Twelve Questions with Martin Devlin

Martin Devlin says he would tell his teenage self the value of patience. Picture /Richard Robinson

Martin Devlin, 48, last week began hosting the new breakfast show on Radio Hauraki. He talks about the importance of humour in all aspects of life, how a career in broadcasting is really about survival, and what all religions boil down to in the end, according to his mum

1. Your formative years were spent at St Patrick's College in Silverstream. What has Catholicism ingrained in you?
If I may answer this one more seriously than most, then religion, all religion according to my mother, simply just teaches you to be nice to others and respect them and their stuff. Hardly a bad thing to espouse, is it?

2. Why are you snarling in the new Radio Hauraki breakfast marketing campaign?
Snarling? That's my best Alice Cooper impersonation right there. I told them I needed an anaconda and a headless chicken to really pull it off.

3.You have two sons - Charlie, 11, and Paddy, 9, - what's the most important thing to teach them about being a Kiwi man?
Teach my boys? I'd like to think my role is to fill them full of confidence, belief and always remember to follow up and net the rebound.

4. Sport, news, rock music, humour: pick your favourite and tell us why
Humour. Being funny is a real gift and I thoroughly admire people who are funny. Humour has the ability to reach everyone and it can tackle
even the most sacred cow. Music and sport come close but humour is all-encompassing.

5. You've had a lot of career highs and lows - and public highs and lows. Would you describe yourself as a survivor?
It's called broadcasting, I think. Part of it in broadcasting is you have to learn to dig a trench sometimes, lie in it and let the bullets fly. The highs and lows are all the same. It's like that Rudyard Kipling poem: "If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster - and treat those two impostors just the same."

6. Which airline do you fly now?
Grabaseat who are taking us and listeners to the F1 in Shanghai.

7. When should name suppression rules apply in court?
Don't get me started ...

8.What do you wish you'd known at 18 and what do you hope you'll have learned by 50?
Patience. Even the card game would be nice.

9.What or who is the love of your life?
No contest. Longest relationship I've had, my Red Devils [Manchester United]. Loved them constantly, without regret, since I was 12.

10. What is your greatest regret?
That I didn't rebook the earlier flight to Wellington so I could've seen my dad one more time before he died in 2007. Missed by four hours. Eats me up.

11.Penises, masturbation, why girls shouldn't go to car-racing: that was all in the last 10 minutes of your first Hauraki show. What happened to the guy from Dancing with the Stars?
I was never on Dancing with the Stars. I can't dance and aren't a star.

12.What's the best piece of broadcasting advice you've ever been given?
From the legendary Sir Paul Holmes, "Marty when you're on 22 per cent you can do what the f*** you like". That and, (same source), "No free hits Marty, no free hits".