My favorite movie is ‘The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.’
Diving has been in the game for years. Probably the coverage the game gets now, with all the cameras around, it gets highlighted a bit more. But it hasn’t got any worse.
I think that beauty can injure you to death. It can cause an injury that can never be cured. Or it can so traumatise you, your life changes direction. The beauty of the harmony of nature that is forever lost, or a daily rite that you perform, or diving into the sea for a swim. Those experiences are going to mark you.
Again, like I said, my life has been about being fascinated by objects and the stories that they tell, and also making them for myself, obtaining them, appreciating them and diving into them.
I was definitely more of a movie/cartoon guy than comics, but I really do like graphic novels – I don’t have the time to sit down and read Stephen King like I used to, so I find picking up ‘Saga’ every now and then and just diving back into it is a great way to stay reading.
A lot of people don’t understand why I’m not out diving for treasure.
When I went to Australia, I went shark diving. It was crazy. It was called ‘extreme’ shark diving because even though we were in cages, we literally could touch the sharks swimming by. They were huge and I’m terrified of sharks. Then I went to a wildlife park and held kangaroos. That was nice.
While scuba diving off the British Virgin Islands about 25 years ago, our boat’s anchor got stuck. I dived down to release it, but I got separated from the boat and was stranded as it sped away. I had to swim for an hour to the nearest island with all my scuba kit on before I was rescued.
I made a series for ITV, just after I retired from Tests in 2009, called ‘Flintoff Versus the World.’ The idea was that I would attempt a series of extreme sports – rodeo riding, jumping out of aeroplanes, paragliding, cliff diving. I thought, ‘Yeah, it looks fun. It’s six weeks having a laugh.’
I’ve already bungee jumped, so I am thinking about diving with sharks. I watched a little snippet of ‘Jaws 2,’ and I was like, ‘Nope! I’ll save it for a rainy day.’ Unfortunately, I live in England, and it’s always raining.
I tend to like writing long stories in comics. I worked on ‘Flash,’ ‘Teen Titans’ and ‘JSA’ for years. I always like diving into characters.
In the Maldives, I tried scuba diving, which was an experience of a lifetime. Also, I had various kinds of lobsters, which I’d probably never get to eat again.
MMA makes you sore and tired every day. I wonder what we’re going to be like when we’re 50 or 60. I wake up some mornings and just say, ‘Oh, God.’ And then I go scuba diving.
There’s a pretty good chance that you’re going to go down when you’re on a motorcycle or if you’re sky diving or whatever, but that happened before I even got this job, and I haven’t sky dived since.
I love diving and motorcycling!
I grew up watching ‘Superman.’ As a child, when I first learned to dive into a swimming pool, I wasn’t diving, I was flying, like Superman. I used to dream of rescuing a girl I had a crush on from a playground bully.
Give me some scratching, diving, hungry ballplayers who come to kill you.
I’ve always loved scuba diving and the cell-tickling feel of being underwater, though it poses unique frustrations. Alone, but with others, you may share the same sights and feelings, but you can’t communicate well.
A great white jumped into my cage when I was diving in South Africa. Half its body was in the cage, and it was snapping at me.
I admit to becoming frustrated by the frequency of diving in the Champions League.
We were diving in caves. It wasn’t totally safe.
The military has a way of ruining all the best recreational activities – scuba, sky diving, camping, hiking – all made much more miserable with a heavy rucksack on your back under arduous conditions.
When I directed my first short – ‘American Virgin’ – I had no idea if I could actually do it. Like, I might just get onto set, have everyone look at me and just completely freeze and have no idea what to do. But pretty much the opposite of that happened. I was like a fish diving into the sea.
I want to help others ‘think first’ before diving into a pool or lake to prevent these types of life-changing accidents. I know I’m in a very fortunate minority and hope my story inspires both adults and children to be more careful.
I have swung on a flying trapeze, explored a glacier, and been hit in the face by a shark’s tail while scuba diving. I like to throw myself fully into projects and adventures, which is probably how I managed to publish a book in the first place.
Pages: 1 2
