we are super pleased. we have still got three more races. it is a massive dream come true. i'm just so glad we have done it together. it was a successful day for britain yesterday on the ice, as the curling team beat world champions norway. they came into today against the swiss full of confidence, but it wasn't meant to be and they lost 7—4. they had to bounce back quickly against finland later. it was a much better performance by the brits. they won that comfortably and will hopefully be back to winning ways tomorrow. it's been a day of mixed fortunes for cycling's yates family. simon missed out on winning the prestigious paris nice race by just four seconds. marc soler claimed the title after picking up four bonus seconds for finishing third on the final stage. despite sprinting towards the finish, yates, who'd started the day in the leader's yellow jersey, couldn't close the gap

the spaniard had built up. but racing in italy, his twin brother adam won the fifth stage of the tirreno adriatico. geraint thomas was sixth to move up to fourth in the standings, 29 seconds off the lead ahead of tomorrow's final time trial. but a puncture put an end to his team sky leader chris froome‘s hopes. he lost more than eight minutes. a quick update on tiger woods‘ progress at the valspar championship in florida. he is currently tied third on eight under par. england‘s paul casey is leading. woods has not registered a win on the pga tour for four and registered a win on the pga tour for fourand a registered a win on the pga tour for four and a half years. what a comeback that would be. you can follow all the action and all the stories i‘ve mentioned on the bbc‘s website. that is all from sportsday. up website. that is all from sportsday. up next it is meet the author. see you soon. sergeant hamish macbeth lives

in a sleepy place, lochdubh, in the highlands where you might think there‘s not much drama. but 33 books on, he‘s investigating yet another murder in death of an honest man. yet, in mc beaton‘s novels, even when dastardly happenings are all around you, the pace of life in lochdubh, with its regular cast of characters never seems to change. these are crime stories that are written to be reassuring. welcome. what do you think hamish macbeth‘s secret is? ithink... what fascinates people is he‘s totally unambitious. and what i try to do, you see,

i think of myself more as an escape artist than a writer, is give someone something to take their mind off the troubles or a wet day or a journey. and it‘s based on a crofter that i still know up near buey, and he would say, "just fed the hens and i‘m going to see my cousin in hong kong." and very laid—back. fascinating. yes, it is interesting. of course, he doesn‘t want to leave lochdubh, which is a lovely place, although terrible things keep happening. and he‘s terrified. inspector blair, who keeps interfering with him and his activities, is always a threat on the horizon but all he wants to do is stay with his own folk in the village and that‘s a very reassuring thing to readers, isn‘t it? yes, it is. it observes the unity, keeping it all in a small place, and justice seen to be done. i admit it‘s rather old—fashioned because it can‘t be high—tech. the forensic lab‘s usually off

playing shinty or drunk. but it‘s reassuring to know that it will all come all right in the end. i like stories with happy endings. you do, clearly. and there is also a great calm in the way that you write. there‘s no sense of hurry or frenzy, even when awful things are happening. there will be a moment of violence, we‘re not going to give away the plot because that would be a terrible thing to do, but there is a placid quality to the whole thing. that‘s really what you‘re aiming to do, isn‘t it? it is. comfort reading. when i had a hip operation in paris, i sent my sister up to whsmith on the rue de rivoli to buy as many agatha christies as she could put her hands on. because that is also... the between the wars detective stories which i love, it portrays a world, a small world, where there is always a squire, and there‘s the strawberries and the tennis parties.

it was a world of the very small privileged few. of course. but there‘s also something about these stories that will remind some people, i suppose, of something like the father brown stories, where nothing much seems to happen. it‘s a very gentle, unfolding of a story but it has a kind of... you know, simple elegance to it, just as a tale. thank you very much. people often think because it‘s very easy to read, it must be easy to write but i only do one draft, and i‘ve a friend in paris who said, "you‘ve got a very good literary background, "why don‘t you write something... "different?" he meant better, you know? i said but that‘s the best i can do. you can‘t cheat the reader. it‘s the very best i can do. if it comes out frivolous... you have to check you don‘t use the same word twice, and you lay it on layers.

a lot of people do confuse good writing, powerful writing, emotionally charged writing with complexity, you know, with invention, with changes in form. you‘re you can do it like that if you want but you can also do itjust by writing good, old, plain english. yes. also, an editor way back wondered why agatha raisin hadn‘t been published, for example, in this country. and i said they want the dark side, and i don‘t do dark. you know, i don‘t do torture. and anything with children being hurt, i run a mile. so, nobody gets electrodes and the ghoulies in my books, you know. maybe not, but they do get murdered. the title of this, death of an honest man, sort of gives it away. somebody is killed in the village. it‘s always someone who deserves to be killed. there‘s nothing worse than people who tell it like it is. i speak as i find which means

they don‘t care about your feelings. when people say he tells it like it is, they usually mean he tells it like it isn‘t. yes, exactly! that‘s the truth, isn‘t it? absolutely. you‘ve got to get people to accept the absurd premise a bit like midsomer murders on television, where you have a village, and, indeed miss marple‘s village in christie, you mentioned, where every other day there is a murder. now, we know this doesn‘t happen. it just doesn‘t. it‘s fantasy. it‘s complete fantasy. there‘s been one murder in sutherland the past 100 years. i make up for it. yeah, you‘ve certainly made up for it. now, what kind of guy is hamish macbeth? he is, as you say, unambitious. there he is, with his shock of ginger hair, he knows everybody in the village... 0h, not ginger. red. right, red hair. and he, obviously, knows everybody in the village. what keeps him going? he loves the laid—back life.

