Ian Payn

EBU Chair - 2019 - Present

Vice-Chairman 2013 - 2019

Place of Birth: London

Family: Married

Lives: Fulham, London

Do you play Bridge? Yes. Usually in teams, but I enjoy the occasional club game and/or congress.

Who would you like to be stranded on a desert island with and why? Even if it were someone erudite and eloquent like the late Dr. Jonathan Miller, we'd get on each nerves after a day. Best steer clear of travelling, just in case.

If you could come back as an animal what would it be? I'm afraid that even for a joke answer I can't bring myself to give any credence to the concept of reincarnation.

If money was no object, tell us about your dream holiday? The same as if money were an object. a small English town with a couple of nice pubs, a reasonable restaurant and no-one in a hurry.

What book are you currently reading? Rationality by Stephen Pinker.

Who do you admire and why? At the time of writing, a difficult question to answer without courting controversy by straying into the realms of who one doesn't admire.

Which 4 famous people (dead or alive) would you invite to a dinner party? Olivia Newton-John, Simon Raven, Clive James, Anthony Joshua.

What is your ideal night out? Previous answers might well lead the reader to infer that I don't really have one.

Tell us something about yourself that no one at EBU would know: I once played the lead, Macheath, in a production of The Threepenny Opera. Why was pretty much a mystery then. It certainly is now.

Last updated: December 2021

Tollemache Cup winner: 2004 and 2006