Ex-newsman has barrels of optimism

Mar 9 2009 by Alastair Gilmour, The Journal

Questionnaire

What car do you drive?
A Mitsubishi pick-up. I’m a hard-working brewer and it can carry 12 casks.

What’s your favourite restaurant?
Any pub serving good food and good beer at lunchtime.

Who or what makes you laugh?
You do with these stupid questions.

What’s your favourite book?
The Good Beer Guide (Campaign For Real Ale).

What was the last album you bought?
Nigel Kennedy Plays Jazz.

What’s your ideal job, other than the one you’ve got?
Retirement. I’ve done all my ideal jobs and my current one is the last one.

If you had a talking parrot, what’s the first thing you would teach it to say?
Let me out of this bloody cage.

What’s your greatest fear?
I’m not very fearful, I haven’t got one.

What’s the best piece of business advice you have ever received?
Don’t buy that pub (I ignored it).

What’s the worst piece of business advice?
Buy that pub.

What’s your poison?
Real beer in a real pub.

What newspapers do you read, other than The Journal?
The Guardian and Observer. I’m a fully paid-up Leftie.

How much was your first pay packet and what was it for?
Something like 17/6 for washing up in a restaurant.

How do you keep fit?
I don’t.

What’s your most irritating habit?
Far too many to list – and far too embarrassing.

What’s your biggest extravagance?
My house.

Which historical or fictional character(s) do you identify with/admire?
Oliver Cromwell for chopping off the king’s head; the curmudgeonly Detective Inspector Rebus (in the Ian Rankin novels); my father, and Nye Bevan.

Which four famous people would you most like to dine with?
Nigel Slater (as long as he cooks), Michelle Pfeiffer, Nelson Mandela and Emmylou Harris

How would you like to be remembered?
Fondly and with amusement.