on to the biographies of artist. caravaggio has a terrible biography. he was a murderer, wasn't he? people have done dreadful things throughout history, but to kind of ignore that and shutdown people's access to seeing those artefacts, you could compare it to a spear in the british museum. it's part of that history. interesting to have your thoughts. thank you. thank you. he is the youngest member of the cabinet and in charge of all things digital. matt hancock — the new culture secretary — has today become the first mp to launch his own smart—phone app. hi, i'm matt hancock and welcome to my app. it's a chance to find out what's going on both in my role as mp for west suffolk and as culture secretary. and most importantly it is a chance for you to tell me what you think and to engage with others on issues that matter to you. so, come on, let's get started.

the app includes photos and updates from the west suffolk mp, and a message—board where users can communicate. it's designed as a way of keeping in touch with his constituents but since launching has been somewhat hijacked by political journalists and pranksters. political journalist marie le conte has been using the app and joins me now. what dell might give us a sense of what you get when you download this app? as you said, it was supposed to be about his constituents interacting with each other and ten. however, it was kind of taken over by journalist and westminster however, it was kind of taken over byjournalist and westminster bubble dwellers who were posting means about him pretending to be other

cabinet ministers. it's quite fun, to be honest. presumably that sort of mischief will eventually die out. do you think the general idea is good? i think it's generally a good idea. it's quite optimistic to assume that people will want to actively have an app to keep in touch with mp. but why not? use social media to in touch, i think people tend to complain they don't know what their mp is doing for them. there is an unfortunate branding issue perhaps by colin the app after his own name because you do get some peculiar messages coming up do get some peculiar messages coming up on your phone? some of the notifications are unfortunately matt hancock has stopped. matt hancock would like to access your pictures. soi would like to access your pictures. so i think the branding was a bit off and perhaps he didn't think it

through. perhaps some teething problems because it's the first of its kind. do you think we will see more of this? we know from the last general election that social media is considered to play a much greater role in reaching younger voters. lizzie and tweeted an hour ago asking her constituents if would like —— if the constituents would like —— if the constituents would like her to have an app as well. labour has been better at the tories at social media over the last year and a bit. so the tories might want to get in en masse development. —— might want to get in on this development. we shall see. thank you. thank you. now it's time for meet the author. we all watch other people, but most of us feel uncomfortable when we become too curious about them.

why they're doing this or that, what they're thinking. consent by leo benedictus is a novel that describes the nightmare of a curiosity that becomes an obsession. cruel and destructive, it takes us into the mind of a stalker whose life is shaped by his targets, his victims. quite simply, it is a contemporary horror story. welcome. the central figure in this book has got a mind which is clearly disturbed. and you had to get inside it. because you're telling the story from his point of view for most of the book.

how difficult was it to do that? i suppose the honest answer is it maybe wasn't as difficult as i'd like it to have been. what does that say about you? well, i know, i mean, i think for me... in a way the primary aspect of the book was the way that i am going to talk to readers, and the way that he is going to talk to readers. and i found that by talking in that intimate, deeply present way, that think he feels in relation to the people that he stalks, i found myself quite naturally talking like him. i mean i spent a long time writing the book, about five years, and i think it probably grew over time. but by the end of it i could talk like him at the drop of a hat, a bit too easily. we're talking about a man who is a stalker, who stalks dozens and dozens and dozens of people, remembers the first one and so on. it then becomes a violent obsession late in the book. but what fascinates me, as we were saying at the beginning there, is that we are all, to some extent, curious in that way. you can sit opposite somebody in the train

and you think, why are they reading that, where are they going, what are they doing? but we all know there is a point beyond which you don't go. and imagining what happens when you don't have that control mechanism is really quite terrifying, isn't it? i think so. i certainly felt that way. do you know, i'd be interested to know how many other novelists feel this way, because being a novelist especially, i've found, after my first book, i was looking at people all the time, and making little mental notes all the time about details of behaviour and... someone would say something in a conversation and secretly i'd be at work thinking, that would be good, i can use that. i think all of us are stalkers in that way. in one sense, this character does some dreadful things in the second half of the book, it's just doing that, it's just that it becomes a habit and he thinks it's quite normal. yeah, he clearly never notices a moment when he goes off the rails, and i think really struggles with the idea that maybe he has gone off the rails, but he could put his finger on exactly when it happened.

