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The setting for Audrey Niffeneggar’s new novel…Highgate

Remembering the days when there was an honesty box in the wall and you let yourself in, I was deeply saddened when Rosslyn, one of Scotland’s best kept secrets, was turned into a circus after the publication of the Da Vinci Code. So it was with great relief that I heard that Highgate’s visitor numbers are going to be controlled after the publication of Audrey Niffeneggar’s follow up to the Time Traveller’s Wife. Whilst the magic of the Egyptian columnade and Julius Beer’s mausoleum for his eight-year old daughter cannot be over-estimated, if you are looking for inspiration for a gravestone, look no further than the artist’s, Paul Caulfield, who had the foresight to design his own. After reading of the huge numbers of people who have ‘fallen asleep’ this truly stands out among the angels and broken hearts. Trawling through our photos today listening to a soundtrack of Elvis Costello’s ‘God’s Comic,’ with its imagery of God sitting on a water bed drinking a mystery brand of cola, reading an airport novelette and listening to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Requiem’, I think he would appreciate the joke.