How agreeable are you?<\/p>\n
It depends on the topic and the time of day. I\u2019m a great deal more agreeable in the morning than in the evening. I\u2019m often thought to be quite scratchy because I\u2019m permanently dissatisfied with received wisdom and the status quo, so I tend to ask a lot of questions and challenge basic assumptions.<\/p>\n
What is your middle name and what do you think of it?<\/p>\n
My middle name is Anne. I think nothing of it. I\u2019ve never used it, and I don\u2019t know if I was named after somebody. Before I got married, my maiden name was Windham, and I liked the fact that my initials were MAW, which is an Old English word for a stomach. I thought that was quite funny.<\/p>\n
Where is your favourite place in Ireland?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m very fond of Inch Beach, Kerry<\/a>, which I closely identify with my second husband, whose parents I knew before I met him. After my first husband died, they were fabulous neighbours. We became great friends, and one year, they went on holiday to Dingle<\/a> and asked if I would like to join them. I did, and that\u2019s where I got to know the man who would subsequently become my second husband.<\/p>\n Describe yourself in three words.<\/p>\n Sceptical, unconventional, inconsistent. <\/p>\n When did you last get angry?<\/p>\n In terms of things I get seriously angry about, the last time was when I went to a very posh business dinner, where we were being served very nice food by very nice people. However, none of the guests at my table thanked their servers, and this always makes me incandescent with rage. Here we are, very privileged people in a very swanky venue being waited on, and everybody thinks they\u2019re too important to say \u2018thank you\u2019. Whenever I was considering hiring someone for an important job in one of my companies, I would often take them to lunch to see how they treated people serving them. It was a test, and if they didn\u2019t say \u2018thank you\u2019 to the wait staff, they didn\u2019t get the job. How people treat people and, in particular, how very privileged people treat the people on whom the ease of their lives depends \u2013 I care about this probably much more than anybody would say is rational.<\/p>\n What have you lost that you would like to have back?<\/p>\n I would love to have back my capacity to play the piano. I have recently returned to it, and it is so difficult. All the fluency I had in playing is really clunky, and my co-ordination isn\u2019t what it used to be. But I wish I could go back and just play the pieces I used to play \u2013 I adore Chopin \u2013 never mind learning new ones. I haven\u2019t played in 20 years, but what drove me back was recently hearing Farewell to Stromness, a piece of beautiful, simple music by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. It\u2019s a lot more complicated than it sounds, of course, but if I practice it every day …<\/p>\n What is your strongest childhood memory?<\/p>\n