The Grand Designs presenter and co-host of Tim & Kev’s Big Design Adventure on living with bats, the most important room in a house and eating fermented shark

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There’s an aphorism that Australians only want to talk about two things – sport and real estate. Do you think we talk too much about real estate?

In my experience, Australians never talk about real estate but the Australian media talks about it all the time. It’s a little bit like politics in the UK, where the right wing occupy a tiny minority and yet they’re all over the BBC. The media will always pick up on something they think should be the topic of national conversation because it sells newspapers. But in my dealings with Australians, I find I talk about pretty well every other subject. There is something very exciting about Australia’s can-do attitude. The British national default is to say, “Maybe, I don’t know – ask me in six months”. We’re very good at circumlocuting an issue. But the moment I get off the plane in Australia, it is, “What can we do?” I love the optimism of Australia.