Games People Play: LAWRENCE MYNOTT, 44, PORTRAIT PAINTER

WHEN I moved to Tangier, the first thing - well no, the second thing - they asked me, they being the expat community, was "We hope you play cards". "No." I said. And they looked at each other, and many a bewigged head was shaken and many a bejewelled finger wagged in my direction. "You do realise you're committing social suicide, don't you?" they said, which I thought was very funny; a bit "Death, where is thy sting?"

It is surprising that I can't play cards, because I've got a photographic memory, and yet I can never, ever retain the rules of any games in my head. A card game is a card game, and I can't be damned whether it's whist or canasta; life's too short.

Instead, my wife, Anthea, and I have devised a game which is entirely visual: The Recasting of Famous Films. A casting-couch game really, which is great fun. The rules are very simple; take any film that you happen to be watching at that moment, and imagine it recast with all our friends in it playing various roles.

That's it really. If you run out of friends, take a Hollywood film and fill it with innappropriate English actors and actresses. The worst thing to do, and always the funniest, is to use the entire Carry On cast in serious parts. I'm already imagining Kenneth Williams rushing around as The English Outpatient, or whatever it's called. With Juliette Brioche.

One could also cast oneself in various film roles, I suppose. Anthea usually puts herself in any part that Rita Tushingham plays, and I think I fancy myself as Monty Woolley playing Sheridan Whiteside in The Man Who Came To Dinner. Anyone who's over 50 will remember that one.

Lawrence Mynott exhibits from time to time at Jane Stubbs Gallery, 153 East 70th Street, New York, and at The Michael Parkin Gallery, Motcombe Street, London SW1.