I don’t really blog much anymore because I’m far too busy with life. I’m on Twitter, so is Brian, though my Twitter is far more interesting than his. For example, his last tweet was about how he’s flying to Chicago today. *yawn* My last Tweet was about how my chance to shag David Tennant was foiled by Paul McCartney sleeping on my hotel room floor. See? OK. It was a dream. But if Brian Tweeted his dreams they’d just be about carrying the groceries in from the car or putting some envelopes in the bin. Yea. Those are the kinds of dreams he has. He doesn’t have dreams where he’s about to shag Doctor Who, but a Beatle messes it up. Even if he did, he wouldn’t Tweet about them…

Anyway, if you’re looking for more Brian-related stuff I’ve got some photos on my Flickr and some videos on my YouTube channel (also look through my favourites for some more). You can also go through my archives here under either the Professor Brian Cox or the Dr. Brian Cox categories. The latter category goes back further.

And if you’re not at all interested in watching Brian’s programmes on Sunday nights at 9pm on BBC2, I’ll be on BBC4 at exactly the same time in a repeat of Electric Dreams. ;)

Brian’s Twitter
Facebook group
Website
Twitpic (where you can see photos from the filming of both ‘Wonders of the Solar System’ and ‘Wonders of the Universe’ which is currently being filmed)

Some photos from the eclipse in Varanasi….




First day of filming:

Ice cave in Iceland:

At Erte Alle:

Namib Desert:

Sahara Desert:

Mauna Kea:

Grand Canyon:

In the English Electric Lightning:

Recording the voiceover:

“I treat my wife as an employee whom I cannot fire.”- A.E.

Mileva Maric was born on December 19, 1875 in Titel in what is now Serbia, but was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Even in primary school Mileva’s teachers noted her academic abilities. At 7 years old she was reading, doing maths and fluent in both her native Serbo-Croatian as well as German.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire’s rules forbade the high school education of girls, but her father, determined to give her the opportunity for an advanced education, received special permission to send her to the Royal Classical Gymnasium (High School) in Zagreb. Mileva, an ethnic Serbian, became one of the first women in the Austro-Hungarian Empire to be educated in a school alongside boys.

After two years in Zagreb, she left school with the top marks in physics and mathematics and moved to Switzerland to finish her education, as it was one of the only places in Europe that accepted female students in higher education.

Mileva enrolled as a medical student in the University of Zurich in 1894. After two years of medical studies, she decided that she was more interested in physics so moved to the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School (ETH) and joined Division VIA which trained students to be mathematics and physics teachers. Apart from Mileva there were four male students in the class. Along with Mileva only one other student was specialising in theoretical physics, Albert Einstein.

After a year she went to Heidleberg for one semester in order to study under Professor Philip Lenard. Albert and Mileva were exchanging letters at this point, and in one she wrote about a lecture she had attended on the relationship between the velocity of a molecule and the distance traversed by it between collisions. After this letter, this topic would be relevant in Einstein’s studies and is discussed in one of his three famous papers published in 1905.

The University of Heidelberg did not allow women to graduate, so Mileva returned to Zürich. She and Einstein started working and studying together. She took notes when he couldn’t attend class and as she was better organised, she planned both of their studies. It was during this time they fell in love.

Mileva quickly became devoted to Einstein, sacrificing her studies as well as her friends as he began to demand all of her time. They often preferred to study on their own rather than attend lectures. In 1900 they had to take exams, Mileva fails hers, Einstein only just passes with the second lowest mark in the class. Einstein suggested she retake the exam the next year. She would never, however, graduate.

In late spring 1901 Einstein went to Italy to visit his family, Mileva stayed in Zurich preparing for her exam. In May they meet up in Lake Como for a few days. A few weeks later she learns she is pregnant. In July, she fails her exams again.

Both of their families were strongly opposed the idea of them getting married- after all Einstein was Jewish and Mileva was a Serb. Mileva left Switzerland to stay with her family in order to have the baby.

