It would be from the 1960s on, in Hollywood because of its Golden Age,the fashion, the innovation in the film industry and the rise of women (who wore pants and comfortable shoes like Katherine Hepburn) and who starred in films that were politically way ahead of their time.

I’m average at everything, great at nothing and I’m okay with that. Next…

My wife, Rebecca Davis. She is my biggest inspiration, biggest critic and honestly I don’t think there’s anything I have ever written of great significance that she has not cast her eyes on first before going to print. She makes me better in every way and I’ve changed a lot since we met. For example, I have come to accept that it’s okay to not constantly clean, and everything doesn’t have to be organised in right angles because your wife will just unintentionally rearrange it or mess it up without knowing. In the words of Jafar from Aladdin she has instilled in me this mantra: “Patience Iago, patience”

Tennis. Tennis. Tennis.

Teleportation. Mostly to get out of awkward situations and boring conversations and just come home.

Whoopi Goldberg, Sarah Paulson, Cate Blanchett, Susan Sontag (because I really want to see if she is as horrible a person as her biography says she is) and Angela Bassett (I want to learn the sorcery of her ability to not age, ever). I would have added Arundhati Roy, but I’ve already had dinner with her *flicks hair.

Ooooh, this is a tough one. For the sake of this question because I can only choose one, I’m going to go with “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother” by The Hollies.

Instead of an average and mildly successful writer, I’d just be a horrible failed writer who does carpentry in between.

A wolf. Howling at the moon is a favourite pass-time although I never find the time to do it because I am too busy howling at life.

The fact that during this period the world has gotten used to not visiting and leaving me alone… for the most part. And I have had zero reason to decline invitations with a hard “no”, so I really appreciate the fact that this behaviour has become normalised.

I am an excellent gift giver and I believe in expensive gifts because people never buy those for themselves. But the best gift I ever gave someone was giving and continuing to give my wife an entirely new wardrobe top to bottom. No more slogan t-shirts, praise Jesus, Mohamed and Moses.

My dad grew up in Cape Town with his grandmother and was separated from his mom for his entire childhood because they were too poor to keep him so she used to write him letters and poems and post them to tell him how much she missed him. A couple of months before my dad died he called me to his room and unlocked his safe where he kept them for over 60 years and with tears in his eyes, he handed them to me. I don’t know if it counts as a gift in conventional terms. But I will treasure those forever.

Merely existing.

Those letters my dad gave me and the poem he wrote me the day I was born.

“Rules are for fools” and “Never work for the man, the man works for you”.

I love Lucy, (with Lucille Ball).

An ashtray. At least that way I’d still be able to have cigarettes. Sort of…

Summer.

One hundred percent without a doubt, the journalist Qaanitah Hunter.

Fitness tracking watches.

Also, fitness tracking watches.