GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 49 - April 2021

photos, exercised, chilled out, spent time with my partner, etc. and none of that was a waste of time. What do you like to do when you are not working? Exercise is very important, which is something that in the last inter- view I’d never have contemplated telling you. Just before Christmas 2015, I had an emergency operation which ended up with me having part of the colon removed. The surgeon was 90% certain it was cancer, but fortunately on that occasion he was wrong. Looking back now, I was pretty ill for quite some time and I didn’t want to be that bad again. Or if I was, then I’d be in better shape. So I decided that it was a good time to start taking care of myself better. My neighbor is a PT and I thought a few weeks training with her would be enough. As it happens I could barely do a push-up, couldn’t lift 1kg over my head and had no idea what burpees were. Five years later, I’m still training with her, doing Llanelli Beach Bootcamp twice a week and a sprints session. I never thought I’d enjoy it, I never understood why people did it, but I get it now. It’s all well and good making a decent living from this industry, but health and enjoying life with the people around you is a lot more important. Apart from that, I do a bit of photography (see jasondale.co.uk). As part of my hospital bed epiphany I decided I was going to travel a bit more so I’ve done a few wildlife trips to Greece, Spain, South Africa and Alaska. Lockdown has screwed that up a bit, but hopefully I’ll be back on the road again in the near future. However, I do take photos of other things including LEGOs! And in case you’re thinking “why,” there’s a blog on the site that explains it. It’s not as insane as it sounds. Honest! If you could invite any five people, living or dead, to dinner, who would they be? As it’s been ages since anyone came for dinner thanks to the pandemic I’d be happy just with a few mates. It’d be nice just to sit around a table and chat. If it was famous people I’d go for Eddie Hall, Rik Mayall, Louis Theroux, David Goggins and Nigel Adkins. The latter is an ex-Southamp- ton FCmanager, but I love his approach to life. During his time at Saints, he’d go on about controlling the controllables, which made more sense coming from him then any self-help guide I’ve seen. Once you realize what you can and can’t control, things become much simpler. Name three things that people reading this magazine don’t know about you. 1. I’m now tee-total and also no longer drink tea or coffee. That followed the health scare above, so it’s partly forced, partly choice. 2. In 2009, Loquax sponsored The Na- tional Dodgeball Championship in the U.K. We only did this because of the movie. It cost next to nothing in financial terms and did next to nothing in media/PR terms, but it still makes me smile thinking about it. 3. I’ve spent the last 12 months learning Spanish using Duolingo. This is the best I’ve done trying to learn the lan- guage. It’s just a shame I can’t travel to try it. Fortunately, my wife speaks fluent Spanish, just none of the stuff I’ve learnt. GPWA AFFILIATE INTERVIEW SERIES G P W A t i m e s . o r g 50