Their daughter Lieserl was born in 1902. Little is known about the life of this first child; it is generally believed that she was given up for adoption though there is some speculation that she died after a bout with Scarlet Fever.

At this time Einstein has been offered a job in the Patent Office in Bern. His university marks were too low for him to get a job in academia or even as a high school teacher.

Mileva and Einstein married in January 1903, ignoring the objections of their families. They continue their work on scientific theories together. When asked by a friend why she did not insist on more of the credit for their joint work, Mileva replied, “We are one stone; Ein stein.”

Their son Hans Albert was born in May 1904. Just before Mileva and Einstein’s second anniversary, the Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded to Marie and Pierre Curie.

Einstein writes to Mileva, “How happy and proud I will be when the two of us together will have brought our work on the relative motion to a victorious conclusion!”

In 1905, Einstein publishes the Special Theory of Relativity. It has been said that that Russian physicist Abram Joffe saw an original manuscript signed ‘Einstein-Marity’ (Marity being the Hungarian version of Maric’s surname) implying that the papers originally credited Mileva. Others claim that it was simply Swiss custom for men to add the maiden name of their wife to their own name. Still others claim that Abram Joffe has been misquoted.

Their second son Eduard is born in 1910. By 1911, Einstein is so famous that he has distanced himself from his family, even stopping their “nightly physics discussions”.

In 1912, Einstein starts having an affair with his cousin, Elsa Löwenthal. On his 34th birthday, he gets a card from Elsa. That evening, Mileva is absent from a party. The next day, friends call on Mileva. Her face is bruised and swollen.

In 1914, Einstein received an offer from Berlin to join the University there and accepted. Mileva was unhappy with the move as Einstein’s cousin Elsa lived in Berlin. By this point, Mileva and Einstein have a marriage in name only. In one of his letters to her he writes down a list of demands
1. You must
-clean my laundry.
-make me three meals daily.
-make sure that my sleep and work rooms are always tidy, in particular the desk- which is for my use only.
2. You must do without all personal relations from me, as long as their maintenance for social reasons is not required. In particular you must not expect that
-I stay at home with you.
-I go out or go away with you.
3. You commit yourself expressly to accept that:
-You will receive neither tenderness nor any reproaches from me.
-You must stop speaking to me immediately if I request it.
-You must leave my sleep and/or work room immediately without contradiction, if I request it.
-You commit yourself to not lower me, neither by words nor by actions, in the eyes of my children.

Mileva decided to move back to Zurich with their sons. On Einstein’s demands she eventually agreed to a divorce on the condition that, should Einstein be awarded the Nobel Prize, she should receive all prize money.

The divorce was granted in 1919. Einstein received the Nobel Prize in 1921 and handed the prize money over to Mileva who used the award money to support their sons. During her last years Mileva lived a secluded life in Zürich. When she died she was buried in the Nordheim Friedhof Cemetery in Zurich. Her grave is unmarked.

In accordance with Albert Einstein’s last wishes his personal documents were deposited with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It contains hundreds of letter between him and Mileva. Some letters do suggest that Mileva made contributions to his most important publications, but was not acknowledged as co-author.

Whatever the reality of these claims, Mileva was, in Einstein’s own words, an “equal and who [was] as strong and independent” as her husband was. She was a victim of her time, tormented by her brilliant yet unused intellect, and betrayed by the man she loved.

“I treat my wife as an employee whom I cannot fire.”- A.E.

Mileva Maric was born on December 19, 1875 in Titel in what is now Serbia, but was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Even in primary school Mileva’s teachers noted her academic abilities. At 7 years old she was reading, doing maths and fluent in both her native Serbo-Croatian as well as German.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire’s rules forbade the high school education of girls, but her father, determined to give her the opportunity for an advanced education, received special permission to send her to the Royal Classical Gymnasium (High School) in Zagreb. Mileva, an ethnic Serbian, became one of the first women in the Austro-Hungarian Empire to be educated in a school alongside boys.

