Time Out With Tickle

Brainiac presenter Jon Tickle took time out of his hectic schedule to talk to Null editor Hayley Birch about gooseberry bushes, Big Brother and - we could be talking exclusive news here - a possible Brainiac stage play.

Scroll down for Jon's answers to some quick fire questions.

For someone who has starred in the world’s most successful reality TV show, Jon Tickle remains remarkably grounded.

Although he is routinely stopped by fans from as far afield as Hong Kong and the Falkland Islands, physics graduate Tickle puts his day job ahead of his media career, and his appearance on Big Brother down to a “momentary lapse”. “The story goes that I was at a barbecue and one of my friends and I were talking about Big Brother. He turned round to me and said, ‘Yes, but of course, you’d never get on’ and because I don’t like people telling me what I can and can’t do, I bunged in an application form.”

Even Brainiac is just a hobby; something he fits into his holidays from his job as a Data Strategy Manager for British Gas. And he had to be coerced into that. Tickle never planned to accept any media offers after Big Brother and had originally sent the script back to his agent unread. It was only when his agent marched him into the Brainiac office that he finally caved in. “It was full of life. Everything was yellow and there was so much energy and enthusiasm that I kind of swallowed my pride.”

Every episode, Tickle and his co-presenters tackle some of science’s greatest mysteries: what effect do beer goggles have on attractiveness; why shouldn’t you eat mints with coca cola; and can you cook eggs on a clothes dryer?

But what’s Brainiac really all about? It took Tickle a while to work it out himself, he says. “Richard Hammond and I were having a conversation where we said ‘What are we actually doing here?’ We’re not doing any science. You can’t claim that these are rigorous experiments that will stand up in the lab. We kind of came to the conclusion that what we were doing was communicating the scientific method – the idea that you have a hypothesis and you have to think of a way to test it.”

Science communication is not something Tickle ever imagined himself doing, but he has very happily fallen into it. His parents were both teachers, so perhaps, he muses, it was in the blood.

Tickle and his twin brother spent their childhood summers helping their parents out in the garden. “We kept goats, chickens and rabbits, and we had quite a lot of vegetables. I think it was always mum’s belief that if the apocalypse came and there was a nuclear war, then at least we would be able eat stuff out of the garden. So those were my summer holidays – picking fruit and vegetables, lying under a gooseberry bush getting pricked.”

At 33, Tickle has no grand plans for an illustrious
career under the media spotlight. “I don’t think I’m
the best television presenter out there,” he says.
“The long term plan is to retire back to Norfolk.
I’ve travelled enough and there’s nowhere finer
than Norfolk.”

He does, however, have a burning ambition to test
out his science communication skills in a more
theatrical environment. And with rumours rife of a
Brainiac stage play in the pipeline, Tickle might
just get his chance. “On camera, you can warble
away about all these grand scientific principles
and then they just cut it, because it doesn’t work on a snappy show like Brainiac, but with a stage show you’re live and there is more opportunity to do direct science communication.”

But is he fazed by the idea of performing in front of a live audience? “Oh absolutely, yes! But I’ve never done a job that I thought I could do before I applied for it and I guess that’s in the same vein.”

So with a full-time job and a sideline in science communication, does Tickle ever get time for a break? “Last year I had four days and five nights in Jamaica and then went straight into the Brainiac studio in my Bermuda shorts.”

Finally, Tickle answers some quick fire questions:

	First off, Marmite – love it or hate it? Oh, love it, yes. Obviously.
	If you had a teleport machine, where would you go? In time and space, or just space?
	Let’s go for time and space. I’m a big fan of Richard Dawkins and I think a friend of his describes him as a non-practicing militant atheist. And I’d put myself in the same category - I am quite a big anti-religious person because I think it’s one of the evils of the world, but I don’t do anything about it. I would love to go back 2,000 years and actually see what all the fuss is about.
	What do you wish you had invented? A better battery. My life is on the road, and I just have a huge number of cables that I take with me everywhere. I think if there was a better battery and a single format that you could just plug into everything so that you could just take a couple with you and change them between different machines, then that would work for me.
	Okay, Michaela Strachan or Carol Vorderman? Oooh, do you know what, that’s an incredibly difficult question. I’ve got to say Carol Vorderman, because I’ve met Carol and she’s absolutely lovely.
	And finally, how can I tell if you’re lying? (Laughs loudly). Ha ha, you can’t! It’s one of my core skills! I am one of the most gifted liars I’ve ever met.
	So this whole interview could be chock full of lies... You wouldn't have a clue.