‘Like a squirrel on speed…’

About 4 months ago I was interviewed for a podcast. It has just been published and the link is copied below. My performance has been described (by someone who I thought loved me) as being like that of a squirrel on speed.

 I was attending a conference in Denver and the interviewer, Robert Osbourne (from the Outfall Podcast), and I were meeting at the end of a long day. We searched the conference venue for a quiet place to sit, eventually finding a sofa in one of the dark corners of the exhibition centre. It was a large expansive sofa, and had a man gently resting his eyelids at one end. We sat at the other end and started our chat, which at the time I thought had progressed relatively staidly. When we left the man who had been feigning sleep opened his eyes and had a look of such overwhelming relief that we were leaving I wondered if we had disturbed him. Listening to the interview 4 months on I have some insight into how he must have felt.

 Listening to the interview is like playing a game of Spot The Error. There are an embarrassingly large number of misquotes and basic errors in my schpeel. I put it down to a mix of jetlag and unadulterated enthusiasm. I feel a sense of deep shame that I claimed it was Joseph Faraday who predicted The Great Stink in 1856. Obviously everyone who is anyone clearly knows it was Michael Faraday (I got mixed up between Michael Faraday and Joseph Bazalgette, JB being the mastermind behind the London sewer solution to the Great Stink).

 I also cringe at my quote that mussels can ‘hold their breath for 3 weeks’. They cant. Obviously they cant. Only a complete fool would think they can. They can however not feed for this length of time. That’s what I meant to say. 

 The error I am most ashamed of is where I boldly state an outright factual lie: that we will run out of phosphorus in 30 years. This is simply not true. What I meant to say was that some people predict we will be at ‘peak phosphorus’ in 30 years (ie the point from which we are on a clear downward run thereafter). My hope is that despite this exuberant statement I have not detracted from the message that Phosphorus is a problem we need to think much harder about.

 You can judge for yourselves. The link is here: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-outfall?refid=stpr