Where did you go to school?To school through the fields - Alice Taylor eat your heart out - there was no room in baby boom Ballyfermot at the time, so we traipsed daily across the fields each day to idyllic, verdant Palmerstown.

Were you cool or were you one of the nerdy kids?

How do you classify someone who went to school with cold toast sandwiches and wore short trousers at his communion and confirmation? File under nerdy but neat.

Give us an extract of a school report . . .

"Most curious boy in the class" - I thought it was a compliment at the time. Now I wonder about the use of the word "curious".

Who was your favourite teacher in primary school? Why?

Mr Long, in fifth and sixth class - he made us do crosswords and quizzes each Friday. We called it Funny Friday - now where did that idea end up?

How about secondary school? Anyone who you liked/ inspired you?

I went to St John's College, Ballyfermot and the local Tech at night. In Tech there was Aine O'Connor, Larry Masterson, Vincent Sammon, Janet Ryan and Stephen O C - the latter being the first teacher I knew who came from Ballyfermot!

Did you have a nickname?

I was called JD - indeed Pat Kenny still calls me that, or should I say PK!

What was the first music album you bought?

First single was Don McLean's eight-minute opus American Pie - value for money on vinyl.

First album was Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Waters.

What's on your iPod now?

I have an iRiver, it is brilliant. I have audio books, Snow Patrol, Andreas Scholl, Mary Black, Enya, Handel and The Libertines. I love Pete Doherty singing - ie not being "a waster".

What posters did you have on your bedroom wall?

Che Guevara, Radio Luxembourg and Gay Byrne celebrating his first 50 years in broadcasting - and an early Helen Mirren - it was so long ago I just can't remember.

Who was your first crush?

Sarah Miles - the Irish schoolteacher in Ryan's Daughter - in the scene in the woods when she was seduced by the British soldier. Don't even start me. It was worth 800 years of oppression by the Brits just for those glimpses of Sarah!

Who would play you in a movie of your younger days?

Tom Cruise - same height, similar background and I would get to meet Katie Holmes.

What did you study in college?

Social work, but I majored in student politics, throwing eggs and disrupting petty bourgeois affectations which bedevilled Trinity at the time - and still do!

Regrets? Have you had a few?

Not being a very accurate egg thrower, being too temperamental, and sacrificing too much for too little!

Joe Duffy presents the daily radio programme Liveline on RTÉ Radio 1 and the weekly consumer programme Highly Recommended on Sundays at 8.30, RTÉ 1