After two years in Zagreb, she left school with the top marks in physics and mathematics and moved to Switzerland to finish her education, as it was one of the only places in Europe that accepted female students in higher education.

Mileva enrolled as a medical student in the University of Zurich in 1894. After two years of medical studies, she decided that she was more interested in physics so moved to the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School (ETH) and joined Division VIA which trained students to be mathematics and physics teachers. Apart from Mileva there were four male students in the class. Along with Mileva only one other student was specialising in theoretical physics, Albert Einstein.

After a year she went to Heidleberg for one semester in order to study under Professor Philip Lenard. Albert and Mileva were exchanging letters at this point, and in one she wrote about a lecture she had attended on the relationship between the velocity of a molecule and the distance traversed by it between collisions. After this letter, this topic would be relevant in Einstein’s studies and is discussed in one of his three famous papers published in 1905.

The University of Heidelberg did not allow women to graduate, so Mileva returned to Zürich. She and Einstein started working and studying together. She took notes when he couldn’t attend class and as she was better organised, she planned both of their studies. It was during this time they fell in love.

Mileva quickly became devoted to Einstein, sacrificing her studies as well as her friends as he began to demand all of her time. They often preferred to study on their own rather than attend lectures. In 1900 they had to take exams, Mileva fails hers, Einstein only just passes with the second lowest mark in the class. Einstein suggested she retake the exam the next year. She would never, however, graduate.

In late spring 1901 Einstein went to Italy to visit his family, Mileva stayed in Zurich preparing for her exam. In May they meet up in Lake Como for a few days. A few weeks later she learns she is pregnant. In July, she fails her exams again.

Both of their families were strongly opposed the idea of them getting married- after all Einstein was Jewish and Mileva was a Serb. Mileva left Switzerland to stay with her family in order to have the baby.

Their daughter Lieserl was born in 1902. Little is known about the life of this first child; it is generally believed that she was given up for adoption though there is some speculation that she died after a bout with Scarlet Fever.

At this time Einstein has been offered a job in the Patent Office in Bern. His university marks were too low for him to get a job in academia or even as a high school teacher.

Mileva and Einstein married in January 1903, ignoring the objections of their families. They continue their work on scientific theories together. When asked by a friend why she did not insist on more of the credit for their joint work, Mileva replied, “We are one stone; Ein stein.”

Their son Hans Albert was born in May 1904. Just before Mileva and Einstein’s second anniversary, the Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded to Marie and Pierre Curie.

Einstein writes to Mileva, “How happy and proud I will be when the two of us together will have brought our work on the relative motion to a victorious conclusion!”

In 1905, Einstein publishes the Special Theory of Relativity. It has been said that that Russian physicist Abram Joffe saw an original manuscript signed ‘Einstein-Marity’ (Marity being the Hungarian version of Maric’s surname) implying that the papers originally credited Mileva. Others claim that it was simply Swiss custom for men to add the maiden name of their wife to their own name. Still others claim that Abram Joffe has been misquoted.

Their second son Eduard is born in 1910. By 1911, Einstein is so famous that he has distanced himself from his family, even stopping their “nightly physics discussions”.

In 1912, Einstein starts having an affair with his cousin, Elsa Löwenthal. On his 34th birthday, he gets a card from Elsa. That evening, Mileva is absent from a party. The next day, friends call on Mileva. Her face is bruised and swollen.

