Thomas Mogford

Ten words to sum up your working life to date ...

Fifth time lucky – four unpublished novels in the desk drawer.

Nine things you can see from where you're sitting ...

Four back gardens, two loft conversions, two Velux windows and a bay tree – Battersea deserves its own Christmas carol.

Eight minutes to prepare a meal. What's it going to be ?

Anything forked and jabbed directly into a cold pot of Hellmann’s mayonnaise. Perhaps if the company falls on very hard times, I could be a brand ambassador.

Seven people you'd like to go for a drink with ...

PD James, Simon Gray (before he stopped), John McEnroe, Polly Stenham, Raymond Chandler. Shakespeare for a butt of malmsey and Jesus for some water/wine – have a few questions for them…

Six things you can't live without ...

Battersea Zoo, Tesco’s wine list, Borgen, Conor Fitzgerald’s next novel, my wife’s red pen, the entire product range of BabyBjörn.

Five favourite words ...

Swirl, ooze, snap, gulp, grimace - maybe I’m still thinking about the mayonnaise.

Four places you'd run away to ...

As long as my wife could come and our children were looked after guilt-bustingly well – Buenos Aires, Evian, Corfu, Albania…

Three books you've bought recently ...

God’s Traitors by Jessie Childs, The Pornographer of Vienna by Lewis Crofts and Professor Robert Fagles’s verse translation of The Odyssey.

Two things that make you rant ...

The shrinking of Cadbury’s chocolate bars. The arrogance of scaffolders.

One thing you'd tell your teenage self ...

That the grown-ups really are bluffing it.