We met up with the softly-spoken scientist in a fabulous Ancoats boozer to chat about life, the universe and everything...
How can the entire history of life on earth be represented on a single blade of grass?
Such questions, and their explanations, play on the mind of Professor Brian Cox all the time. It must be exhausting carrying the weight of them.
Once a punk, then a rave keyboardist – with the dance outfit D:Ream, who also, incongruously, soundtracked Tony Blair’s campaign for New Labour – but always an academic deep down, he holds New Order responsible for almost changing the path of his life.
But perhaps not in a good way.
It was after seeing the Manchester icons in concert in the late 80s that he almost made a mess of his maths A-level which he was sitting the following morning, meaning that in turn he almost didn’t get the grades to study physics at the University of Manchester.
Luckily he did, and he’s been professor of particle physics there since 2009.
How different his life might have been. He’s now part natural historian, astronomer, traveller, broadcaster, hard sums pin-up, and perhaps the most famous scientist in the UK.
We sat down with him at the Spinners Rest in Ancoats, a place he once wandered the streets of as a teen goth, beating back the rain with a trenchcoat from Afflecks.
And we went everywhere, from the multiverse to pies to Street Fighter, ahead of his show Emergence at Co-op Live.
It was a journey… and we’re so glad we went on it.
Professor Brian Cox presents Emergence at Co-op Live on 9 October. Get more info here…
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