AND THEN I REMEMBER MY FAVOURITE THINGS.....

food,

Very unadventurous, spicy foods sets my sinuses all of a tango...but I love pasta, pizza, Chinese and Greek food..and have a penchant for Garlic.

Favourite food : Chicken..I could live off white meat for the rest of my life and never worry if I didn't eat red meat again.

Favourite Snacks...Crisps, but particularly twiglets..guilty pleasure - pork scratchings!

Trying to cut down on chocolate intake - but having a hankering for a galaxy bar now.

DRINK,

Not much of a drinker to be honest...drink far too much coffee though. Beer drinker in moderation, don't like spirits or wine, always a problem at functions, "what do you want the red or the white?" - err, neither thanks.

Favourite soft drink: The one that most people think is really hideous...Dr Pepper.

music,

This could take a while..how long have you got?  I have an extensive cd collection - many would say ridiculously big containing most of the big hits and artists from the last 50 years.

Favourite artists: The Beatles followed by the Beatles and the Beatles again - greatest group ever, will never be surpassed in terms of brilliance...in my lifetime anyway.

But there is a huge variety of stuff among my music tastes (or lack of them)

From Classical through the great songs of Lerner/Lowe to Europop and some very heavy stuff at the other end. Only areas that don't really hit the mark are many, or most, areas of Jazz and most rap and hip-hop.

I have a great degree of admiration for singer/songwriters like Elton John/Billy Joel etc and people with really great voices like the late, great Dusty Springfield and someone who is still going strong Colin Blunstone.

television,

This is also a fertile area for the Ballard interests. I'm no tv snob, but like music, I do find myself harking back to the 70's, 80's and 90's for the best telly.

Just rewatching the brilliant 'Our Friends In The North' one of the finest drama/documentaries made by the BBC.

Big fan of 'One Foot In The Grave', and the best British comedies and comedians.

Of the current crop of comedies love 'The It Crowd' and the anarchy of the brilliant 'Family Guy'.

Used to be a great watcher of game shows, but there aren't many that are befitting of that name now..or else they have been recreated with the wrong people at the helm...witness Family Fortunes with the gurning Vernon Kay.

It's A Knockout/Jeux Sans Frontieres is still my all time favourite programme...I can watch the Penguin Game time and time again and still laugh until I cry. Total Wipeout and its ilk are just very poor imitations.

radio,

The industry I, mainly, work in and, it's fair to say, it's not what it was.

Where are the greats of broadcasting these days? Many of the best have gone..Kenny Everett, Alan Freeman, Roger Scott et al. Many of the best are not in employ these days, Brian Hayes for example and though there is a wealth of radio stations to listen to now, most are owned by a handful of companies, who play safe with most things that they do from music policy to speech.

It's true in sports broadcasting too. My heroes are the likes of Richie Benaud and Barry Davies..the nearest we come to anyone filling his boots is the excellent Steve Wilson.  I also admired the late Peter Bromley for doing something I know I could never do, and that's call a horse race the way he did. 

colour,

Not quite sure why I put this in here...but now that I have - blue mainly, I suppose, as that's the colour of clothes I seem to wear. Not averse to a the occasional grey or black and do have more colourful moments. 

 sport,

Football, Cricket, Tennis, Swimming, Diving, Basketball, Ice Hockey, many Winter Sports and Motorsport on two wheels, Speedway and MotoGP.

Don't mind Rugby League..not a huge fan of Union, though I used to watch it quite a bit when I was a teenager.

Don't get Golf, never have, a long walk spoiled with a lot of generally colourless people.

My views on Boxing don't find favour with many of my colleagues, but it's legalised thuggery to me..not sport.

 Anything not mentioned I am probably ambivalent towards.

CITY

My favourite city is my home city, London..though there are a few that run it close.

San Francisco is fantastic, as is Vancouver, Toronto is great too and I have a soft spot for Sheffield.

Melbourne is a very pleasant place to go too.

Dislike : Paris and Istanbul (but there could be other candidates)

,HOBBIES

Aside from the music mentioned above, I like amateur photography. It's not quite the same as in the great SLR days and all those lenses but I'm getting more proficient with the digital camera now, and learning the tricks of using HD video, which is more complicated that I thought it would be. I am also interested in local history which extends to the tube network, ghost stations and the like.

I support West Ham United, for my pains, though things are looking brighter under new ownership. In cricket I have taken out my membership again at Middlesex County Cricket Club, hoping for a better 2010. My team in baseball is the Toronto Blue Jays, who play at the Skydome.. and because the Saddledome was the first NHL venue I visited, I look for the results of , but don't necessarily support, the Calgary Flames.