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Library residency
Nigel Millward
The book I'm reading currently
James Patterson, crime stories, I'm just on a roll at the moment. There's a bookcase full of his books; shelves and shelves. He writes series, so you have to be very careful, because if you don't get them in the right order, it can be a bit unnerving.
In a series you get the same characters. You follow a set of people so you know what sort of story you're going to have. They're sometimes a bit brutal but usually a good story.
A book that had a big impact on me
I can't think of one, I suppose you could say the Bible.
I read books, and am sometimes really moved by them, but to recall one; I don't think I could truthfully answer that.
My desert island reading
A set of books by Wilbur Smith.
My choice of lifetime magazine subscription
Saga, a magazine for over-50s. They also organise very good holidays for people of a certain age. We've been to Egypt, Greece and Italy with them and they take you around all the sites.
My must-see film
Belle. Based on a true story set in the 1700s about a coloured child.
A landed gentry person has a baby with a negro, he adopts the child as his own and she moves in to where his parents live, and she has to go through the problem of being accepted because she's coloured and everyone else is white.
The end of the story is their fight for a particular case where coloured slaves are thrown overboard the ship so they can claim the insurance on them. It's quite a deep one.
My guilty-pleasure telly
Strictly Come Dancing. My wife won't watch it so I watch it on a television upstairs.
My radio turn-on and turn-off
I like to listen to Radio 4, nothing in particular but Saturday Live or something like that. The vicar who presents it has has had an extraordinary career, he was in the pop world, he had a group in his young days. He lives with his partner now and does a lot of this radio celebrity stuff but also is part of a parish. He's had a very interesting background.
I can only say that I hate the News Quiz with Sandi Toksvig because of the inane laughter at the back which is obviously canned and it really gets my shirt up because I don't think it's particularly funny. My wife does, I can't bear it. Sometimes I get a bit upset with QI as well, because I think that's a bit put on.
My favourite work of art
I like Lowry. I think there's something about them, you can look at them over and over again and you see things differently.
I went to the Turner exhibition when I was in London last. I never liked him but this time I used the headphones and that opened my eyes, I could understand the picture.
Jack Vettriano, the Glaswegian painter, I was given a book of his paintings for Christmas, and I like his paintings too.
The weekend paper I am most likely to pick up
Sunday Express.
The section of the weekend paper I read first
I start at the beginning, I don't sort of dash to the sports page, I don't select.
Church Times I take weekly but that's on a Thursday.
A piece of music that makes me smile
I suppose there must be one, I can't think of one.
A piece of music that makes me cry
Katherine Jenkins – I'm a big fan of Katherine Jenkins. Do not stand at my grave and weep, I presume they sing it at peoples' funerals. Yes, she does make me cry sometimes.
