demeaning their message, which might be about how they discovered planets forming for
the first time around distant stars. So once again, you can get in trouble for that too.
Have you ever been attacked or criticised for your clothing choices?
Oh, I have been hay-bailed on every possible topic you could mention.
Wow, I wouldn’t have imagined that, but I guess you being a public figure it’s probably
unavoidable, I suppose?
Well, you’re an easy target. If I stick to the facts on climate change, I’ll get attacked by
the denialists. And then there’s that whole thing of, you know, in America the Truthers
and Birthers. It turns out that 40% of Republicans are Birthers, referring to that particular
belief that President Obama was not born in the United States of America. And on the
other side, 40% of Democrats are Truthers, they think that the 9/11 attacks were set off
by the government as a false-flag event. Here’s the real twist on top of that: the whole
Birther thing was set off by Hillary Clinton’s people, as a direct attack upon a fellow
Democrat running for the Presidency, over Barack Obama. They set it off, Hillary
Clinton's people started that up. It was picked up by the Republicans who loved it. It
shows you what an irrational world we live in.
Yeah, definitely, especially with American politics it seems to get pretty insane
sometimes.
Yeah, the way things are going at the moment it’s looking as though it will be a choice
between Trump and Hillary Clinton – in other words, between the crazy and the greedy.
I can’t believe Trump is still running to be honest; he seems like just too much of a joke
for people to keep supporting him. This is very bizarre.
Well, yes, when he says stuff that’s obviously wrong. But remember that he’s got 30% of
the Republican vote at the moment, then Ben Carson, the neurosurgeon, has got 20% and
he said that the pyramids were used by the Egyptians to store grain. Now, they’re not
hollow, but the reason he said that is because it’s mentioned in Exodus in The Bible. By
saying that, he’s putting out a message to all Evangelicals, vote for me because I am truly
Evangelical and I believe The Bible, literally. Trump looks like he’s going to get the
American nomination. But who knows what’s going to happen further down the line. And
the relationship between facts and what he says is pretty well zero.
Do you always wear colourful outfits, or do you "dress down" when you're not working?
When I’m on stage, I wear the colourful clothing and then whenever I’m at the university,
most of the time I will wear colourful clothing because I’m kind of on stage. The doors
open for students, they walk past, I’ve got to be in that role. At home, I’ll just wear daggy
brown stuff when I’m doing the gutters and cleaning the roof, doing some housework and
mowing the lawn. I wouldn’t wear bright clothing for that, it's too precious because my
wife makes the shirts, it takes three hours (as I mentioned) and the shirts can be worn for
between 5 and 30 wears before they get too faded. So I try to think about making them
last longer, by not to wearing them out too often. When I’m onstage with a big audience,
I try to wear something really recent and bright and snappy.