Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Professor of Physical Chemistry at Cambridge and UK Chief Scientific Advisor, exiled from South Africa for opposing apartheid.
On the island
Eight records
Paul Simon and Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Paul Simon has has managed to pick up South African music and transform it into a medium that has become very popular worldwide. He worked very closely on this one with Lady Smith Black Mambazso, and the track is called Homeless.
Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta
Chamber Orchestra of Europe, conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt
it's something that really does take me back to this period when this is one of the pieces we listen to regularly.
The Beatles were part of the London scene and this uh record yesterday takes me right back to that period in the early sixties.
I could have chosen eight Bob Dylans, I decided when preparing for this, but I've cho chosen just like a woman.
Jazz has always been an important element of the music I listen to and love and this was a very difficult choice but Coltrane from his track I Love Supreme.
the gravelly voice of Tom Waits, and the track I've chosen is Tabletop Joe.
Don't Know WhyFavourite
I think she actually wrote this the day after she regretted not meeting somebody for a date.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:26How do you operate as the Government's chief scientist when you can't possibly be an expert in all the breadth of the science?
The way to handle it is first of all to recognize that a professional scientist who's worked all their career at the cutting edge of science is able to pick up topics outside their normal area of speciality fairly quickly. And secondly, in my job I can call in the experts to give me a personal seminar.
Presenter asks
3:41Shouldn't the public know your honest scientific opinion, rather than it stopping at the Prime Minister?
I think that's absolutely right, but of course that is very difficult for the government system itself to have an advisor who will give advice but then go into the public domain. But that is exactly what I've done, and the reason I've done that is … to recapture public trust in what the science advice is.
Presenter asks
13:41How did your parents react to your activism and anti-apartheid stance?
My parents were embarrassed, distressed, frightened, but also quite simply disagreed with the position I was taking. … Our telephone at home was tapped and my mother was particularly upset about that.
The keepsakes
The book
Acumen
the book I would choose is an anthology provoked by Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. It's called Wild Reckoning. And it's an anthology of poems, and they date right back over the last few hundred years. And I think it's a wonderful way of sitting on an island and reading about nature and moving a little away from the science base.
The luxury
for a luxury I would like to have a bunch of canvases and oils and brushes to allow me to once again get back to the world of art where uh where I was once active.
Presenter asks
14:32What happened when you were sent for by the police?
Well, I I was uh interviewed on the seventh floor of the Grays building in Johannesburg. … several suicides, apparent suicides, from that seventh floor during interrogation. … interrogated in uh in a fairly aggressive fashion. The window behind me was open, and essentially I was accused of being a Communist.
Presenter asks
18:52How did it feel when you finally went back to South Africa?
I arrived back in in Durban. I was asked for my passport and I showed it and the passport officer, who was Indian born, opened it and said, Ah, born in South Africa, you're very welcome back and I had tears popping into my eyes. … I suddenly realised that I could recognise precisely where I was flying over from holidays when I was a teenager with my parents. … I did burst into tears
Presenter asks
29:50How serious is the threat of climate change?
Well, I think it's a sufficiently serious issue for all of us who actually think about the lives that our children and their children will lead to change the way we live today. We have become very free and easy about our use of energy. Now, there is a massive cost to our societies around the world, and we, I think, need a big cultural change.
“I think there's a suspicion that sometimes scientific advice has been driven by political decisions rather than the other way round.”
“I was terrified. I didn't feel like a courageous person at all. I walked out of it feeling I'd been terribly naïve. But I was a fortunate one. I had friends, close friends, who at that time were incarcerated.”
“The final question in that particular equation, though, is there a political will around the world to actually invest in these technologies? And in the end, it really is a question of political will.”