On holiday, Eric met some people who lived in Las Vegas and who talked enthusiastically about the opportunities there for taking advantage of those who had fallen on hard times. It was apparently common that people with financial problems would be forced to sell their homes virtually overnight at ridiculously low prices, and these people would acquire such houses, redecorate them and sell them on for much higher prices.

They also had a scheme which took advantage of over-booking on aircraft. They had a friend working at Las Vegas airport who let them know when a flight was overbooked, thereupon they made a booking on the same flight, turned up at the airport and were offered money and mileage points to give up their seat which they were more than happy to do! To cap it all, they would then write to the president of the airline thanking him profusely for the courteous way they were 'bumped' off the flight and the president would write back with a gift of even more mileage points. In this way, they managed to travel round the world first class at virtually no cost! Bearing in mind the well known phrase 'Culture Vulture' used to describe a person well versed in the arts, Eric described these activities as part of a 'Vulture Culture' and this concept of man's inhumanity to man (and airlines!) was the underlying theme of this album.

Around this time, there had been reports of an imposter passing himself off as Eric Woolfson and trying to obtain money from people on a scam related to luxury cars and yachts. Possibly the same individual, or another Woolfson imposter contacted a reporter at Billboard magazine and apparently gave an interview. When Eric met the reporter whom he knew, a month or so later, Eric commented that it was nice to see him again after a gap of a year or two and the reporter said 'don't be ridiculous, I spoke to you last month'. Around the same time, Eric met with the guitarist Al Dimeloa at a record convention. Eric had never met Al before, but Al berated him for making him fly the other end of the country to make him attend a non-existent recording ses- sion. Eric apologized profusely for the inconvenience caused, which was nothing to do with him, but clearly an imposter had struck again. All of this was encapsulated in the song 'Somebody out There' and 20 years later in 2006, history seems to have repeated itself (see Fox New link)