he is lazy. he‘s unambitious. he‘s intuitive. a lot of the highlanders have sort of rudimentary telepathy. you have to be polite inside as well as out. well, people talk about having extra powers and, you know, all the rest of it, in the highlands, and stories about these things. do you believe there is something lurking about? instinctively they seem to know what you‘re thinking. it‘s rather unnerving. he has that quality and also just a general love of the land. geography shapes people, you see. they said would i ever move agatha raisin to the highlands? no. the other series, yes. it wouldn‘t fit in. it would be ridiculous. you obviously love the highlands. yes, my mother was highland. when we lived in glasgow, she used... she believed in fairies. she used to put a dish of milk forfairies. in glasgow? in glasgow. and the hedgehog drank it

but we didn‘t like to destroy her illusions. well, she knew it was an illusion, presumably butjust kept it going. oh, no! oh, no? no! no, there‘s nothing madder than some type of highlander! you‘re writing about a world that you don‘t want to see go, and you don‘t want to destroy, you don‘t want to... have to experience too much turbulence. you just want it to be described, understood and absorbed. yes. and a bit of kindness. a little bit of decency underneath, which is considered old fashioned, except alexander mccall smith has brought it back into fashion. i read one of his isabel dalhousies and i thought, this is... and then i got addicted to them. yes, well, addiction seems to have happened to hamish macbeth. will he continue? will there be more? i‘ll try to retire.

i said to my agent, i want fun. and i went on a hebridean cruise, you know, the very expensive one? what a waste of money. everyone was so nice. there was no one i wanted to kill. yeah. it would have been nicer if there‘d been a murder, then you could have... not a murder, just someone obnoxious. i mean, the orient express was marvellous for obnoxiousness but there was no one there. they were just absolutely marvellous. waste of space, so i decided to go back to work. back, more writing? more writing. mc beaton, author of death of an honest man and 33 books featuring sergeant hamish macbeth, thank you very much. thank you very much indeed for asking me. hello there. part two of the weekend was quite mixed although much of the northern half of the country was fine and settled after a chilly

start with mist and fog. further south we had outbreaks of rain across the south west but also some sunshine in between showers. this area of low pressure will be a key player in the next 2a hours. it will slowly slide into the east, mainly affecting england and wales. overnight it looks like much of scotla nd overnight it looks like much of scotland will stay dry. quite a chilly under clear skies. some of that rain may move into eastern parts of northern ireland and the far north of scotland. south of here it will be a cloudy night. we start the new working week on an unsettled note. rain slowly clearing from northern ireland in the morning and southern scotland, becoming more confined to southern england. heavy and persistent in places. further north the best of the brightness, particularly for northern ireland. temperatures in single figures per

most. a ridge of high pressure will move in for tuesday. for wednesday, this tangle of weather fronts will arrive in from the west bringing more rain for wednesday into thursday. this is the picture for tuesday. that area of low pressure eventually moves from the south—east. cloud in east anglia and the south—east. high—pressure pushes in to the rest of the country. light winds. some sunshine. still on the cool side. pleasant enough with stronger march sunshine. into wednesday, the eastern side of the country wednesday, the eastern side of the cou ntry start wednesday, the eastern side of the country start cool and bright. cloud increasing from the west as the weather fronts make inroads. increasing from the west as the weatherfronts make inroads. rain will arrive in western areas by the end of the day. temperature wise, nine to ii celsius. things turn more u nsettled nine to ii celsius. things turn more unsettled after wednesday. more rain

at times, strengthening winds. signs of something a little cooler pushing in from the east by the time we reached the new weekend. this is bbc news. i‘m martine croxall. the headlines at eight. the bbc understands traces of the nerve agent — used to poison sergei and yulia scripal — were found on and around the restaurant table where they ate. england‘s chief medical officer says up to 500 diners and pub—goers have been told to wash their clothes and possessions. some say the advice should have come earlier. we haven‘t taken that precaution yet. a little outraged, to be honest, that we only find out now. the chancellor says there‘s cause for economic optimism — ahead of his spring statement on tuesday. there is light at the end of the tunnel. what we are about to see is debt starting to fall after it‘s been but we are still in the tunnel at the moment. rail disruption at manchester piccadilly station after pro—kurdish demonstrators take to the tracks

and suspend services for several hours.