The Source: Ringan Ledwidge

What’s your favourite website?

It’s got to the BBC website. A morning cup of coffee accompanied by a general peruse of the site is essential before I can even think of starting the day. I’m also a podcast junkie and there’s a lot of good stuff on there. Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time podcast being my favourite.

What website do you use most regularly?

It’s pretty sad to be honest. Liverpoolfc.com.

What product could you not live without?

Kettle. I love a cup of tea.

What product hasn’t been invented yet that would make your life/job better?

Time Machine. 1) It would be fucking cool to visit different moments in history. 2) It would give me a chance to change the things I’ve dealt with badly.

What track/artist do you listen to for inspiration?

I’m a music nut and use it as one of my ways of finding a route into an idea. On my walk to work I love a bit of hip-hop. Right now I’m listening to a guy called Isaiah Rashad, it’s got a nice 90s vibe too it. When I write I tending to listen to soundtracks or classical stuff. Carter Burwell, who does a lot of the Coen Brothers movies, is a bit of a go-to.

What’s the best film you’ve seen over the last year?

It’s got to be Gravity; it’s a game changer. The script’s a bit cheesy in places but you forgive it that as Alfonso Cuaron the director totally redefined cinema with what he achieved.

What show/exhibition has most inspired you recently?

The British Folk exhibition at the Tate Britain. It’s great collection of some wonderfully random stuff, ranging from a model cockerel made by a prisoner to a straw King Alfred to a giant football boot and a bunch of other crazy shit. It makes you feel good to be a human, and you can’t ask for much more than that.

If you could live in one city, where would it be?

That’s a tricky one. If I wasn’t doing what I do it would be Rome.

Mac or PC?

Mac. I’m trying to break the habit but it’s all I know.

What fictitious character do you most relate to?

The Littlest Hobo Not because I feel like a canine or do good deeds but because there’s certain times where I feel like I’m constantly living out of a bag and bouncing from one city/job to another. That may make me sound like a dick but after a few months it can be pretty exhausting.

What’s your favourite magazine?

The Lady.

Who’s your favourite photographer?

That’s a tricky one… There’re a lot of great photographers out there, past and present, that are a source of inspiration. Right now I’m loving Mike Brodies documentation of his time living on freight trains and travelling across the US.

William Egglestone is a perennial, although often referenced, favourite. Whilst Avedon’s Portraits of the West, which to me is an epic novel told through the photographs of peoples faces, may well be my top book of all time.

Who’s your favourite designer?

Saul Bass. He’s a bit of a hero of mine. His title sequence for Hitchcock’s North by North West is true genius.

If you could have been in any band, what band would you choose?

Motely Crue. I’m not particularly mad about their music or anything but if you read their autobiography, The Dirt, you can’t help but think ‘Jesus, they don’t make them like that anymore”.