This page sets out some of the long-term influences on my outlook, though not in any particular order. Rabelais comes first because he is, of course, the master of the list.
- Rabelais
- Zen Buddhism (I follow the Rinzai School under Daizan Roshi at Zenways)
- Chuang Tzu
- Byron (Don Juan and Beppo)
- Jane Grigson—best cookery writer ever. Fish Cookery was the book I found in my first student house and which really got me into cooking.
- Fats Waller
- Jerez de la Frontera/Sherry
- Ry Cooder
- Wine
- Mozart and Haydn
- Stowe
- The Pyrenees
- George Orwell (Essays & Homage)
- Montaigne
- The Dharma Bums
- Franck’s Symphonic Variations
- Beer
- Claude Lorraine
- The Penguin Book of Chinese Poetry
- Malcolm Lowry
- Aldeburgh
- Mexico / Oaxaca
- Ultramarine blue
- Motorbikes
- Palinurus / The Unquiet Grave — there’s an interesting essay on the book here by Leena. I read it a lot in Spain in the early 80s, often with a hangover.
- Lao Tzu
- Paul Klee
- The smell of oil paint
- Caruso
- Spain
- Leica cameras
- Cad Red Deep
- Li Po and Tu Fu
- Kyoto
- Rev Gary Davies
- Wytham Woods
- Louis MacNeice
- Buster Keaton
- The sound of the azan
- National Geographic covers
- Steel string acoustic guitars
- Tombstone (Kurt Russell version)
- Dog Soldiers
- Some Like It Hot
- Cassis (the place and as a drink in kir)
- Ernst Haas
- Syria
- Ravel Piano Concerto in G (2nd movement)
- Gary Snyder
- Sung dynasty landscape painting
- The Romans
- Archilochus
- The Odyssey
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notsokrates 