What’s your greatest fear?
Tea at meetings. It’s the saving grace of the Sri Lankan government and corporate life.
What is your current state of mind?
Cautiously pessimistic. The only way to ensure you’re right or pleasantly surprised.
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Optimism and worse, earnestness, that I refuse to acknowledge.
What is your greatest extravagance?
Quitting my job, a Grand Tour of Europe and the East, and starting The Examiner, all in one year.
What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Patience. It’s praised by people benefitting from others having it.
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
That I could come to conclusions when facts arrive, rather than twenty minutes before.
If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
The Government Gazette.
Who are your favourite writers?
The other Examiners.
What do you most value in your friends?
Their willingness to put up with me. I wouldn’t.
Where would you most like to live?
In my own skin. Preferably with moisturier.