Q. Which other EAFOL 2016 participant are you most excited about? Carol Ann Duffy, John Agard, his book Book is absolutely brilliant. Matt Haig, Petr Horacek, Nicola Davies, Jaqueline Wilson, Susan Greenfield, Chris Hadfield, Helen Macdonald; there are too many great people there! I am also really keen to meet the audience and the local writers. I am very interested in connecting with the people there and to learn more about Dubai and the region. Q. Which book(s) are you reading now?The Master Switch by Tim Wu; actually I am doing a book on information technology for much older children and have been reading books related to that. Q. Which literary character would you invite to dinner? And why? I would have a nice buffet with the Very Hungry Catterpillar, then we could have tea with the Mad Hatter, and Willy Wonka could bring along the desert. I don’t know what sort of conversation we could get going between them but I’m sure it would be pretty entertaining and we would be well fed. Q. There have been some interesting additions to the dictionary over the years. Which word would you remove? War, disease, disasters, borders, guns, bombs, deadlines, bills, hassle and worry. I would remove all those! Q. Who would write/ illustrate the story of your life? I wouldn’t be that keen on it being written but maybe we could get Dr. Suess on the job. That way, myself and the people in my life could be replaced with strange nonsense creatures and surreal animals. Might spice it up a bit. He had such a unique way of seeing the world.