大象传媒

Can you explain cricket?

Lots of people standing around wearing white clothes and hitting a ball which is red...and they use willow. At school I tended to be the sort of person who sat around on the edge, waiting for the ball to come near me...but because the school weren't really so good at cricket, the ball never came near me and so I tended to fall to sleep.

Zac Purchase & Mark Hunter

What's been your worst fashion crime?

It's probably happened fairly recently to be honest. Out on training camp we had a Murder Mystery evening and my character description was that I needed to wear some skinny-fit black jeans. I didn't have any with me so I had to go and buy some. There was a car boot sale down the road and I managed to find some size 14 black skinny jeans. That's pretty much as bad as you get!

Which charity do you support?

I make donations here and there but I don't have any montly direct debits or anything like that.

What's your favourite biscuit?

It would be a toss-up between Custard Cream and Bourbons I think.

Can you play a musical instrument?

I'm a saxophonist. Got a Grade 8 at school and passed that with a merit.

If you could be in a band, which one would you choose?

If I was actually playing in it I'd probably pick something either blues or jazzy. Obviously being a saxophonist I wouldn't be a lead guitarist or a lead singer.

Which two of your team mates would you want with you on a quiz team?

I'd pick my coach, Darren Whiter - in fact, he even set the quiz in our last training camp. I'd also probably pick Mark (Hunter), my doubles partner, because he knows a lot of stuff about current music and film which Darren doesn't know. I'd be the scribe and writing stuff down because I don't know anything.

Zac Purchase

What is the last book you read?

I've just finished 'The Afghan', by Frederick Forsyth. I've only read a few of his books. They seem to be roughly based on fact which is quite good. I'm a bit of a crime reader myself and I like that sort of thing so it was a good book.

Has your sport ever brought you to tears?

On a few occasions - both happy and sad. It's always an emotional response to an event that has happened, either winning, or having a bad session or just being generally stressed about things going badly.

If there was one rule (in rowing) or law you could change what would it be?

To be honest I think everything is run fairly well. I've never really fallen foul of any rules and never seen any cause to doubt them or to want to change them. They seem to be fairly good.

Where in the world is the best night out?

London. After the World Championships in Dorney (Lake) in 2006 I'd just come away with the gold medal and the World Record there and to be honest it was a fantastic night out and I don't remember that much of it.