Of buckingham palace. I mean, were really right up the street, so the only change we made in that direction is we have tarted up his outfit quite a bit. George iii might have lost america, but he steals this show every night. Maybe the family in the big house he bought around the corner will make a royal appointment to see it. Will gompertz, bbc news. If you have a ticket, it looks like you are in for a treat. That ends this edition of outside source, we will see you in the new year. Now its time for meet the author. Vera stanhope rides again. The seagulll is the eighth book by ann cleeves featuring her slightly scruffy, determined but very warm detective inspector, whos drawn into a mystery touching rather uncomfortably on the story of her own father and his dodgy friends on tyneside. Its been an immensely successful series from a writer whos been high in the league table of British Crime writers for many years. Her other detective inspector, jimmy perez, for example, having become a favourite tv cop in shetland. Welcome. When you get a character invent a character that you really like, like vera stanhope, you like to stick with them, dont you . I do, and i think thats one of the joys of writing crime fiction. There are very few other genres where you can follow a character through a number of books. Theres some literary fiction, but crime, its expected that were going to write a series, and its great to be able to develop a character that grows. Thats an interesting phrase its expected. You know that youre writing, not for a specific audience, but for a general audience that likes this kind of story. You must feel that you now know them quite well . Yes, because i go out and meet them. I love doing Library Events and book shop events and meeting readers. And im a reader, im a fan as well. I read crime fiction, so i love that sense of getting to know a character very well, and watching him grow or her grow. I think crime writers as a breed are like that, arent they . I mean, they all read each others work. Yeah. Even though maybe they dont like to admit it . Yeah, i think were a very jolly bunch. Were so used to people looking down their noses at us, because were genre fiction, that we come together and we fight back. Those days have gone, havent they . Imean. I think theres still a little bit of that. You think theres a wee bit of snobbishness about . Yeah, still a bit of that. But you all enjoy paddling around in gore, and all these dark deeds, and actually youre like sort of, i dont know, anybody who works in a kind of profession or trade, where theyre facing death all the time, theyre actually quite full of fun and stories. Yeah, i think so. Im not really into the gore. Im more into using that as a framework to develop characters and to look at the things that really interest me, so. Well, we dont want to talk about the plot in great detail, because obviously that would spoil it for people who havent read the book yet. But we can say that vera stanhope, your detective inspector in this series, the eighth book in the series, is taken, by chance she doesnt really expect it into her own past, and this rather dodgy neer do well father of hers, who had been sort of slightly grand, but then shall we say, fell into bad company . Yeah. Its classic fictional material, isnt it . I think it is, and i love that idea of looking at the relationship between the daughter and the father, and that theme, i think, goes through the book there are other daughters and other fathers. And she is a character who is, you know, a bit scruffy and very determined and sometimes quite rough with people. But the essential thing, it strikes me about her, is her fundamental warmth. I mean, shes a good person . Oh, she is a good person in the tradition of classic crime, i think. That the detectives are flawed, they appear brusque, but they are good, because at the end, i think thats why, especially now in times of trouble and uncertainty, people are going back to classic crime, because there is at the end a sense of order restored, of good triumphing and we need that sense at a time of confusion, that things will be well. Well, thats good that you define, or interesting, that you define classic crime as order being restored. Somehow, you know, people may not all be happy, but at least the fundamentals have been revealed to be still there. Yeah. So, theres a reassurance involved. I think so, and i think thats why its so popular at the minute, why the British LibraryCrime Classics are doing amazingly, the between the wars books, that are selling fanta. Yes. Because people like that sense of, as i say, in a time of confusion, that in the end, justice prevails. And we know where we are. We know where we are, and we know the difference between good and evil, and even if there are ambiguities in all the characters, and confusions, which there have to be, otherwise its a pretty boring story, we find at the end with a sigh, that its ok somebody may have come to a sticky end, a good person may have been brought down, but something remains. Yes, and the end of the seagull is quite ambiguous, and youre not quite sure that the killer has been unmasked, but there is that sense ofjustice prevailing, i think. Its quite good, at the same time, isnt it, to have people wondering about the alternative explanations to an ending to say, ok, order has been restored, but i wonder how it happened . Yeah. No, i think thats. Because you want the book to live on after the readers finished it. Thats interesting, yes. Because everybody sees the book in a different way, thats why book clubs are so interesting, as you know. Yes. People have different ideas, they see different pictures in their heads when they read. You have a way of creating an atmosphere, and im thinking, for example, of the shetland books, which, of course, made it to the small screen very, very successfully. And what was it about that atmosphere, there, the bleakness and bareness of shetland which is very beautiful as well that gave you the spark . I suppose i first went there a0. More than a0 years ago, because i dropped out of university and just by chance i got the job working in the Bird Observatory in fair isle. And since then, ive been going back, but i hadnt really been