I love Steve Townsend's work, I think we have one of his paintings printed on a plate somewhere.

Heh heh, I guess we must have very similar taste in art. I am exactly the same, when I saw the syllabus for GCSE art I was quite put off. I wanted to mainly sketch with a little painting, but no forms of anything abstract at all, but apparently that makes me not varied enough. My friends who did take art evidently enjoy what they're doing, but they are mainly doing stuff like drawing with their eyes closed, symbolism and textured art. Blurgh! The art teacher still cannot comprehend why I cringe at abstract art, lol. Anyway, at least art is one of those subjects you can keep doing and develop by yourself.

I expect we do have very similar accents, I'm fairly broad, even though my ancestors are Welsh, and my parents are southerners!