Five minutes with Ben

Ben shares his love of theme parks, dinosaurs and Brighton, but not so much honey badgers. He explains why he would like to freeze time and why a fridge, boat, drone and tofu are all on his lonely island list.   

If you won the lottery what would you do? I would try to go to every theme park in the world 🎢 I love theme parks they are so much fun (even though they use every opportunity to take money 💰). You get to experience sensations which are so different from sitting at a desk every day! I’d be tempted to buy a theme park, it would be very interesting to run. You would get to design all the different zones which are like entering another world.

Which fictional character would you bring to life? Super Ted, he is like superman but a teddy 🐻 He is much more approachable and less dramatic than superman, with a great title sequence.

What is your strongest personal quality? I don’t know how to answer that without sounding boring 🤔 I spend my life talking to people and helping them find solutions to their problems; that’s why I love my job! My role has gotten less technical over the years, it’s now less problem solving through technology but now all about talking through ideas and problems with the team, our customers and potential new clients.

If you could live anywhere where would it be? I would stay here, I love Brighton, I’m so happy here! You’ve got the sea, it’s close to London and Gatwick Airport so you can go anywhere easily but it’s the best place to call home 🏡

What is the best holiday you’ve ever been on? The holiday I’ve just had this November was the best! I surprised my girlfriend Siobhán with a trip to Orlando – she didn’t know where she was going until the pilot announced it on the plane. We did eight theme parks in six days, it was exhausting and non-stop but was a nice change. My day-to-day work is tiring on my mind but not on my body – it’s good to do the opposite for a break. Whilst there I proposed to Siobhán outside the Jurassic Park ride, years ago she jokingly asked me to take her there 💍 (we both love Jurassic Park!). I always knew that I should do it there.

How would your friends describe you? I have no idea, I do have friends, so I can’t be that intolerable  I suppose the question is more how would I like my friends to describe me which is helpful, caring and fun. Possibly boring as I couldn’t think of anything good for this question 

(Edit: Ben asked his friends to describe him and they said: late twenties, white male, average height, brown hair)

What did you want to be when you were growing up? when I was really young I used to get Horrible History books about science, one book was about how to do pyrotechnics in films so after reading that I wanted to do special effects. I’ve always dreamed of choreographing a firework display to music  At university, we had to write fake job applications. I wrote in mine that one day I wanted to start a web design agency and here I am running an agency that makes apps, web and everything in-between, that’s more than I could ever have hoped for  On a completely different note; far too often I think it’d be cool to be the person who designs where the lights go in undercover police cars 

If you were an animal which animal would you be? The thing that sprung to mind was a honey badger, but that’s only because of the funny videos I’ve seen of them! They just don’t care about anything but can get aggressive and aren’t friendly so I wouldn’t want to be one. I’ll take anything BUT a honey badger as I love (almost) all animals 

If you could take four objects to a lonely island for a year what would they be? I would take some soya beans so I can make tofu, I love tofu so would like to make sure I could have it all the time. This island sounds beautiful so it would be good to explore it with my cliché drone  My fridge, it has built-in SodaStream for sparkling water on tap – you’ve got to stay hydrated! Finally, I would take a boat not to escape but just because I like boats. I used to have one for a while but it was too expensive to run. It was great to head out to sea after work  it felt surreal going from a city to instantly being surrounded by nothing and no one, it was so tranquil.

(Ben’s drone footage 👏)

If you could have a magical power which would you have? I did like the hit TV show Bernard’s Watch, he had a stopwatch that could freeze time and no one would know. I could stop bad things from happening, play jokes on people, you could (maybe) even prolong your life, there’s always room for more time each day ⏰

If you could travel back in time where would you go? I would have to go back and see dinosaurs because of my love for Jurassic Park. It’d be scary  😱 so I would be extra cautious, but definitely worth it! 🦖

Would you accept a one way ticket to Mars? Is it transferable? I can think of a few country leaders I would like to give it to 😏 I wouldn’t like to go as there’d be nothing to do when I was there… are you trying to send me to Mars? If someone said I only had one year left to live then I might, but I’ve seen The Martian; it didn’t look fun 👽.