Archive for NewsTalk

Pushing Euclid

Posted in Biographical, Euclid, Science Politics, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , on June 30, 2023 by telescoper

I’ve spent a sizeable chunk of the last two days answering press enquiries concerning the Euclid mission, due to be launch about 24 hours from now. Here is a picture of Euclid in the Falcon 9 fairing, getting ready to be moved to the launch facility. It’s all getting very real!

After talking with their researcher yesterday, this morning I did a short interview on Morning Ireland, which is on RTÉ Radio 1. It was shorter than I imagined because the previous item – about the ongoing ructions at RTÉ over various financial scandals – understandably overran quite a bit. The presenter, Rachel English, was very nice though and I think it went fairly well. I did another short interview on Newstalk Radio on a programme called Hard Shoulder, which took place at 5.48pm. I also spoke to a journalist from the Sunday Times Irish Edition, who I think will run a story on Sunday.

Anyway, the purpose of this media stuff is not to try to grab headlines – my involvement in Euclid is very small, really – but to generate some interest in the hope that Ireland takes a more active role in future space missions. I don’t know whether it will work, but I hope it does, and I feel obliged to try although it has made for a very busy day indeed!

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Talking and Marking

Posted in Biographical, Politics, The Universe and Stuff with tags , on May 28, 2019 by telescoper

I’m taking a short break from my examination marking to have a cup of tea before I resume and make an attempt to finish it this evening. I’m late today because I had to go into Dublin to do an interview on NewsTalk Radio with a chap called Pat Kenny.

I was supposed to go on about 11.15 and was told to get to their HQ by 11am. I got there a bit earlier in fact and had to sit around a bit in the offices before going into the studio and then my bit was delayed because they wanted to play an audio recording of some bloke called Tony Blair pointing out, with devastating insight, that the United Kingdom is a very divided country.

After a bit of a delay  for that and a commercial break we finally got going nearer to 11.30. The subject of the interview was, of course, the Einstein-Eddington-Eclipse-Extravaganza taking place tomorrow. Pat Kenny introduced me as `John Coles from Maynooth University’, obviously thinking of John Cole, the former BBC political correspondent. Remember him? Anyway, I corrected him it and it went reasonably well from then on.

Unfortunately I’ve got a bit of a cold so I’ve been coughing and spluttering a bit and was a bit worried I would sneeze into the microphone but got through it reasonably well. I’ve done one or two bits of radio before, including an encounter with John Humphreys on BBC Radio 4, which that was about the anniversary of the publication of Stephen Hawking’s book A Brief History of Time.

Anyway after this morning’s interview was finished I was asked if I minded recording a little video about the topic I’d been talking about so I went with a nice young man into a very small  but very brightly lit room. I think it will probably look like a hostage video, but I’ll post it here if and when I find it. I gather they will put it up somewhere tomorrow, along with a podcast of the Pat Kenny show.

Now back to the marking.

 

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