there in midwinter. I went in midwinter and there was snow, and it is very bare, because there are no trees, really, in shetland. No trees. And so its that contrast, i think, between the. You can see for miles, but then the contrast between that and any possible secrets. And the warmth of the domestic scenes within the croft houses, that attracted me first. Yes, the fact that even on a bare landscape, all kinds of things can be concealed. Yes. Youve also got the feeling in shetland of stepping away from the world, havent you . Im not saying that pejoratively about what goes on in shetland. But it is distant. It is. It is the edge of our known universe in the uk. Its 14 hours by boat from aberdeen, so its a long way. And it does feel separate, and it feels. And theyre very self reliant, shetlanders, so they do things their own way. Do you write, you know, in a continuous stream, really, or are their big gaps . I alternate between. I wouldnt just want to write vera, because. No. At the end, ive had enough and i want to go off and try something new. You want a break. Yes, so ive been alternating with shetland. So, ive just finished the very last shetland book, just now, so. The very last, the end of the series. The end of the series. Did you come to the end just because you thought, well, thats it, time to close the covers on this, its done, i am not going to keep it, give it artificial resuscitation . Id said all that i can about the place, and about the characters that ive created, i think. Yes. And i dont want to be bored by them and i certainly dont want the readers to be bored by them. So, better end while im still enjoying it. Do you find writing, which youve been doing for a long time, very successfully, and with great dedication, do you find it a kind of therapy as well . Oh, its an escape, isnt it . We lose ourselves in a different world when were writing, just as when were reading. So, certainly its an escape. But you need to be there living, as well, otherwise you run out of things to write about, so its a good balance. But when youre in full flow in a story, and its working, the rest of the world doesnt exist . No, theres nothing like it. Its an amazing feeling. Ann cleeves, author of the seagulll, thank you very much. Thank you. After Christmas Day the weather batting will be very unchangeable, and in the run up to Christmas Day the picture is very quiet. The weather pattern. The jet stream is to the north and so we are on the warmer side of thatjet stream, but it comes with a lot of cloud, we have the flow of westerly winds, low pressure to the north, and we will have spells of rain. After a dull start and have spells of rain. After a dull startand damp have spells of rain. After a dull start and damp start on friday many areas will become a dry, there may be some drizzle in the north of scotland, the best chance of sunshine probably in the north east of scotland, but under the cloud and there will be a lot of it, maybe some hillfort, temperatures 10 12, and that wont fall overnight much either hill fog. The rain beginning to develop more widely across the highlands towards the northern isles, lot more cloud across eastern areas, temperatures wont be quite as low and elsewhere with cloudy skies it will be a mild night. Still have the same weather pattern, High Pressure to the south dominating, lower pressure to the north, and on the weather system, some more rain. This is saturday, the start of the weekend, the wind continuing to strengthen in the northern half of the uk, where we have some shelter from the hills, we may some sunshine coming through, but on the whole it remains cloudy and dry and quite misty and murky. Very mild. 10 12. Christmas eve, things begin to turn wet across scotland, especially western scotland, especially western scotland, the rain increasing, also coming into northern ireland, and western hills, but otherwise a mild and cloudy day. Low pressure developing along the weather front which will start to change things, Christmas Day and beyond. It is buckling the band of wet weather pushing it north across scotland where there is colder air over the highlands and grampians where there might be snow, otherwise heavy rain coming into northern ireland. England and wales, windy but very mild and cloudy. That is the last of the mild airas mild and cloudy. That is the last of the mild air as we head into boxing day, temperatures will begin to drop especially over scotland and northern ireland, as we get colder but drierair northern ireland, as we get colder but drier air with northern ireland, as we get colder but drierairwith rain northern ireland, as we get colder but drier air with rain moving into england and wales, but the real cold air is in north america, the other side of the atlantic, it will drive across the atlantic towards the uk from time to time beyond christmas. We are getting a strengthening jet propagating right the way across the atlantic, proving the High Pressure, and we will probably pick up areas of low pressure instead, and drive them towards the uk just like this, it would be wet and windy. But still this colder air tucking in across Northern Areas from time to time, so there is the threat of some snow across the north where we get these colder spells, but on the whole, very unsettled weather, the rain could be heavy at times and it will be accompanied by strong to gale force winds, so very different weather from what we are seeing at the moment. Goodbye. Tonight at ten the woman who accused the cabinet minister of Inappropriate Conduct speaks to the bbc. Mr green one of theresa mays closest colleagues was forced to resign yesterday after he was accused of breaking the ministerial code. Kate maltby a former conservative party worker says she passed on concerns about mr green to downing street in 2016. I was aware that he was the deputy prime minister. And i was aware that number ten knew about it. Well have an exclusive interview with kate maltby the day after theresa may insisted on mr greens departure from the government. Also tonight in yemen, the International Red cross says the humanitarian crisis has left more than 80 per cent of the population facing food and water shortages. Its not the bombs and the bullets which claim the most lives