As Iraq's foremost concert pianist, Samir Peter earned the equivalent of 10,000 dollars a month.

In 2004, since the war, he was making two dollars a night entertaining journalists in a heavily fortified Baghdad hotel.

A family man and a womaniser with a grizzled pony tale, rings under his eyes and a constant line of Craven cigarettes drooping from his lip, he is the subject of an award-winning documentary by the BBC's Sean McAllister, who wanted to find an ordinary Iraqi with whom a British audience would emotionally connect. Job done.

A film about people rather than statistics, it hit home hardest on the subject of family and unsettled many assumptions. Much to his amused frustration, Samir's daughters said they loved Saddam Hussein.

Afterwards, the Guardian's Baghdad correspondent, Rory McCarthy, predicted Iraq would split into three after prolonged worsening of the violence.

McAllister laughed emptily and held his head in his hands.