My fabulous Friday: Dave Cleary

Fitness first

I force myself to go to the gym even at weekends. I prefer hiking or swimming though. I try to eat healthily – some people go to the gym but eat fast food every day and then ask why they don’t lose weight. Stay away from bread and soft drinks, I say, they are the enemy!

Tea break(fast)

I’m not hungry when I wake up so I will only have a banana or a protein shake. But being a typical Brit I must start the day with a nice cup of tea.

Avoid like the plague

Shopping malls are a no-go area for me – I find them so stressful. If I have to go I treat it like a James Bond mission, I go in, get the job done as quickly as possible, and get out.

Friday friends

On Fridays I go to the Media One Hotel brunch. The atmosphere is great, there’s a good DJ and it tends to attract nice people. I also love having friends over for a barbecue at sunset. I’m much more of an evening person than a morning one!

I’ll watch

My favourite film is The Bounty (1984) starring Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins. It’s based on the story of Fletcher Christian and the mutineers. I watched it for the first time about 10 years ago and have seen it so many times since.

My soundtrack

My weekend song of the moment is Jason Derulo – Want To Want Me. It’s one of those upbeat feel-good tracks. When it comes to music I don’t have a genre, I like things from Coldplay’s album Ghost Stories to Andrea Bocelli’s Romanza, Lit and Brink 182. Doing the job I do you need to be open. I just added Andrea Bocelli to make it sound like I have a bit of class.

Weekend getaways

I love to travel. Living in Dubai is perfect as it’s easy to get to the Seychelles, Nepal, Sri Lanka – even Kuwait is doable for a weekend. The last thing I splurged on was a huge holiday – I went to Tahiti, sailed around the islands, then went to the Pitcairn Islands, and across to Easter Island and Machu Picchu. It cost me a fortune but was totally worth it. When it’s cooler here I love taking road trips to the mountains.

Ready meals

My friends never let me cook for them – they’ll make an excuse saying they’re not hungry or have already eaten. But that doesn’t stop me dabbling in the kitchen. The last thing I made was a chicken kiev – it’s one of my favourites because I just take it out of the wrapper, put it in the microwave and hey presto, it’s done.