My Picture

It's a picture of Holderness: a wet and marshy area of England in the East Riding of Yorkshire (it's a "wapentake", it says here: nice word). The cold grey bit is the North Sea. I've never been there but I do (anyone who is interested in this fact please do not mail me) have webbed toes.

My preferred interpretation of my surname is that it was customary to name foundling children after the district in which they were left at the mercy of the Poor Laws. This shows that I come from a long line of bastards.

Note that the miracle of digital reproduction has achieved a picture of what Holderness will look like in about 2020, when Spurn Head, a long sand-spit at the south-east extremity, will probably have washed away. Remind me to update this page in 2100, when Spurn Head is due to reappear somewhere above the "n". Picture courtesy Plymouth Marine Laboratory.

Me? I prefer not to have my picture taken. Logically, I should therefore be a photographer.