered the Riace bronzes. A polar bear cub.
Dead people: Corot. Turner as he was being lashed to a mast like Odysseus. Sir Richard Burton. The carver of the Lewis chessmen. An Engliscmon from the beginning of the last millennium so I can hear his pronunciation. Eric Gill.