1. What were you scared of as a kid?

The even stevens top three are…

…classic Doctor Who monsters, of course the Daleks but they’ve been rather overhyped since the Doctor Who renaissance since 2004 – worse than cockroaches, they just won’t die – but equally as scary were the original Cybermen…

Regardless of incarnation, the Doctors always had such crappy situational awareness….

….and the Abominable Snowmen – although now they kinda just look like decapitated Big Birds (in good old-fashioned black and white, of course)…

But being strictly honest, it was a Dalek that almost got me in the end…Dad used to right into squash and while he played, us kids would roam the depths of the squash court complex (which also supported a decent size badminton club). Can you imagine my sheer gibbering terror when I rounded a shadowy corner – right into an eye-level real live Dalek!!! Looking back from now, there is a slight possibility that it was just a super-size display shuttlecock….

Stingray hit the screens back home around 1967-8 – I used to watch it with Mum but mainly through my fingers and/or behind the couch as Troy Tempest, like most heroes seemed to have this innate ability to get himself right into the middle of a bad situation EVERY episode – why did WASP keep such a klutz on the staff? OK, so fair enough, he managed to recover things in thirty minutes…but even so….

And finally, there is the ID monster from Forbidden Planet – after almost sixty years it remains a classic that is totally not in need of a glitzy CGI-heavy remake…the whole idea of a an invisible monster that could crfeep in anywhere and get you took a long time to get over….

2. Do you sleep well in a hotel?

I hope so as I get enough practice at it!!! I think I spent two months overseas last year in one form of hotel accommodation or another – this year is a bit milder but still looking at four or five week in hotels – and that’s not counting other ‘alien’ beds as I travel around New Zealand for work…or my days on-base when I am not working from home. Actually, I have to admit that I don’t mind it too much as if there’s one thing you pick up from an infantry career is how to sleep just about any place and feel good about it…

Can’t really complain if this is the worst view I have this trip..!

Looking back, I think that the only time I have had trouble sleeping in a hotel room was one night I spent in the Crowne Plaza at Changi Airport where I checked in late in the evening and found that the first flight went out at 0534 in the morning as my room (directly overlooking the runway)  rattled and shook…nothing like an early start to the day!

3. If you could meet any celebrity, dead or alive, who and why?

[Edit: Holy heck!! I skipped a whole question!!!]

I see that Mama M struggled with this one too…I’m not really too much into the whole celebrity thing nor whatever it is that might define ‘celebrity’…so often the public persona of an individual is so different from who they really are…the mighty(yeah, right) knowledge base, Wikipedia describes celebrity as:

A celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media. The term is synonymous with wealth (commonly denoted as a person with fame and fortune), implied with great popular appeal, prominence in a particular field, and is easily recognized by the general public.

And that doesn’t help at all…if anything that definition is of someone to be feeling sorry for that particularly wanted to meet for any reason – think I’ll pass on this one…

4. It’s a hot summer day. Do you prefer to be pool side or at the beach?

“It’s a hot summer day.” Ok, it probably is somewhere but it hasn’t quite made it here yet – although it is not unpleasant outside….if ‘at the beach’ could be stretched to include ‘lakeside’ then I think that’d be the preferred option with a pool the slow second option – there’s nothing quite like naturally moving water over the canned variety…

5. What is your favorite summer dish?

Hmmmm….this is a real toughie…after much very careful consideration, I have to opt for a cold chicken salad with lots of crisp salad, tomatoes, croutons, peppers, et cetera… accompanied by a tall chilled glass of genuine root beer…