Painting, reading, writing, listening to music at great volume, dancing all night (at least annually!), cooking, design, live music.
See my artwork at http://mydearbernard.deviantart.com
Lots of lovely nice people.
Absolutely imperative in every way. I have to be very careful as I find certain things give me very serious moodswings.
Muse. Radiohead. The Arcade Fire. Flogging Molly. Gogol Bordello. Peaches. ELO. Garbage. Lemon Jelly. Mr. Scruff. The Mules. Scissor Sisters. Rasputina. Rolling Stones. Smashing Pumpkins. Sparklehorse. The Divine Comedy. The Small Faces. And probably GOLDEN MEAN ... if they ever actually get round to putting any up!
Withnail and I, The 'Burbs, 28 Days Later, The Name of the Rose, The Ninth Gate, Without A Clue, Clue!, Richard III, In The Bleak Midwinter, Genesis of the Daleks, Pirates of the Caribbean.
Basically, we don't watch much tv, rather DVDs. Clever comedy and film all the way, preferably in series so you can put it on in the background and not pay attention while you do other, far more creative things than watch yet more television.
Examples: Have I Got News For You (hindsight is fabulous!), Mighty Boosh, Black Books, Red Dwarf (but not series 8), Blackadder ( He's so lovely and looks like a vicar in real life), and such.
We also listen to the radio, as sometimes it's nice to only have one of your senses fully engaged while you take time out to think. BBC7 is a treasure trove.
All of them. Except, perhaps, 'Wuthering Heights'. Not a likeable soul in sight.
Note: have now decided to teach this. Go figure.
Big fan of Kurt Vonnegut, Jasper FForde, Edgar Allen Poe, Charles Dickens, and Douglas Adams.
Recently reading: 'The Historian', Elizabeth Kostova; 'The Big Sleep', Raymond Chandler; Bill Bryson, 'Notes From a Small Island'; Philip Larkin, 'High Windows'; Umberto Eco, 'The Island Of The Day Before'; Boris Johnson, 'The Dream Of Rome' (in no less a first edition signed hardback, I thangyow!).
Previously: Danish crime fiction uncorrected proof, 'City of Tiny Lights' by Patrick Neate, 'Vurt' by Jeff Noon, 'The Shadow of the Wind' by Carlos Ruis Zafon; Charles Frazier, 'Cold Mountain'.
OOOoh! I've met: (literary namedropping - I've worked a lot of litfests) Michael Rosen (hero), Seamus Heaney, Melvyn Bragg, Marina Lewycka, Joanna Trollope, Boris Johnson, Adam Hart-Davies (ok, not literary, but he's a cool guy and I helped him find his room), Ralph Steadman, Louis de Bernieres (He does actually have a mandolin.), Colin Dexter, Philip Pullman, Mike Figgis (sold him a deckchair), Bryan Appleyard (cool Sunday Times oracle), David Crystal, Jasper Fforde (Dude!), Hanif Kureishi, Hari Kunzru, Arthur Brown and Polly Marshall (!), Graham Rawle (seriously clever), Harriet Vyner (sorry I missed your house tour).
My darlings.