The normblog profile 171: Dave Hill

Dave Hill was born in small town Somerset in 1958. His father was a plasterer, his mother a housewife. After wasting his time at university he moved to London to waste his time writing. First he was a pop music critic then moved on to social issues, sport, politics and gender and family themes. He has written for many publications but his home patch is The Guardian and, recently, Comment Is Free. He also writes novels, his latest being The Adoption. Dave is very, very married, has six children and lives in Hackney, East London. His personal blog is Temperama.

Why do you blog? > Three main reasons: to clarify my confusions about all sorts of things in a public forum, this having the effect of concentrating my mind; to address in a more personal way people who may have found my writing elsewhere to be interesting or attractive; and to be sociable, something I don't always excel at in other settings.

What has been your best blogging experience? > Seeing the thread beneath the first post I ever wrote anywhere grow and grow into something funny, passionate, intelligent and, at points, quite mad. It was for Comment Is Free and its title was I Wish My Cats Were Dead.

What would be your main blogging advice to a novice blogger? > Be yourself, even if you do it in disguise. And if you don't know what 'yourself' is, blogging can be a good way to find out.

What are you reading at the moment? > I'm re-reading Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man And the Sea. (All that, for a fish...?)

Who are your cultural heroes? > Collectively, the maestros of Sixties and Seventies soul music, a genre whose appeal has never waned. Raymond Chandler, for all his faults. Robert Altman, of whom one of his obituarists wrote: 'Few of his films were hits, but - and this is something few major filmmakers can say - they were all his.'

What is your favourite movie? > Altman's The Long Goodbye, starring Elliott Gould.

What philosophical thesis do you think it most important to disseminate? > Socialist feminism and its intellectual descendants.

What philosophical thesis do you think it most important to combat? > Essentialism, be it of the biological or the cultural kind.

What do you consider to be the main threat to the future peace and security of the world? > The cultural introversion of the United States of America - and I write this as an opponent of anti-Americanism.

What would be your most important piece of advice about life? > Don't worry, it'll probably never happen. (Not that I'm the best at following such advice myself.)

Do you think you could ever be married to, or in a long-term relationship with, someone with radically different political views from your own? > No!

What do you consider the most important personal quality? > Generosity.

What personal fault do you most dislike? > Snobbery and its companion vices, elitism, pomposity, arrogance, self-importance, condescension and so on.

In what circumstances would you be willing to lie? > To get myself out of the shit and to spare others unnecessary humiliation.

What is your favourite proverb? > 'He who laughs last, laughs longest.'

What commonly enjoyed activities do you regard as a waste of time? > Quizzes and being preoccupied with coffee.

What, if anything, do you worry about? > My wife and children being hurt or unhappy.

If you were to relive your life to this point, is there anything you'd do differently? > Cut out the angry purism of my early adulthood.

What would you call your autobiography? > Could Have Done Better.

Where would you most like to live (other than where you do)? > By the sea.

What do you like doing in your spare time? > Thinking about what to do with my time next.

What is your most treasured possession? > Whichever notebook I'm scribbling rubbish in at the time.

If you had to change your first name, what would you change it to? > John. But I'd also change my second name to Sidewinder, or Bond or LeBeau.

What talent would you most like to have? > To be able to sing like the late Luther Vandross and play the piano really well at the same time.

What would be your ideal choice of alternative profession or job? > Academic researcher.

Who are your sporting heroes? > At the moment, Alan Ball, Nobby Stiles, Amelie Mauresmo and Monty Panesar.

If you could have one (more or less realistic) wish come true, what would you wish for? > That the millions of family photographs gathering dust in my loft were organized into beautifully bound and annotated albums. Oh, and world peace, obviously.

How, if at all, would you change your life were you suddenly to win or inherit an enormously large sum of money? > It would get busier: I'd found an alternative publishing house or something and run myself ragged trying to make it a success.

If you could have any three guests, past or present, to dinner who would they be? > Luther Vandross, George Orwell, Amelie Mauresmo.

What animal would you most like to be? > A panther.

[The normblog profile is a weekly Friday morning feature. A list of all the profiles to date, and the links to them, can be found here.]