Larkin was a miserable git most of the time and, if you ever read his biography, he doesn't come across as an exceptionally likeable bloke BUT his writing is what motivated me to write and I owe the man. He is also a damn good poet. The subject matter is real. Sometimes you even forget you're reading poetry. A good place to start if you think poetry isn't for you.

The odds are that Howard Blake will be forever known only as the composer of the score to The Snowman and I don't suppose his bank manger will have any problems with that. I, however, discovered him through a tape of his Cello Concerto. You can hear this on his site.

Sir Ridley Scott has to rank at the top of my all-time favourite directors. His work on Alien and Blade Runner changed the face of the future on film. Granted he has had mixed blessings with some of his projects but so did Orson Welles and you're not going to tell me he couldn't make movies.

There are some things in this life you never tire of, that never get old. Pink Floyd is one of those things. I can't remember the first time I heard them but I suspect it was Dark Side of the Moon and I wouldn't like to try guessing how many times I've listened to the album. We are talking hundreds upon hundreds.

Jenny Saville paints monumental pictures of overweight women. The first time I saw one of her paintings was in the McLellan Galleries on Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow. It was twenty feet tall if it was an inch. Let me tell you, you don't forget an image like that. Later I saw a documentary about her where she lay, naked on a suspended sheet of glass (see aside) and let herself be photographed. There was something so impressive about her.

I loved this programme. It was intelligent children's TV. ATV even had their science correspondent introduce the series and discuss the concept of time travel. It was commercial television's answer to Doctor Who which was in its heyday then. It also introduced me to Cheryl Burfield, the first actress I ever had a crush on. Sadly she gave up acting to raise a family.

On one level Spike Milligan (technically born in India BTW) is a very silly man. Back in the 1950s zany humour, as embodied by The Goons on which Milligan was the main writer, was new. Now it sounds as dated as the chicken-crossing-the-road gag. What one has to realise is that without Milligan there would have been no Monty Python and the course of modern humour would have had to find its way on its own.

I have no idea why I like Tracey Emin. I think she would scare me if I met her for real. That said I have a real soft spot for her. There is something about the woman and her art that reaches me. I think it's a "lost puppy" kind of thing. And isn't that what all art is all about?