You'll notice, if you pay attention when you visit among the many other fascinating exhibits, on one wall of Shandy Hall the Krauze cartoon from Stuart Kelly's The Book of Lost Books, which shows a copy of Tristram Shandy carved into the shape of a maze. It is emblematic of our Digressions project that began in this month, appropriately named for the two faced god Janus.

This project is intended to draw people closer to Tristram Shandy and Shandy Hall but also immediately outside both into the wonderful country in which they are situated; into the work of my partner in this, the artist Philippa Troutman and my own writing, as a reflection of these inspirational environments, but also far beyond this into, for example, the work of a number of writers who have held residencies at Shandy Hall and are of international significance such as Kenneth Goldsmith and Christian Bök, many associated with Conceptual writing, a strand of the contemporary avantgarde work linking literature and art. That this is little known in the poetry world of these islands generally, never mind the North of England in particular, is something we would like to begin to remedy in a small way. Whatever you end up thinking about its product, you would have to agree (as Robert Archambeau wrote recently) that it is interesting, which in itself makes it worth the attention to poetry enthusiasts. It fascinates me that this little museum in the middle of nowhere, Shandy Hall, should also be at the forefront of modern experimental writing in this respect. The new maze of the internet has abolished the time and space that Sterne himself often felt limiting when he lived in Coxwold and wrote much of Tristram Shandy there.