It’s a painting I’ve always thought was incredibly beautiful.One has to think of Velazquez at the court of Spain: It was very stuffy and ruled by etiquette. Velazquez was known as a painter of kings, so to produce this very personal and private painting at that time was extraordinary.” Stuart Pearson Wright, BP Portrait Prize Winner 2001, Now Painting JK Rowling For NPG Mr and Mrs Andrews, Gainsborough, National Gallery”Everything about this is mysterious The two figures have such enigmatic expressions. What are they up to? What are they thinking? And then the landscape is so enigmatic too. It’s an agricultural landscape, in the middle of the day, but there’s no agricultural workers anywhere to be seen. Where on earth is everybody? What a strange atmosphere the place has, this lost age that can’t be returned to.” Timothy Clifford, Director, National Galleries of Scotland An Old Woman Cooking Eggs, 1618, Vel?uez, National Gallery of Scotland”What is most striking about this painting is surely its veracity. One gets the feeling that one is looking into a room in which there are no obstacles Nothing comes between the subject and the observer. The artist here is the perfect observer.As the centrepiece a few years ago in the National Gallery of Scotland, set alongside many other works from his youth, there was no doubt it is a masterpiece.

I think that it is easy for many people to empathise with this painting in one way or another.”Interviews by Michael Connella, Mark Dearn and Clare Huckvale. The most popular bar on the seafront at Torremolinos advertises itself as “probably the worst Irish pub in the world” and the advance billing does not disappoint. The live music at “The Irish Affair” is folksy and deafening, the Guinness is on keg and the cocktails include a blend of vodka and peach liqueur going under the name of “Sex on the Beach”. Welcome to the Costa del Sol where almost all the restaurants seem to offer egg, sausage and beans – the one notable exception being Burger King.
Few come here to experience local customs or cuisine and younger holidaymakers prefer trendier resorts.

But, at midnight, the seafront is thronging with families from Britain, Germany and eastern Europe, mingling with Spaniards who own second homes here. The crowds here conceal the truth: this is the heart of a holiday business whose rotten health is causing growing alarm in Spain. After 40 years of breakneck development, vast stretches of the Spanish coast have been concreted over, including three-fifths of the Andalusian seafront – destroying the environment and deterring visitors. So concerned is the government in Madrid that it wants to buy seaside land itself to stop developers getting their hands on it. Along the Costa del Sol, of course, there is nothing much to buy. The hill above The Irish Affair is built on, as is every inch of the promenade with caf?and cheap shops on the front and apartment blocks behind.

Huge, multistorey hotels tower over the seafront at Torremolinos or Fuengirola. Drive from Torremolinos to Marbella and the picture is of Los Angeles-style urban sprawl. Tracts of land with an uninspiring view over the dual carriageway are being developed into luxury housing complexes. The precise length of this stretch of concreted land depends on who you talk to; some say there is 56km (35 miles) of continuous urbanisation but environmental campaigners say that, to all intents and purposes, 200km has been developed. What is agreed is that orgy of building, based on an assumption of continuous expansion, has come at a cost.

Maria Jose Caballero, Oceans campaigner for Greenpeace, says the result is like “Hong Kong, with big towers and really small beaches with everybody living in big blocks.” Though she welcomes the government’s idea of buying back land, Ms Cavallero believes this idea will not begin to tackle the scale of the problem. In a street caf?n Malaga, Peter Manschot a campaigner from the local environmental group Ecologistas en Accion, expands on the same theme: ” Seventy per cent of the Costa del Sol is being destroyed, covered with concrete and asphalt There are Irish pubs, English pubs and German restaurants This is not like being in Spain. It is made for someone who wants to be abroad but with the facilities of their country”. For some, the advantages of sun and a cheap holiday remain attractive. In a supermarket in Fuengirola, a litre of vodka sells for €5.95 (£4); 1,200 Benson & Hedges, for €171, come with a free bottle of Grants scotch.