First up, do you have a telescope?
No, I’ve never owned one. This doesn’t feel like the best start, in the context of this article. I’ve owned quite a few microscopes over the years if that’s any consolation.
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As a child, what did you want to do when you grew up?
I can remember really clearly wanting to be a pudding designer.
Explain what you do in one easy paragraph.
I’m an artist, designer and material engineer. We collect , conduct research into materials and stage events on the art, science, craft and engineering of materials, as well as running an open-access workshop at UCL that I like to think of as a dream garden shed.
What do you love most about what you do, and what’s the worst part?
Working with friends and having nobody’s permission to ask but my own. The worst part is saying no.
What does a typical day involve?
There is probably no typical day, but a typical element of every day is having lunch with the team at the . This is something we take time to do with as many of us around the table can be there on that given day.
Sum up your life in a one-sentence elevator pitch…
An enthusiastic amateur gets carried away? Or: making, as defined by the relationship between materials and processes, explored, celebrated and investigated in as many ways as possible.
Were you good at science at school?
I was keen, enjoyed the practical side and, on the whole, found it interesting, but I wasn’t one of the “good at science” crew.
If you could send a message back to yourself as a kid, what would you say?
Don’t put Smurfy in that box.
If you could have a long conversation with any scientist, living or dead, who would it be?
I’d like to have a discussion with Richard Feynman, though who wouldn’t! But I’d want to bring up .
Do you have an unusual hobby, and if so, please will you tell us about it?
I like to stage informal “Olympic games” at family get-togethers and festive occasions. There is a summer garden Olympics and a winter garden Olympics, and often an Easter edition too. Favourite events include the shopping-basket-slalom relay race, the five-bar-gate challenge and the balled-up-sock-through-an-upstairs-window lob.
What’s the best piece of advice anyone ever gave you?
Last month, I learned that Dolly Parton said “Find out who you are and do it on purpose.” That strikes me as great advice.
What’s the best thing you’ve read or seen in the past 12 months?
42nd Street at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in London, three times.
“It takes a tonne of ore to retrieve the same amount of gold as there is in 40 smartphones”
How useful will your skills be after the apocalypse?
I’m definitely a practical person who can turn their hand to all sorts of making and fixing. I can whittle a mean spoon, light fires without matches and make rope from stinging nettles, so I think I’d do above average.
OK, one last thing: tell us something that will blow our minds…
While making a documentary about rubbish and landfill, I learned that it takes a tonne of ore to create just 1 gram of gold – the same amount of the metal that can be retrieved from just 40 smartphones. Plus, there are now more smartphones and similarly .
