This is my mate the poet John Stammers (he's the one with the black jacket). John and I were undergraduates together. He's grinning like a cheshire cat because he's just won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, 2001 for Panoramic Lounge Bar. Rush out and buy it now!. He's also been short-listed for the Whitbread Poetry Award. Yay!

This is my brother-in-law and good pal Anton Lukoszevieze. Contrary to what this picture may lead you to believe he is in fact not an axe-wielding psychopath but actually a rather well-known cellist.

Ant specialises in avant-garde and experimental music. He recently performed the premiere of Richard Ayres' No. 30 for Solo Cello, Soprano and Orchestra with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra at the Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts, and is regularly to be heard on BBC Radio 3.

This is my niece Elysia. I think she was three when this picture was taken, but she's now six. She likes animals, Narnia and her baby brother Miles, who's just a few months old. I'll be putting pictures up of Miles and Dominic, my other nephew, as soon as I have some nice ones. (Did I mention that Christmas is coming and I could really do with a digital camera?)