Dame Blandine in her garden Ekaterinaworld Blandines website

(*) Actually Blandine got in a bit of a muddle and answered 10 - but normally it will be 5!.

Q: Do you have a God?

Mummy and I never leave the house without Onan, our rather geriatric Dachsund. He's never quite recovered since a trip to the vet in Osnabrück, when we tried to have him neutered twice. He has a lovely personality, though, and children are terrified of him! Ekaterina calls him Onan the Barbarian - or was it Barbara the Onanian? I'm never sure. We'll be awfully sad when he dies on April 5th.

Q: favourite holiday destination?

Ekaterinaworld, no question about it. Three things are most precious to me in life - ballet, money, and novelty gifts. If I ever go to heaven - and I am a confirmed atheist - I hope they have a Ballet Things 'n' Bits or whatever that damn woman's shop is called. If there is a God, which there isn't, I hope to God he understands the value of merchandising. They sell enough plaster-of-Paris Cherubs on earth, he'd be a damn fool not to cash in.

Q: favourite supermarket?

Favourite supermarket? You are joking I hope? I do not form emotional attachments to shops. I have little enough time for people, let alone ambient fish gondolas. I suppose I was once rather keen on a shop in Camden Town which sold ex-army surplus goods - great coats and camouflaged compasses,

A detail of Blandines especially customised car - affectionately known as the Blandinamobile... (photo © Crickmay)

things like that - but that's about it. I believe mummy sometimes goes to a place called a Pound Shop, but that's because I refuse to buy her Andrex when she uses so much of it. It's terribly expensive, and in Russia, they have to cut up old copies of Pravda, glasnost or no glasnost.

Q: If you were a dog what type would you be?

An all-knowing, all-seeing. I actually think I'd be quite good at it - some damn fool on Radio 4 is always asking why God allows suffering, and so I think we've got a lot in common. I've never quite seen the point of sympathy. In any case, by the time you've been promoted to being God, you shouldn't have to worry about other people, surely? I feel rather sorry for God, actually - no-one ever asks why choreographers allow suffering, and there right there in front of you, waiting to be asked at one of those post-performance talks. Why should God get it in the neck when there is so much dreadful dancing about, adding to the well of human misery?

Q: What has been your greatest triumph?

There really are too many to list - but I am particularly proud of the fact that I have run the Royal Opera House for so long without the press interfering in my personal life. It really has been a doddle, apart from a couple of awkward years while they were rebuilding. But now that they've thrown that Aussie chap on the fire for a while, I can take a back seat again. The colonies have been terribly useful for that sort of thing. So grateful for the job, they don't mind taking a bit of flak and riding one's storm for one.

Q: Do you believe in beating children?

Only for pleasure. If you want obedience from young people, there are much more subtle, enduring and amusing ways of procuring it. Besides, children can get clingy and dependent if you beat them too much.

Q: How to you cope with your celebrity?

I usually wait until he's completely drunk, and then just order him a taxi.

Q: With Hardy Amies retiring who will now dress you?

Mummy and I only ever shop in Primark and What She Wants. Clothes and cars are so bourgeois. I had no idea Amies did clothes as well. How does he have the time to write those novels!

Q: Do you prefer to wash or dry
(question sponsored by Fairy Liquid)

We have a nice Latvian girl - I think it's Latvia, it may be Luton - who does all that. She brings her own satchel-full of chemicals - I don't think they're all necessarily legal fare over here, but there hasn't been a hint of limescale in our toilet since she arrived, and I'm prepared to sacrifice a few dolphins for that.

Q: What's wrong with ballet these days?

Nothing. Ballet, good, fine old classical ballet is alive and well. Just look at the popularity of Ekaterina's ballet gifts, at the wonderful performances given by all those minor European companies with 10 soviets and a tape-recorder. There's absolutely nothing wrong with ballet. It's all that jumping about and rolling on the floor to Enya that's the problem. Still, it doesn't worry me. Until Barbie doing a contraction in Wuppertal y-fronts is the next fad for Christmas, I don't see Ekaterina or I going out of business.