In 1914, Einstein received an offer from Berlin to join the University there and accepted. Mileva was unhappy with the move as Einstein’s cousin Elsa lived in Berlin. By this point, Mileva and Einstein have a marriage in name only. In one of his letters to her he writes down a list of demands
1. You must
-clean my laundry.
-make me three meals daily.
-make sure that my sleep and work rooms are always tidy, in particular the desk- which is for my use only.
2. You must do without all personal relations from me, as long as their maintenance for social reasons is not required. In particular you must not expect that
-I stay at home with you.
-I go out or go away with you.
3. You commit yourself expressly to accept that:
-You will receive neither tenderness nor any reproaches from me.
-You must stop speaking to me immediately if I request it.
-You must leave my sleep and/or work room immediately without contradiction, if I request it.
-You commit yourself to not lower me, neither by words nor by actions, in the eyes of my children.

Mileva decided to move back to Zurich with their sons. On Einstein’s demands she eventually agreed to a divorce on the condition that, should Einstein be awarded the Nobel Prize, she should receive all prize money.

The divorce was granted in 1919. Einstein received the Nobel Prize in 1921 and handed the prize money over to Mileva who used the award money to support their sons. During her last years Mileva lived a secluded life in Zürich. When she died she was buried in the Nordheim Friedhof Cemetery in Zurich. Her grave is unmarked.

In accordance with Albert Einstein’s last wishes his personal documents were deposited with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It contains hundreds of letter between him and Mileva. Some letters do suggest that Mileva made contributions to his most important publications, but was not acknowledged as co-author.

Whatever the reality of these claims, Mileva was, in Einstein’s own words, an “equal and who [was] as strong and independent” as her husband was. She was a victim of her time, tormented by her brilliant yet unused intellect, and betrayed by the man she loved.

“I will publish a blog post on Tuesday 24th March about a woman in technology whom I admire but only if 1,000 other people will do the same.”

Now, I could have written about tons of women in tech that I admire: game designer Jane McGonigal, musician Laurie Anderson, cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, physicist Cinzia Da Via (she designs and builds 3D silicon detectors for CERN for Christ’s sake!) or even Suw Charman herself.

There are loads of women out there doing interesting, excellent, remarkable things in science and technology… and, yes, they are often overlooked in favour of the achievements of men in a similar field.

The guide on the Ada Lovelace Day site says, “It’s up to you how you interpret the phrase “in technology”. We’re not just interested in hardcore ninja programmers, but any woman who creates, invents, or uses any technology in an innovative way. Feel free to interpret it as widely as you like.” Therefore, I want to write about the women who I believe are the REAL unsung heroes in technology: the women “behind” the successful men- their wives/partners. They, I believe, are the most overlooked women of all.

They are the ones who look after the home and the children when their partner is off ‘at work’ (the fact that these women may have careers and lives outside their marriage as well, doesn’t come into it)- doing the shopping, cleaning the house, doing the laundry, putting the kids to bed, dealing with the bills, going to all the parent-teacher conferences at school, making sure their partner has clean clothes for his next conference… Sometimes they, themselves, are the most remarkable, intelligent, amazing, successful person, but no one really bothers to find that out because, you know, their geek husband is “so much more interesting”. They sometimes find themselves ‘dropping’ their careers and lives in order to move halfway ’round the world when their partner gets offered a really amazing job in Silicon Valley. Sometimes they are the ones who ‘tag along’ to the conferences, not really knowing anyone, sometimes sitting in the background shyly. Some of these women are ‘only involved because of who their husband is’ – well, that’s what people think anyway… Sometimes these women are entirely invisible- we never see them, meet them or hear about them at all, for all intents and purposes some of these women don’t even ‘exist’. At best these women are overlooked, at worst these women can be hated.

Occasionally, the feeling about these women is that they have “cashed in” or “bagged” their partners, implying, of course, that they are only in it for the ‘notoriety’ or ‘money’. Not only does this degrade the women, but their partners as well. Are these men really so stupid and shallow that they could have the wool pulled over their eyes by a woman who only wants them cos they had an idea for a website 10 years ago which eventually became successful? Surely these intelligent men are better people than that?

Sometimes these couples form business or creative partnerships bringing together both of their strengths, creating something more powerful than either one could create individually… yet the woman’s contribution is minimised or ignored by everyone else.

