| This spinning can is the work of Philip Holmes Esquire, ingenious graphic designer and inventor of visual puns. I could never have thought up anything so clever. (Apologies to the Dr Pepper people!) | |
| And this is a mug shot of me. When my friends saw it they set up a Fund on my behalf, out of which they were eventually able to present me with a comb. My current appearance is therefore somewhat less dishevelled. | |
Likes: iambic pentameters, peace and quiet, worm-eaten books, perpendicular Gothic, chamber music, Lucca, deciduous trees, Victorian terraced housing, Japanese prints and black-letter type.
Dislikes: bright sunshine, disposable drink cans (like the one spinning above), chewing gum (especially when spat onto pavements), malls, musak, unstitched paperbacks, cars, graffiti, mobile phones and the intransitive use of the verb ‘to lay’.
Reasons for complacency: Winning the 2000 Tony Kent Strix award. The 1998 award went to Stephen Robertson, and the 1999 award to Donna Harman. (Go to Stephen's home page to get a glimpse of the owl on its plinth.) I need hardly say that I am in the most august company here.
Favourite web page: Is probably Cathy Decker's British Women's Novels, which has influenced my reading a lot over the past few years.
The back garden: A very important place. To see a nice oil painting of the view into the conservatory from the garden patio, all you have to do (all!) is go to the web site of Frau Inga Dünkelberg-Niemann at www.inga.cx (although why this Düsseldorfer lady should have a website registered in the Christmas Islands is a mystery only she can explain), go Direkt zur Galerie, then choose England, and click on Die Teekanne (Ruths Garten). The picture now hangs on the dining room wall opposite the inner door that you can see in the image.