My Secret Life
- from the column in the Independent Magazine, 17th February 2007.

I drive/ride...
a very nice Lexus Hybrid SUV. I used to drive four cars and now I've just got one.

If I have time to myself...
I go hill-walking, I read, I take my smashing girlfriend for curries and I go and annoy my friends.

You wouldn't know it but I'm very good at...
letting off fireworks. And flower-arranging.

You may not know it but I'm no good at...
spelling

A book that changed me...
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson

Movie heaven...
is subtitles. I like oldish French films with subtitles. I also like ancient Marx Brothers films.

All my money goes on...
exotic carpets

When I was a child I wanted to be...
a scientist. I think it was the white coat that attracted me.

At night I dream of...
boring banal things. I think I use up all of my imaginative capacity when I'm writing so there's nothing else in the well when I return at night.

My biggest regret...
is not going a bit slower a few years ago in the Highlands when I rolled my 911

If I wasn't me I'd like to be...
a Jewish atheist

It's not fashionable but I like...
'Goodbye to Love', by the Carpenters. And the idea of objective truth. We shouldn't let the powerful and the media barons and the politicians pull the wool over our eyes.

The soundtrack to my life...
Led Zeppelin

The best invention ever...
the wheel. If not that then word processors and spell checkers.

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Copyright: Independent Newspaper.