Reproduced from The Express On Sunday Magazine 21 December, 1997

What CD did you last buy?

We get sent every new record at the studio, but I do buy favourites for my private collection. The last one was a Dannii Minogue single.

What do you play in the car?

It tends to be the latest mix I'm working on - small speakers give the best idea of what a song will sound like on the radio.

Which radio station do you like?

I channel-hop looking for good songs. Anything with jangly guitars won't last long.

What do you watch on TV?

Sometimes a bit of sport late at night when I get home. I rarely watch during the week. I'm rearranging the Coronation Street theme for a Christmas special and I've never seen the show!

Whet was the last film you saw?

I think it was Close Encounters Of The Third Kind - way back when it was first released. I work pretty anti-social hours 50 I don't really have the time for movies.

What video did you last rent?

Independence Day. It has the ingredients for a good movie but it lacked continuity and moved at too fast a pace. Everything was rushed through and America saved the day again.

What book are you reading?

The Miracle Strain by Michael Cordy. It's a novel about genetic, engineering. I try to read at least one book a fortnight but I don't normally read fiction.

Who is your favourite novelist?

I like PD James and Ed McBain but really it would have to be DH Lawrence. I recognise the difference between thrillers and real literature.

Your most treasured book?

Pears Cyclopaedia - it's so full of everything; from the history of the world through biology to geography. The dictionary is also good - it just lacks a plot!

Which painting would you like to own?

Any Turner would be gratefully received. I admire his use of tone and colour. To me a painting needs to look good and be readily accessible. I think abstract paintings are pretentious.

What was the last play you saw?

I haven't been for five or six months. I tend to have phases of theatre-going. It was probably Carousel - though that's a musical, so does it count?

Have you ever walked out of a play?

No. Not from lack of wanting to - believe me, I've felt like it plenty of times, but I've always been too polite.

Which philosopher do you identify with?

Aristotle. I am a great admirer of his tightly woven arguments, particularly his proofs for the existence of God.

Would you rather have dinner with Joan Collins, Jane Austen or Virginia Woolf?

Virginia Woolf would be too outrageous and she'd probably smoke while I was eating. I doubt if I'd be able to find a restaurant good enough for Joan Collins. So it would have to be Jane Austen. Perhaps we could talk about what Surrey looked like before they built over it.

What is your favourite poem?

October Dawn by Ted Hughes. It's about the coming of winter. I'm a great fan of Ted Hughes.

Which Beatles album do you prefer?

I have them all in various forms CD, tape and vinyl. I think my favourite would have to be Revolver because it contains so many great tunes. It was just before they went too psychedelic.

What is your favourite Shakespeare play?

Hamlet. It's the best one for plot and characterisation. It ponders so many of the questions that bother all of us. I think too many people focus on the central theme of 'is Hamlet mad?'. I believe it's more like, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." I like to think of the bigger picture.

Which is your favourite decade?

The one I'm in now. I don't understand the preoccupation with wanting to live in the past. I prefer to be optimistic and look to the future.

What is the most embarrassing album in your music collection?

I had lots of Abba when it wasn't cool to listen to them, though it seems to be now, especially in clubs. Currently the worst is Be Here Now by Oasis - I think it's awful, a really embarrassing album.

Answers: 1. Poem by Philip Larkin 2. Painting by Jackson Pollock 3. Music Igor Stravinsky 4. Film by Jean Renoir 5. Play by Anton Chekhov 6. Novel by Laurence Sterne 7. Opera by Giuseppe Verdi 8. Museum in St Petersburg 9. Work of political theory by John Stuart Mill 10. School of architecture and design in inter-war Germany.

But I started to wonder about Mike's confident approach to life when we got to Aristotle. Don't get me wrong: very smart fella, Aristotle with a top-of-the-range beard, too. It's just that, living in Greece in the fourth century before Christ, he's not the obvious authority to go to on the existence of what we call God (another smart fella, also with beard). In fact, I even began to wonder whether Mike was confusing the big A with Anselm or Aquinas who, born over a millennium later, were both very big on the existence of God (Aquinas was just big, period - over 20 stone by some estimates), and whom you could easily bump into in the same section of that encyclopaedia. Just a thought.

Actually, I began to wonder a little about Mike's literary tastes, too. For example, this idea that Hamlet ponders the questions that concern us all. I don't know about you, but I'm actually not bothered by the thought that my uncle might have killed my dad and married my mum. (I assume when he says he likes to think of the bigger picture, he's visualising the Panavision version). And I would have hoped that if he found himself at dinner with the creator of Pride And Prejudice and Emma he might hit on something a bit more interesting to talk about than whether they should have relaxed the Green Belt around Croydon.

He gets only four answers right on the Quiz, plus perhaps a half point each for the Larkin poem and the Sterns novel, but nothing for the pollock painting, the Renoir film, the St Petersburg museum or the Bauhaus ("something German" - very droll). You'd think a man whose favourite reading is the encyclopaedia would have done better, wouldn't you? But wait a moment, do I begin to see a pattern to his tastes: ABBA, Aristotle, Austen ...?