and i do like that idea as well of how blurred the line is between being interested in someone, maybe fancying someone, maybe wanting to talk to someone, maybe finding out a little bit more about them before you do. and before you know it you're standing outside their house. yeah, exactly. i mean, i think that's how it works for him, yeah. do you have an attraction to horror? i mean here we have a situation in which he is inside people's bedrooms, inside their heads, watching their most intimate behaviour, you know, their conversation with a lover for example. it's terrifying stuff. i suppose i must do, yeah. i don't know exactly why. i know that for a long time i felt when writing novels actually a sense of guilt about what i'm doing, because i know that i'm not doing it in the interest of readers, i'm not trying to bring them something generous and mind expanding, i'm just writing because i need

to and i'm writing about what interests me. i'm hoping that i can grip their attention for long enough to make them interested. so he's just a writer who's gone a little bit further. well, yes he is, though i don't think i'm likely to go that far myself. but it's a way, certainly, of exploring those feelings i've always had about writing. when you began the story with the idea of getting inside the head of a man who is behaving in this very odd way, did you always know that it was going to end with some scenes that are difficult to read and must have been difficult to write? igot... i can't say i always knew, no. i think i knew he was going to lose control of himself, and i think probably if i'd analysed that i would have known, but in a way maybe i didn't want to know,

just like he doesn't. well, i think to the reader, when you open this book, you do sense that it is going to end rather badly. i mean you don't think he's going to stop doing it. no, i wouldn't have thought so, and i don't think he has the ability to control himself, and i think he makes it clear from the beginning that he is trying to justify his own behaviour, trying to understand what he's done, hopefully make people understand him. there is an intriguing note on the dust cover of the book where you say, this book is an experiment. what exactly do you mean by that? well, to my mind it's an experiment between me and the reader. he is conducting experiments of various kinds on the people that he stalks, but it's also an experiment i think i'm making really to see how people will respond to this book. i won't necessarily know, of course, but i want to take people to the point, this involves stuff towards the very end of the book, where they've had a creepy and maybe horrifying experience. maybe they discover that it's been creepy and horrifying in a way they hadn't realised all along, and that is where it comes into the relationship with me writing a book. it's fascinating, i said

at the beginning, that it was a contemporary horror story. and really, what you're talking about here, is a world in which, you know, individuals are moving in different ways, apart from being quite lonely, even in the context of, you know, their social lives. and this guy is somehow exploiting that. the solitary nature of contemporary life. were you very conscious of that? well, i was, i think particularly... the book is really, we talked all about him and it's a book split into two halves, really, between him and her. particular. frances, the woman that he stalks in she is, i think, quite a lonely person. i think a lot of people are quite lonely. we indeed have a lot of research on how widespread loneliness is. and that's her vulnerability, really.

yeah, absolutely. i mean i think he wants to connect with people just as i do by writing novels, just as she does by making friendships and forming relationships. so there's a desperation about his position. yeah, very much. i think lonely people are always desperate to make that kind of connection and sometimes something goes wrong, as it does with him. he can't do it and he tries these terrible ways to feed this craving. he is unusual because by accident, completely unexpectedly, he becomes, suddenly, very rich. he doesn't have to work he doesn't have to worry about money. the world is his oyster. in a way that releases him to be the man he really is underneath. in that sense we are

not all like him. no, we're lucky because we don't suddenly inherit millions of pounds. i think for him it is a tragedy that he becomes as rich as he does. for a lot of people that are extremely rich, it is a severe problem. i know that sounds ridiculous. it's many of our greatest dreams to become as wealthy as he is. but i think when suddenly you don't have to work you do have to think about how to your life, and that's a hard question to answer. and he doesn't know the nature of his tragedy, but we do. yeah, exactly. i hope... you know, i do, in spite of everything he does, feel a lot of sympathy for him. i sometimes feel a little awkward about how sympathetic towards him i feel. not obviously for the things he does, but for how he feels, yeah. we're talking about the main character in consent, who talks to us about his awful life. leo benedictus, thank you very much. thank you. to me, the ist of february felt much colder than yesterday, with that strong arctic wind which will be with us for at least the weekend, also potentially much of next week. you've had some wintry flurries from the system crossing southwards, and

also this system in the north. that should clear overnight. a drop in the wind in western parts. shower risk continues in the east. ice risk inland because showers are potentially washing off the salt on the pavements. quite a cold night in eastern parts given the strength of the wind. in the countryside, is much closer to freezing if not below. tomorrow, the arctic wind will not be as strong. notice the wintry mess in the morning in the east of in and —— winter conditions. elsewhere, in sparkly sunshine, a few showers and some four western parts of england and wales as well. through the day, the likelihood is we will see some more rain, sleet and snow coming in from the

atlantic. but i will update you on that later on. see you then. hello, i'm philippa thomas, this is outside source. donald trump is a day from releasing a republican memo expected to accuse the fbi of bias against his presidency. theresa may meets with xijinping in china, calling it a new golden era in the relationship, 28 russian athletes have lifetime doping bans overturned, opening their avenue to compete in the winter olympics. and scientists have been tracking polar bears to find out why they're getting skinny. victoria gill will be here to explain their discovery. welcome to outside source. let's start in washington.