1. Where does this find you? Tell us the story of how you got there.
In my study in a Victorian terrace in a Midland UK town that has more waterways than Venice. I’ve lived in lots of towns but this place makes it easier to do stuff I want to do – be a cyclist, hold an academic position and be at home a lot to see my kids.

The UK isn’t my country. I grew up in NZ. One day met a woman visiting my home town on a working holiday from the UK. She wanted a light and casual holiday romance. We’re now married, have two kids and own a house together. Best laid plans, eh Ruth?

2. Why do you Moblog? How do you use the site?
A few years ago, I thought I’d share my photos with folks back home. It turned out that Mobloggers were more active online than my 20th century friends and family. Mobloggers checked in regularly, commented, rewarded me with highlights and added me to their pool of friends. After a while I found myself logging on every day and thinking ‘that’s one for Moblog’ when I took photos. The community seduced me and co-opted my intentions. As soon as my family find a cheap deprogrammer, I’ll be free.

I use Moblog self consciously as a record of stuff that happens and an outlet for a hobby that was always been very personal. It also provides a space for idle interests like the ‘Lost Notes’ blog. Most of all, I just like the people here and enjoy looking in and commenting on their lives … like a peeping Tom using an intercom.

3. What's your favourite subject to talk about? Why?
I had worked in ‘learning’ related jobs for about 12 years without it ever occurring to me that perhaps this is really what I’m really about (I’d originally trained as a community psychologist, you see). Once I clicked that understanding learning is what really interests me, I didn’t change how I spent my time, except I started to do it with more love. Actually, that’s not quite true. I now spend large chunks of my spare time working on a PhD on the topic too.

Learning is an easy topic to talk about. I’m basically interested in how people grow to meet the challenges in their lives. Learning without teaching. I’m sure you can talk to me about that … I’ll soon be a doctor.

5. What's your most vivid memory from childhood?
The childhood memories I go back to are the ones that don’t operate according to adult logic. Peeping around the living room door on Christmas morning to see a huge sack by the tree. I thought that Santa had accidentally left all his deliveries behind and this was going to be the best Christmas ever. It was a big tent.

Skipping out of school with friends to see a kid who wasn’t allowed outside at all because he’d just been circumcised. He stuck it out the window for us to see.

Believing my brother saw a ghost in my Dad’s overall’s when they were hanging on the clothes line. I mean really ... haunted overalls?

Watching a marionette show at our local shopping centre which finished with a puppet striptease. The underwear was like something I had never seen – all clips and wires and belts and pulleys and socks that went all the way up your legs. Mum explained the complex mechanics of women’s underwear to me. I never quite understood it and concluded that women are a strange species indeed if they need all that under their clothes.

6. What is your biggest fear?
Sometimes I get myself into some real messes – stranded in Wellington, lost in Seoul, left penniless because of poor planning a few times when I was a student, capsized off the Coromandel coast, crashed my car through inattention … these I can laugh at now and think that a little adventure doesn’t go amiss in anyone’s life. Even so, it would be awful if some how I drew my children into a dangerous situation of my own dozy making simply because I wasn’t concentrating.

7. A picture or a thousand words?
Ah now, I looked into this. We do a lot of publishing at work. We pay around £300 per photo. The same place will pay £2,400 for 15,000 words knowing that it will take about 20 days work. Making the adjustments that works out at £1599.99 for a thousand words which you could write in a couple of days versus £300 for a picture. Even if you sold a picture a day, a thousand words comes out on top.

8. Tell us about the most heroic act you've ever performed.
I wonder if this counts - for ten years I volunteered for a community counselling agency in NZ. I started when the service was run by just 14 students, all volunteers, working out of a church cupboard. We built the agency up until it was 100 strong with a number of paid staff and permanent offices. My volunteer involvement was a huge priority in my life and eventually I became the director of one of the branches. That admin stuff was okay but the most important thing I suppose was being there at 3.00 in the morning to listen to someone considering ending their life. It feels funny to call that heroism because it cost me nothing but it was pretty important to some of the people I talked with.

9. Tell us about your most embarrassing moment.
Sometimes I say stupid things usually when I’m not being genuine … or when I’m being inappropriately genuine.

10. What would your biography be called, who would write it, and who would play you in the film?
Jack Kerouac wrote so lovingly of his friends and he made them seem so creative, wild and sexy. I’d like him to have a crack at my biography except that he’s dead and if he wasn’t, he’d be drunk. Even so, his books had such a huge impact on me when I was 18 that it would be like dinner with Jesus to be the subject of his writing.

I’d like a young Noah Taylor to play me. He’s got a nice energy to him. But for the life of me I don’t know what the title would be. Maybe ‘Untitled’. I always have trouble with titles.

Posted by taniwha