Eight Things You May Not Know About Me

I’ve been interviewed a few times recently. Gordie Rogers did one for his blog, the local newspaper wrote about my book Living in Lanzarote, and I’ve also done one for an upcoming book by another author about ex pats living in Spain.

Several Mike’s Life readers have emailed me with “I didn’t know that about you” comments and told me how much they’d enjoyed the interviews. So I thought I’d follow up with “Eight things you may not know about me.”

1. I play the trumpet quite well. When I was a kid, Herb Alpert was my hero and I decided I wanted to be able to play all his music. I learned quickly and soon graduated to playing in various bands and orchestras. Sadly you can’t entertain your friends the way you can with, say the guitar, so although I play occasionally now, I do so on my own. I have a good mate who is a drummer in a rock band, and he plans to retire here on the island. So we’ve promised to get a rock band of oldies going when he does, and I’ll head up the brass section.
2. I love cars and motorcycles. I’ve owned more than 50 since I’ve been driving! Currently I run an MG ZS 180, a Hyundai Surfer type Van, a Kawasaki Quad and an Aprilia 125.
3. I met my wife in Berlin. I was hosting a corporate trip on behalf of Volkswagen, and she was a client who bought a lot of cars from us. My colleague’s last words to me on departure were “Look after her, she’s on her own.” I don’t think he meant for the rest of my life!
4. I was born and brought up in Hong Kong and we had various celebrities stay at my parent’s apartment, including footballer Pele and England cricket players Bob Taylor and Richard Gilliat.
5. I know every word of every song from The Sound of Music, which I forced my sister to take me to see seven times when I was a kid!
6. One of my goals is to spend a year travelling to each Grand Prix in a formula one season.
7. I love cooking, do all of the cooking in our house, and only ever use fresh ingredients while cooking family meals. I rarely use the freezer and only have a microwave in the kitchen to do popcorn.
8. I’ve only ever been to a casino once in my life about 15 years ago. I bought $20 of chips and played Roulette, walking out with $700. I decided to quit gambling while I was ahead!

Let’s see if we can get something going here, Mike’s Life readers! Why don’t you do an “Eight things you don’t know about me” post and then comment below with a link? Tell us about yourself!

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