The 5-Minute Interview: Christopher Monckton, Policy adviser, journalist, inventor

'I'm bad at doing what I'm told. I'm a born free-thinker'

Christopher Monckton, 55, designed the Eternity puzzle, a geometric puzzle with a £1m prize to the person who solved it, in 1999. The sequel, Eternity II, also promises a prize of £1m - see eternityII.co.uk. He is a former policy adviser to Margaret Thatcher and holds some controversial opinions on climate change

If I weren't talking to you right now I'd be...

Talking to someone else. The world and his wife want to know about Eternity II.

A phrase I use far too often...

According to my wife, my use of vocabulary is wide and varied.

I wish people would take more notice of...

The importance of human life should be universally respected - and that refers to children before they are born and after. All children have the right to be brought up in a loving two-parent family where the notion of divorce is not even possible.

A common misperception of me is...

People tend to think that I know less about what I'm talking about than I actually do - usually people who think that all aristocrats are stupid.

I am not a politician but if I were...

I would leave the European Union, close down 90 per cent of government services and shift power away from the atheistic, humanistic government and into the hands of families and individuals.

I'm good at ...

My wife says I'm always interested in things as well as interesting about them. That's untrue, I'm sure.

I'm very bad at ...

I'm bad at doing what I'm told. I'm a born free thinker.

The ideal night out is...

My lovely wife and me, doing whatever it is we felt like doing.

In moments of weakness I...

Ask my wife what I should do next.

In truer life I'd have been...

Something modest like dictator of the planet.

The best age to be is...

The age one is.

In a nutshell, my philosophy is...

That of the Catholic Church.

Alice-Azania Jarvis