import the matplotlib modules and set the style

def setup():
    """import the matplotlib modules and set the style
    """
    import sys
    already_loaded = 'matplotlib' in sys.modules

    # just make sure we can access matplotlib as mpl
    import matplotlib as mpl

    if not already_loaded:
        mpl.use('Agg')

    import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

    plt.style.use('seaborn')

    general_settings()

    import mpl_toolkits.axes_grid1 as axes_grid1
    axes_grid1
    return plt, mpl