"Because I lived in the country during the war, I saw films for the first time in London circa 1945/1946 . . . I saw Nanook of the North and The River around this time and both left distinct images in my memory. But, in common with many other girls at the time and, indeed, ever since, I would choose The Red Shoes as my first formative film."

"This book is the best insight into unknowable Russia, a country I’ve been fascinated by since I studied its language and literature at school and university. It’s the pretend biography of a real-life Russian contrarian, poet, politician, anti hero and punk, Edward Limonov, whose life has shadowed Putin’s and who is now one of Putin’s biggest apologists. It’s a totally brilliant, badass book."

"I love Three Feet High And Rising as well - I could have taken up two slots! De La Soul are just one of my all time favourite groups, and happen to be personal friends of mine as well. Three Feet High... was a more manic album, there were all kind of little bits and pieces of things that I love, and songs like 'Can You Keep A Secret'. But De La Soul Is Dead was a reaffirmation; they were typecast as hippies and they resented that, similar to how the Goodie Mob were typecast as being country - we may have been Southern, but we weren't country. There's something defiant about it. This is when they were concentrated, and not random and manic like Three Feet..., which is great as well - but this is streamlined, but still just as alternative and experimental. And a lot more effective."

"Texan singer-novelist Nanci Griffith doesn't compromise with her audience. I once heard her reverse-heckle a fan shouting out requests, retorting in her Tweety-Bird voice, "I don't come to where you work and yell at you!" Like all her first several albums this one is lyrics-heavy, with folk-country accompaniment (Dobros, lap steel, Bela Fleck's banjo), and the stories take precedence over the genre, to the point where she actually criticises country. The black housewife narrating 'Mary & Omie' reports "And I thank my Omie for taking me out of the South." Take that, Stephen Foster! Like the very different Mother Fist, this 1986 album is dedicated to Truman Capote (among others), and every song is a story song, full of car-jumping daredevils, lovelorn young widows, and of course touring musicians bored in buses, staring out into the endless falling snow. "