Books: Inspirations - Crime Writer Reginald HIll

Place: The Lake District where I live. If I had to pick one specially blessed spot, there's a fell top, not one of the highest but in sight of the highest, unapproached by any of the Wainwright super-highways, where a man can sit in airy solitude and think Wordsworthian thoughts, and it's called... but no; you find your own!

Play: Twelfth Night. The Man at his most generous, with characters ranging from the irresistible to the unspeakable, humour from subtle social commentary to farce, language from vigorous vernacular to languorous poetry, in a setting which weaves together Illyrian silk and Elizabethan worsted.

Film: For fun, The Producers: for fantasy The Wizard of Oz: but for gutbusting impact, it has to be On the Waterfront which I first saw way back when it was still possible to stumble on a great movie unawares without having heard it discussed ad nauseam on the media shows.

Artwork: From the 1985 Renoir exhibition, the Jeunes filles au piano. A young girl leans forward to study the music with her brunette friend by her side. There were three versions on display. I preferred the earliest, an unfinished oil sketch, because to me incompleteness is what the painting is about.

MUSIC: For pain and loss, which too can be inspirational, Mahler's Kindertotenlieder; for laughter Ibert's Divertissement; and for uplift Beethoven's 9th or maybe Freddie Mercury singing Don't Stop Me Now.

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