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 (updated 10 February, 2018—I’ve been dry for 8 months now, so this is rather academic)
Mozart and Haydn
Stowe
The Pyrenees
George Orwell (Essays & ‘Homage’)
Montaigne
The Dharma Bums
Franck’s Symphonic Variations
Beer (see above under ‘Wine’)
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 Conc. in G (2nd movement)
Gary Snyder
Sung dynasty landscape painting
The Romans
Archilochus
The Odyssey
notsokrates 