Questions from self-quarantine: Matt Preston
Page 13 has asked Melbourne’s movers and shakers sitting at home in isolation to share their innermost thoughts on everything from their idea of happiness to their most deplorable trait. Today, it’s Matt Preston’s turn.
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Page 13 has asked Melbourne’s movers and shakers, the ones sitting at home in isolation, to give their innermost thoughts in a reveal created by French writer Marcel Proust. Oscar Wilde, Karl Marx, Paul Cezanne and David Bowie have answered the famous questionnaire. Today, it’s Matt Preston’s turn.
1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
MP: The back beach at Point Lonsdale
2. What is your greatest fear?
MP: Being in an empty supermarket. (Or, on a serious note, Parkinson’s or children dying before their parents).
3. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
MP: Procrastination — yet it still took me three days to answer these questions.
4. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
MP: Selfishness.
5. Which living person do you most admire?
MP: My mum.
6. What is your greatest extravagance?
MP: Travel — so it looks like I’ll be flush now!
7. What is your current state of mind?
MP: Strangely anxious, while also enthusiastically excited.
8. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
MP: I’m a fan of justice, courage and even prudence. Faith, hope and charity all have their place but I’m just not so sure about temperance.
9. On what occasion do you lie?
MP: When my friend cooks something terrible.
10. What do you most dislike about your appearance?
MP: My teeth.
11. Which living person do you most despise?
MP: I have no time for that — there’s no joy in that.
12. What is the quality you most like in a man?
MP: Too many to name.
13. What is the quality you most like in a woman?
MP: Too many to name.
14. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
MP: “When’s dinner?”
15. What or who is the greatest love of your life?
MP: The woman I love ... and pizza.
16. When and where were you happiest?
MP: Anywhere when I’m with my family or friends.
17. Which talent would you most like to have?
MP: To tap dance while playing the saxophone.
18. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
MP: Ask my trainer ...
19. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
MP: Still having a job.
20. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
MP: I’d make a good sofa.
21. Where would you most like to live?
MP: Victoria is pretty perfect.
22. What is your most treasured possession?
MP: My health.
23. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
MP: Cold boiled pork knuckle.
24. What is your favourite occupation?
MP: I used to like the calm required to hang wallpaper well.
25. What is your most marked characteristic?
MP: My enthusiasm.
26. What do you most value in your friends?
MP: Loyalty, humour, and honesty — when required.
27. Who are your favourite writers?
MP: Alan Moore, Yuval Noah Harari and Jane Harper.
28. Who is your hero of fiction?
MP: Winnie the Pooh, the Silver Surfer and Jean Valjean.
29. Which historical figure do you most identify with?
MP: Brillat Savarin — he was the first gentleman food writer. He had a cheese named after him!
30. Who are your heroes in real life?
MP: It’s terribly cheesy but it’s the woman I love and my children. I am constantly amazed by them.
31. What are your favourite names?
MP: Gary or Manu.
32. What is it that you most dislike?
MP: Dishonesty.
33. What is your greatest regret?
MP: Not buying that pink 1964 Ford Galaxy convertible for $1000 when I was 19.
34. How would you like to die?
MP: Happily. At the parade after the Collingwood three-peat Grand Final win in 2050.
35. What is your motto?
MP: Over the last year or so it’s been “onwards and upwards”. Now it’s more “how’s the view from here”. Appreciation of the beauty of life and in other people is something I’m working on.
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