Born in the north of England in 1967, Rachel Fox has lived on the Angus coast in Scotland for 4 years. She has been a researcher, a nightclub DJ, a journalist, a tutor, a learning assistant, a shop assistant, a layabout and a nervous wreck. Currently she looks after family, writes poetry and is relatively calm. She reads her poems regularly at the Montrose folk club and has published 6 poetry postcards (on sale around the country � see website for details). Almost all her poems are on her website, Crowd-Pleasers

Whilst still at primary school I learned some very strange adult stuff from Dave Allen, the two Ronnies, Mike Yarwood, Benny Hill, the Good Life and Morecambe and Wise. I didn�t understand it all (and didn�t know any women who looked like Hill�s Angels) but back then I loved it all with a passion.

Click image for a profile of Dave Allen on the Screen Online website; for a profile of the Two Ronnies on the BBC Comedy website, click here, for a profile of Mike Yarwood on the Screen Online website, click here, to read about the Benny Hill Show on the BBC Comedy website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here

When I was about 13 I spent a lot of time listening to my big brother�s records when he was out. There was a lot of rock (Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy, Rainbow) and quite a bit of disco and funk (Chic, Sister Sledge, Funkadelic) plus a huge stack of pop 7 inch singles by people like Stevie Nicks, Judy Tzuke and ELO. It wasn�t quite the old �listening to my parents� jazz records� but it was an interesting musical education just the same.

Click image to visit the official Led Zeppelin website; for the official Pink Floyd website, click here, for the Black Sabbath Online Homepage, click here, for the Thin Lizzy website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here

Such a brilliant writer and thinker � never mind all the TV talking head stuff. Lots of people dismiss her without ever having read any of her books but they�re fascinating and cover so many topics. Now it says �housewife� on my insurance forms I always mentally refer back to her chapter on �Housework� in �The Whole Woman� (1999). She makes a good argument for doing as little cleaning as possible and as an example of an independent woman with a brain to die for � she�s hard to beat.

Click image for a profile of Greer on the Salon website, to read an interview with Greer on the CHASS website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here

I�m a big fan of loads of songwriters but Gil Scott-Heron has to be number one on that list. The excellent political songs are quite well-known but there�s loads of other songs that are just beautiful � �I think I�ll call it morning� (co-written with Brian Jackson) and �Lady Day and John Coltrane� are two of the best songs ever written at every level. Plus the voice � incomparable

Click image for a profile of Gil Scott-Heron on the BBC Music website, or for the Gil Scott-Heron Info website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here

I have a real soft spot for poets who fill that space between �literary� and �performance�- poets who write intelligent poetry that people can understand. I find Roger McGough, Maya Angelou, Philip Larkin, Wendy Cope and Liz Lochhead fill that place most often for me. Plus I interviewed Lemn Sissay back in the early 1990s and have been a fan ever since. We�d only done TS Eliot at school but when I met Lemn I thought �Wow � poets can be like this!� He is just so full of life and I like that in a poet. I like feeling � not the meticulous painting of images.

Click image to visit Roger McGough's homepage; for Maya Angelou's official website, click here, for the Philip Larkin Society Homepage, click here, or for Lemn Sissay's official website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here

1. MICHAEL MARRA � live at Montrose Folk Club in June 2006. What a performer, songwriter, singer�

2. LIONEL SHRIVER - �We need to talk about Kevin� � I read it earlier this year and it deserves all the praise and attention. Child-rearing, relationships, violent societies � she writes the nightmares so well.

3. MARK HADDON - �POETS� � I tend to like individual poems rather than whole poetry books. This poem comes from Haddon�s �The talking horse and the sad girl and the village under the sea�(2005) and is a perfect expression of a quite complicated feeling.

4. IN THIS WORLD (dir. Michael Winterbottom 2002). Too many films tell the same story but this director seems to try and tell lots of different ones. This film stays with you � even if you don�t want it to.

5. THE WILLIAM LAMB STUDIO, MONTROSE � a lot of amazing sculpture in a small space. Great watercolours too.

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