Andy Seed

Q: What were you like at school?

A bit of a scallywag... OK, a lot of a scallywag.

Q: What is your favourite word?

Strudel (don't ask me why)

Q: What makes you cringe?

Arsenal

Q: What are you afraid of?

That I will wake up one day and someone really will have eaten all the pies.

Q: What is your most treasured possession?

My left ankle.

Q: What do you do as a hobby?

I play table tennis and grow strange-shaped vegetables, though not usually at the same time.

Q: What do you day dream about?

Scoring the winning goal at Lords.

Q: What’s the most outrageous thing you’ve done?

I'm a very sensible person and so have never done anything outrageous, although I did once slip on a banana skin outside a bank (really). Fortunately only about 40 people saw me.

Q: If you could meet one person, dead or alive, who would it be?

I would like to meet Elvis but not dead as the smell would be shocking.

Q: What quality do you most admire in a person?

The ability to purchase large quantities of my books.

Q: What is the most interesting place you have ever visited?

The back of beyond (it's just outside Watford).

Q: What is the best advice anyone has ever given you?

Never finish your senten

Q: What has life taught you?

That there is hope, but only one kind.

Q: How long have you been a writer?

Since 2000 (AD not BC)

Q: Was there a specific moment in your life when you decide to become a writer?

When I had a pen, some paper and a ripping good idea. No, actually it was when I heard a poet reading some of his work and I thought, 'Hmmm - I could do that.'

Q: Where do you do your writing?

On the back edge of a bleak windswept moor, there are three twisted birch trees, and below them an oily crag. In the heart of the dark rocks there is a hidden cave, known only to the moss and a few sly newts who tarry there. Inside the cave is a wondrous chamber cut from the gnarled gritstone centuries before by a blind hag who had a vision that there was topaz buried within. But I don't write there - I work in a bedroom at the top of my house.

Q: What are the best and worst things about being an author?

Best thing: 24/7 access to tea and bics. Worst thing: 24/7 access to tea and bics (it's bad for the belly, man).

Q: What was your favourite book as a child?

Stig of the Dump

Q: What book do you wish you had written?

The Bible