I promise they’re all true.
GJ Minnett
- I have some form of OCD. I guess most people do but I eat and drink almost the same things every day and at more or less the same times. I also play the old symmetry game of trying to even things out if I scuff one shoe while exercising. If I scuff the other a fraction too hard, I have to scuff the first one again until I’ve balanced things up. This can go on for a long time and I get through a lot of pairs of trainers. I also have a wife who checks doors she knows she’s locked and a daughter who asks us to turn round in a circle if we’ve inadvertently turned the other way when entering the room. We’re a really entertaining family but be honest. YOU ALL DO IT.
- I hate vegetables. I’m not bad with my five a day fruit in that I at least come close but the only vegetables I like are mushrooms, sweet corn, peas (as long as they’re processed – do they count?), carrots (uncooked only). I think that’s about it. And my wife is a vegetarian. Like I said, an entertaining family.
- My dad was a jazz drummer in a swing band and taught me a sense of rhythm which unfortunately hasn’t managed to reach my feet. I do not dance – end of. But I do beat the hell out of any table I sit at whenever there’s cutlery around.
- I was the first person from my entire family to go to university. I went to Cambridge because we always supported them in the Boat Race.
- I wasn’t a bad sportsman when I was young. I’m not saying that played a part in my getting into Cambridge but within an hour of arriving there I’d been welcomed by the captains of the cricket and football teams. It is an urban myth that at my interview the Chaplain threw a rugby ball across the table to see if I’d catch it.
- In his later years, my dad’s eyesight was very poor. When The Hidden Legacy first came out, my mother read the whole book to him and changed every single swear word to either flipping or blooming. She did so because swearing is unnecessary. How bloody stupid can you get? (See – can’t use anything more offensive than that! Product of my upbringing)
- My nickname at school and all through my teenage years was ‘ginge’. My hair wasn’t always this distinguished colour
- Whenever she goes on holiday my mother slips notes inside books in the hotel library, suggesting the reader ought to buy The Hidden Legacy and Lie In Wait. She’s a one-woman publicity machine. I’m too polite and respectful to tell you how old she is but I guess anyone born as long ago as 1928 deserves the chance to behave in any way she sees fit
- I did a part-time MA in Creative Writing quite recently but my original degree was in Modern Languages so I speak French, German and can get by in Spanish and Italian if you want to say there are many flowers in the garden
- My surname, despite what it says in the audio book, is actually pronounced MY-NET not MINIT or MINN-ET. I used to correct people every time but now I think who flipping/blooming well cares?
