Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Genetic scientist who invented DNA fingerprinting, revolutionising police forensics and settling family disputes.
On the island
Eight records
Toccata and Fugue in D minorFavourite
Someone once said that if you could hear God, he would sound like this. Now, I'm not a religious person, but I can understand that.
at that time I was trying to attract my first girlfriend and it was a miserable failure. So this is a very poignant song for me.
This is my heroine. This is Tina Turner, who is maybe getting on in years, but she can belt those numbers out like nobody's business. And I think a tremendously brave woman. And this particular number I think is is a great aspirational number.
this is really a big thank you to our wonderful elder daughter, Sarah, who introduced me to the world of dance and Abitha and so on. ... If I've got a really tough PhD thesis to read, I'll have this blaring away in the background. It drives me through.
I've got no choice but to choose something that's made me laugh ever since I was four or five years old and it still does. So sorry, it's Charles Penrose and the laughing policeman.
this is music so I can on this desert island I can remember my dear wife Sue. One of her favourite singers is Leonard Cohen and I've taken the liberty of choosing one of his sort of sad saddest, probably most depressing numbers.
All These Things That I've Done
Other daughter, that's Lizzie. One of the great contributions to my life, enrichments of my life, is introducing me to indie rock, modern rock music ... My favourite band are The Killers. And I like this one because it sort of summarises in a way my life.
My final choice is: well, it's got to be a memory of Leicester. ... what better to finish off than Leicester's only megastar? A gentleman that I've met recently in person, wonderful person, and that, of course, has to be Engelbert Humperdink and his first smash hit from exactly 40 years ago.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:27Can you begin by describing that moment then, September 1984, when you had, let's call it your Eureka moment? What happened?
Oh, I mean, it really was a eureka moment. ... It was five past nine on Monday morning, the 10th of September 1984. That was a moment that changed my life. ... inside the darkroom, pulling this piece of film out of the developing tank, put the light on, and I thought, whoa, what have we got here?
Presenter asks
1:34And when you say that it was a moment of absolute joy and clarity, the Eureka moment, what did you think it meant when you saw it? Did you know the implications almost immediately?
Well, Penny dropped immediately. It was quite obvious that we'd stumbled upon this idea of DNA-based biological identification purely by chance on that very first X-ray film. ... basically, within about half an hour, we'd drawn up a shopping list of things that we thought might be possible using this technology.
Presenter asks
6:20And your parents were quite happy to let you get on with that [dangerous chemistry experimentation]?
Absolutely, yeah. If you want to turn someone onto chemistry, show them how to make bangs. Bangs and stinks. ... We lived in a house prone to developing holes. So we had holes appearing mysteriously in carpets, in curtains, in our back lawn, on my face.
The keepsakes
The book
George MacDonald Fraser
Flashman was a school bully in Tom Brown's school days and what Fraser has done is to just chronicle his subsequent career as a scoundrel, a lecturer and a bully that managed to get himself involved in virtually every major Victorian era military engagement. Extraordinary campaigns brought to life and with a raciness that I love.
The luxury
the world's biggest church organ
I've one great regret of my life was never sticking with my piano lessons and really learning the keyboard properly. And one great ambition of mine is be able to get on a really, really big church organ.
Presenter asks
26:09Are you comfortable with [the fact that in Britain you only have to be arrested, not charged or found guilty, to stay on the DNA database]?
No, what we now have, and this is really the only country in the world where this is true. ... Hundreds and thousands of those are entirely innocent. They've never committed any crime whatsoever. ... Now, the argument is, which I do not agree with at all, that that is a proportionate response to the threat of crime.
Presenter asks
30:12Are you comfortable enough with that? Do you aim to try, to reach for the stars again, or are you comfortable that possibly your most significant work is behind you?
I think the in terms of public significance it's behind me, because I will never come up with anything as impactful as DNA finger printing again. But in terms of intellectual curiosity and doing real tough science, then I'm still motoring fine, thank you very much.
“I think I was born a scientist. I certainly came from a sort of a remarkable family, just a perfectly ordinary middle-class suburban family, but with a father who had this sort of amazing inventive bent.”
“if I had to pick one magic moment in the story of D and A, that was the moment. It was just that look of that woman's eyes pure magic.”
“Those two years I would not have missed for the world, but I would never ever want to live through that again. It was absolutely exhausting. It was a roller coaster.”
“The fact that you can use your your hands to tease secrets out of nature, it's extraordinary.”