Tom Baker: The 5-Minute Interview
'The living are just the dead on holiday'
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Your support makes all the difference.Being the voice of text appeals to me because ...
Everybody wants to give good news. All my life I wanted to. And text is largely good news and making people happy.
If I wasn't talking to you right now I'd be ...
Telling lies to someone else.
A phrase I use far too often is ...
"Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be." I say it often to my wife who is a good deal younger than me, but she doesn't often see the joke.
I wish people would take more notice of ...
Where their dogs shit. Where I live in Toulouse it's as if they all play hopscotch. I love dogs but I hate some of the people who have them.
The most surprising thing that ever happened to me ...
Was BT choosing me to be their voice. I'm going to talk to millions of people. I'm so reassuring; I keep sending myself messages.
I'm not a politician but ...
I adore political scandal and to see some wretched would-be coming adrift. I love Charles Kennedy. The next time I see him I'm going to buy him a drink. The next time I see Simon Hughes I'm going to squeeze his leg. Huhne, I'm not going to go near.
The ideal night out is ...
A night in. Bed is actually, I think, my second favourite place.
A common misperception of me is ...
That I'm difficult. I'm not.
I'm good at ...
Persuading people they need me but I'm very bad at being needed.
In moments of weakness ...
I tell the truth to disarm criticism. People who've done dreadful things plead guilty in the hope they will get it over with.
In a truer life, I would have been a ...
Good waiter. Not as good as Edward Fox in Shaw's You Never Can Tell. It would be funny if I worked in an Indian.
In a nutshell, my philosophy is ...
The living are just the dead on holiday.
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