Pictures
Signing copies of the German translation of The Short Order Detective in Germany at the beginning of November, 2024.
With the wonderful Johanna Gastdorf, who read brilliantly from the German version of The Short-Order Detective. She's holding a copy of the German edition, with its less disgusting cover than the English one. And on the far right of the picture is Antje Deistler, the cultural journalist who interviewed me so perceptively. And the band, An Spiorad, whose German-Irish folk mix provided genuinely entertaining interludes between the British Night's literary events.
The "small" castle, Haus Opherdicke, in which British Night took place. It even has a moat!
Mrs Rochester just can't help herself...
Queen Canute. Weymouth, October 2023
Satsuma peel and Summer Glau. June 2021
True love? 26 March 2021
Sometimes you've just got to think about what's going to happen next... 1 March 2021
One solution from the 70s energy crisis. 'I warmed both hands before the fire of life...'
The best Christmas tree in Bath. 25 December 2020
Dressed not to kill or be killed. 2 June 2020
Liza Cody is alive and well and taking the virus guidance seriously... 4 May 2020
This may look like plumbing by committee, but actually we are assembling a pollution monitor. The lamb's wool with the clumsy fingers in the foreground is me. 12th January 2020
I'm given the 2019 Crime Writing Prize given by Bremen radio. What an honour and privilege. Thank you everyone involved. 27 November 2019
On a panel in Bremen someone asked me what I think of Brexit... Thank you, Almuth, for this photo and the one above it. 27 November 2019
Clean white moon above,
stale piss soaking our thin soles –
historic city.
17 October 2019
stale piss soaking our thin soles –
historic city.
17 October 2019
Looking for that pot of gold... 22 September 2019
Spot the crime writer... At the Climate Strike in Bath 20 September 2019.
Protesting against toxic air pollution in Bath with Extinction Rebellion. 17 August 2019
Activism in Bath, a die-in staged in front of the Abbey, by Extinction Rebellion. 17th August 2019
Lady Bag delivers a leaflet for Bath's Extinction Rebellion. 10 August 2019
Meringue eats thali. 29 June 2019
New year's sunflower –
not born to bloom in the frost –
come, die in comfort.
1 January 2019
Have a peaceful 2019.
No caption needed. Bristol, 12 July 2018
In training for the World Cup? 9 June 2018
Feeling sick to the heart – I was supposed to be at a Randy Newman gig in London. It was cancelled for a serious knee operation. Get well soon, Randy. 14 March 2018
Gong to a funeral with my bro. It's been a bad summer for cousins. July 2017
Radicalism in Bath! Stopping the traffic in Milsom Street. What do we want? What've you got? We're trying to save the library from decimation, Batheaston Meadow from a Park & Ride carpark, and the Bath skyline from a wholly unnecessary cablecar. Our council is inept at best; corrupt at worst. 1 April 2017
Welsh Open snooker semi-finals. February 2017
Woman's best friend. July 2016
Lady Bag with her supercool grandson, Sam, on Dover Street. April 2016
Waiting for Carole King in Hyde Park. Thrilled to be here. July 2016
What a way to spend my birthday, eh? A brilliant 2 hours! April 2016
I put her photograph on my book covers. She puts a cartoon of me on a wine glass. Motherhood, March 2016
Forget Father Christmas. Who really makes things happen? Just one day a year, let's hear it for the Old Woman!
Grammar's important. Or do I mean Gra'ma? November 2015
The Werepug...
People have been complaining that I never show my face in pictures on my website. Here's why. Thank you, Ant Howard!
Autumn in Henrietta Park. Late October 2015
The plank. October 2015
Nettie Wakefield's intallation at Dismaland -- how did she know? September 2015
Waiting for Bob and Alice, who never arrived. Milford Haven in August. 2015
Listening in awe to Peter Lovesey - Hay Hill, Bath. August 2015
Readers around the world get stuck into Peter Lovesey’s latest, Down Among the Dead Men. July 2015
On the seafront at Lyme Regis, where many wonderful fossils have been found, beginning with those discovered by Mary Anning. July 2015
Ant, Mouse and me. May 2015
On the canal with a cup of tea. What could be more better on a sunny afternoon? May 2015
Weeding my two asparagus plants. Gotta look after your own. April 2015
Flat-track roller derby in Bath! Who knew? April 2015
Christmas in Bath, 2014
Mrs Rochester starts small. November 2014
Back to the sea again. September 2014
Cody and me at the Great Dorset Steam Fair. August 2014
Which of these Codys is the horse's arse? August 2014
Christmas before last, someone gave me washable playing cards. Such good use of a writer's time, don't you think? July 2014
A doomed attempt to stop the First World War, Bristol Docks, July, 2014.
Thanks Mark Selby for winning me a delicious Thai meal. May 2014
Not until Christmas? Awww. March 2014
Keeping the faith with the future of summer by building a barbecue in January. 2014
That wasn't supposed to happen. January 2014
Halifax NS, remembering Brian. October 2013
At Portland Bill. August 2013
In Portland searching for Bill. August 2013
Me and Kate: a night at the Wurzels. August 2013
A day at the races. August 2013
Teaching Luna cribbage. January 2013
Bowing down before William Smith's Great Map - 1815. An exquisite piece of work and thought.
This is the very first geological map of anywhere in the world. It's so beautiful it gave me goosebumps. LC September 2012
Dracula's coffin washed up on this beach.
And I was sorry to leave. July 2012
Some authors take Diamond Jubilees seriously... June 2012
This is my Pictures page but the images below all come from five days I spend in Leicester helping Maggie Scott prepare and mount her exhibition "Negotiations" at the city's New Walk Museum. It's a brilliant, moving and incredibly important exhibition - visit if you can. And buy a programme, which begins with a conversation she and I had about the work and her own history.
Here I am, preparing fake skin-lightening product for Maggie's installation (see below.) A new calling? April 2012
This is Maggie working late into the night. All the images were on silk that was then felted and sewn.
From their earliest days black children - like Maggie, here with her mother - are taught that good things come from whiteness. This is a bad photograph of a brilliant image - I'll replace it with a better one as soon as I can.
Or that being non-white is funny, "other" or demeaning. (Another bad photo - sorry.)
This story of a young man bleaching himself underscores the way the values of white majority culture imbeds itself in people who aren't "white".
An obscene number of products promise "skin lightening": This is Maggie's installation, her own fake "lightening salon" to underline the seduction of these products.
Maggie taking her own picture of the salon's product shelves.
This is me helping to hang the largest of the exhibition's pieces: Wedding Day juxtaposes Maggie's mother's wedding with a National Front Rally that took place about the same time.
Location idea for the jacket for MISS TERRY, to be published later this year. March 2012
With Michael Z Lewin in Henrietta Park. February 2012
In the Custody Suite, January 2012
Even a Swindon sports hall with the backbreakingest chairs in the west couldn't dim the wit and charisma of Reginald D Hunter. November 2011
Photo credit: Gail Purvis, Compute Scotland.
Ferrying tourists in Gloucester, a little ship that saved soldiers at Dunkirk in 1940: amazing. October 2011
Eye to eye with a snow leopard! October 2011
Contemplating the mud beneath our feet, September 2011.
Defending against pishers July 2011
Blending in. June 2011.
At play in May 2011.