I had this idea... I wanted the sound to sing and have that thickness but yet still have an edge so that it could articulate. So my dad and I designed the guitar... the one that was made from an old fireplace.

I despise the Lottery. There's less chance of you becoming a millionaire than there is of getting hit on the head by a passing asteroid.

I go through major crises every few months, but then I have great peaks of belief and creativity. I'm a weird kind of animal

If I go to places where other people are playing, I often get up and play myself. I just enjoy the sound and feel of playing.

I think music is about our internal life. It’s part of the way people touch each other. That’s very precious to me. And astronomy is, in a sense, the very opposite thing. Instead of looking inwards, you are looking out, to things beyond our grasp.

...I think the popular view of Science is a solid body of truth, shared by a whole lot of learned men in a room, all agreeing on the answers to the questions of how the Universe works. Whereas nothing could be further from the truth!!! The one truth that I see emerging from the History of Science is that experiment has always surprised theorists. Einstein included!

Astronomy's much more fun when you're not an astronomer