NEW! I've joined the world of blogs. Please come and visit http://bounded-in-a-nutshell.blogspot.com/ In 2005 I was involved in the making of an 'eco-reality' TV series for ANIMAL PLANET. It was screened around the world and helped raise awareness of the vital work done by the WWF to protect our planet. You can still read the WWF web material here: http://www.panda.org/news_facts/multimedia/planet_action/index.cfm An excellent Sceptre author, Clare Dudman, interviewed me for her blog. http://keeperofthesnails.blogspot.com/2006/02/interview-with-gregory-norminton.html In April 2004, PROSPECT MAGAZINE published one of my stories: 'The Ghost Who Bled.' http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/list.php?subject=38&issue=517 THE SHIP OF FOOLS is based on the painting by Hieronymus Bosch now on display at the Louvre. Figuratively speaking, it is the painting 'brought to life'. This is not the only connection with Flemish art. The novel is full of nods to the works of Bosch and Pieter Bruegel. Several narratives allude directly to certain paintings. Recognising such borrowings is hardly essential to a reading of the book. But it might be fun to discover them... WEBSITES An excellent website - a virtual museum of world art - is Mark Harden's ARTCHIVE. This has good pages on both artists. http://www.artchive.com A picture site devoted to Bosch. It includes a very brief biography. http://www.sunsite.dk/cgfa/bosch You might also try http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/coffeehouse/6028 - which has some nice thumbnails of Bosch cartoons. 'Sunsite' also have two pages devoted to Pieter Bruegel the Elder. http://www.sunsite.auc.dk/cgfa/bruegel1 BOOKS Walter S. Gibson has written books on Bosch and Bruegel. Both are published by Thames & Hudson as part of their 'World of Art' series. Gibson's HIERONYMUS BOSCH (1973) served amply for my purposes. I thoroughly recommend these low-priced books. For larger-scale reproductions of Bruegel's paintings, try BRUEGEL by Keith Roberts (Phaidon, 1971). You'll find Dulle Griet ('The Drinking Woman's Tale'), 'Haymaking' ('The Nun's Tale') and 'The Tower of Babel'. For Francois Rabelais, to whom 'The Drinking Woman's Tale' is greatly indebted, Wordsworth Press publish GARGANTUA AND PANTAGRUEL for the price of a pint in a trendy London bar. J.M. Cohen gives a modern translation in Penguin Classics. Ideally, seek the pungent and rather unfaithful seventeenth century translation by Sir Thomas Urquhart (some of whose, now antique, neologisms I borrowed) in GARGANTUA AND PANTAGRUEL, published in hardcover by the Everyman Library. I found a 1930s pocket-sized edition in a second-hand bookshop in Beverley. The complete works of Rabelais are available in French (including LE TIERS LIVRE and QUART LIVRE) from Folio. Editions du Seuil publish parallel text editions (i.e. original and modern French) in paperback. BUY & SELL SECOND-HAND BOOKS - AND HELP THE PLANET, TOO: http://www.greenmetropolis.com