Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A chemist and tireless science populariser known for explosive lectures, specialising in photochemistry and photodynamic therapy for cancer.
On the island
Eight records
String Quintet in C major, D. 956
Isaac Stern, Cho-Liang Lin, Jaime Laredo, Yo-Yo Ma and Sharon Robinson
I think science at a local level is a collaborative effort. So what you get out of it is more than the sum of the individual parts. And I think chamber music really is a wonderful example of that, and there's none better than this beautiful piece of Schubert.
Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
Academy of St Martin in the Fields, conducted by Sir Neville Marriner
It's by Vaughan Williams, and it's a beautifully English piece of music. And I I think I came back to Europe from the United States because I felt European and I'm obviously a Brit, but I think deep down I'm actually quite English also.
This was his song, he always used to sing this one which is uh Georgia on My Mind, great Hoagie Carmichael song.
I do this because, of course, I'm a chemist and it's all about the elements, and and also I spent ten very happy years in the Royal Institution, and ten of the chemical elements were actually discovered in that building.
I had a wonderful time in Moscow. I mean, the the the friendliness of the people is just beyond belief. They have a great self deprecating sense of humour also. And the reason I've chosen this is to remind me of those days in Moscow.
Viene la sera (from Madama Butterfly)
Luciano Pavarotti and Mirella Freni, with the Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Herbert von Karajan
It's one of the great love duets in in opera, and I I I love opera. But the real reason for choosing it is that I lecture all round the world, as you said, and I was giving some lectures in Charles University in Prague on one occasion a few years ago. And they managed to get me one ticket for the Prague opera that night, and I was there on my own. The normal soprano was was a a Czech lady, very sveld lady. Well, for this one night that I was there, they had got a Japanese soprano in as substitute, but who also was very rotund, very heavy. But having not changed the staging at the end of this aria the tenor tried to pick up this this lady, and you could see the hernia happening in slow motion. He lurched off the stage and his voice rose in octave. And so, sadly, this is almost spoiled for me for ever, because that's all I think about when I hear it now.
Very difficult. Um it's a lovely piece of guitar music, which I like. I was lecturing at a conference in Granada about four years ago, and we took a short holiday afterwards in the Sierra Nevada. And we went for a long walk one day, but at the beginning of the walk we walked down from the village where we were staying down to the village just below. And it was about ten o'clock on a Sunday morning, and in this square there was a guitarist playing for his own pleasure this particular piece. So I've never forgotten that.
The Marriage of Figaro (Finale)Favourite
Ingvar Wixell and Jessye Norman, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Colin Davis
This is right at the finale. It's where everybody is apologising to each other. The Count is apologising to his wife for having tried to seduce the maid. Figaro's parents are apologising to him for having abandoned him as a child. And it's just a wonderful piece of ensemble singing. But it's very human as well. Mozart really knew what he was doing here. And I'm very conscious of perhaps not having led a blameless life. And so for anybody I've hurt along the way, this is my way of saying my apologies.
In conversation
Presenter asks
6:49Did [the Second World] War materially affect your early years?
Well, I think I wasn't conscious of it because I was a child, but my father… was a prisoner of war in in Germany for four and a half years essentially.
Presenter asks
7:53What did your mother say to you at the time about why your father had gone away? Did she think he was alive?
There was a long period when she didn't know… all of the time she didn't know whether he was alive or dead, she had no money. When it was discovered he was a prisoner of war they restarted his part salary.
Presenter asks
10:46What did [being reunited with your father] feel like?
To be honest, I think I was resentful because I'd been the centre of attention and then suddenly this man appeared. And and I think for that reason I only became really close to my father quite late in life.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
Leo Tolstoy
Well, it goes back to my days in Russia. I've I've always enjoyed Russian literature, usually in translation. And so I thought it would be very nice to have War and Peace, Tolstoy's War and Peace. And if I can be indulged, I would like it in translation, but also in Russian, so that I can actually bone up on my Russian as well by doing this.
The luxury
Well, this is this is really pushing uh pushing my luck, I suppose. Um my father died thirty-one years ago, thirty-two years ago, and uh I he bequeathed me his piano. And all of that time, the last thirty odd years, that piano has been in my house, and about once a year I try and play it, and visitors play it. So if it would be possible, I would like his piano to be there. with his music, which I still have, so then I could uh learn to play again as I used to play as a teenager, and nobody would have to listen to this terrible noise I'm making except the birds and the and the flowers.
What was the atmosphere like as you went to study and work [in Texas]?
I led a very privileged life because through contacts in other departments I used to meet a lot of visitors. I met Tom Wolfe, for example, Marshall McLuhan, people of that ilk. So it was a rather heady experience.
Presenter asks
19:04Why did you decide to go to Moscow?
Well, that's uh it's due to my mentor, uh uh Albert Noyes, actually… Noyes designated each of his team to be the chauffeur to one of these delegates coming in, and I happened to draw by accident the Russian, a man called Nikolai Kondratyev. And so I drove him around for about a week and told him I had decided by then that I was going to come back to Europe, and he just said, Why don't you come to Moscow? And that seemed like a sufficiently off the wall thing to do that I I did it.
Presenter asks
21:27Were there times when you ever did fall foul of the KGB and of the official channels?
Yes, I I I had been planning to go on a walking tour… to the Crimea, and about two days before we were due to go, the Academy of Sciences said you are not allowed to go to the Crimea… and so they cooked up a a trip for me out to the east of Moscow to a place called Vladimir… and the next thing I know, the KGB arrived, and I I was interrogated for about five hours.
“We make a huge contribution to the world we live in, and we live in a molecular world. Everything around us is is made of molecules, chemicals if you like um. Put it impolitely, you are just a walking bag of chemicals.”
“He never ever told me he he was proud of me. He would tell other people, but he would never tell me. I mean that's just the the he wasn't able to communicate uh that way.”
“I had a sudden overwhelming sense that I'd been in prison for a year. Really? Because everything was so bright and colourful and all the the girls were wearing short skirts. This was nineteen sixty seven and there was a kind of release.”