Sometimes the men ask their partners to take over or run part of their business, the feeling from outside is often that ‘she’s just got that job cos she’s his wife’. Clearly, if he thought she was incapable in that role, he’d know his business would suffer…

Sometimes these women have their own separate success within the tech fields, but should their career ever cross paths with their partner’s – eg working for the same company – then again, according to some, ‘she’s only got that job cos she’s his wife’…

Sometimes these women give up their own careers in order to fully support their partners and look after their families at home. Often people (admittedly mainly women) think this is appalling, entirely ignoring the important and valuable job these women are doing at home instead.

These women may not be programmers or designers or scientists or mathematicians or entrepreneurs or consultants or developers. Instead they are a Muse, a Test Subject, a Critic, a Collaborator, a Guide, a Teacher, a Student, an Inspiration, a Motivator… a Partner. They are the reason why their men are able to succeed in changing our world.

Don’t forget them.

January

After rather unbelievably reading a Tweet from someone within my social media sphere who stated that he believed in the Mayan Prophecy (you know, the whole 2012-the-world’s-going-to-end-nonsense). I felt compelled to write a post about my take on the whole end of the world scenario.

It’s now the most popular post on my blog with an average of around 2000 visits to that page alone per week. At times it’s been as high as 15,000 per week. It’s also been the reason for some disturbed individuals sending me nasty messages because I don’t believe in their crazy fantasy world. Hey ho.

Some outtakes from Brian’s Horizon on Gravity were put up on YouTube.

I also found out that I was going to be working on the new X-Files movie. Some of my Tweets from that time (1, 2, 3, 4) are pretty obvious about that fact, but only really in retrospect…

February

February was really all about our trip to San Francisco and the TED conference where Brian spoke.

I was also working on the very fabulous film Water Lilies.

March

Brian was made Professor while we were still in San Francisco, just after his 40th birthday at the beginning of March. That was pretty cool!

My mum came to visit for a bit and during that time we went beachcombing on the Thames and found some cool stuff.

April

This was the coolest month! Right after visiting CERN with both Phil Plait and Chris Morris, I was delivered the super top secret X-Files script. I had a terrible cold and, I learned later in the year, had asthma which was making me very ill. That is my excuse for looking so utterly terrible in this video. :)

May

OK, wait, THIS was the coolest month. Apart from Brian going off to film his Horizon on Time, it included getting my hair cut and dyed like Dana Scully, then flying off to Cannes to ‘interview’ Harrison Ford and having a chat with X-Files’ producer Frank Spotnitz.

June

June was X-Files-tastic!

Excitement was definitely building for the X-Files film and I was caught up in it all. Towards the end of the month, I went to LA for the LA Film Festival to attend a special screening of a couple clips from the film, along with a Q&A with David Duchovny, Frank Spotnitz and Chris Carter.

July

X-Files! X-Files! X-Files!

The film premiered at the end of the month and Chris, Frank, David and Gillian attended the London premiere. The day after the premiere Chris and Frank did a signing at Forbidden Planet.

August

Brian and I went to SciFoo in Silicon Valley and had a fabulous holiday in LA being touristy.

September

This is where things start getting a bit weird for me as I found out I was pregnant so had a bit of a awful time over the rest of the autumn dealing with morning sickness and anxiety over scans and blood tests and the like, all the while being unable to talk about it with anyone.

September was also when CERN swtiched on. Along with all the excitement of the whole build up to it came all the nasty emails from the idiots who thought it was going to destroy the Universe and who thought that Brian was somehow the Sith Lord in charge of the destruction of the human race. All that wasn’t too entertaining. Honestly, it’s just not fun at all to be newly pregnant and then receiving emails calling the father of your unborn child the ‘Black Hand of Death’.

Brian on Newsnight the night of CERN’s switch on reminded me exactly why I love him so much.

October

The main things I was thinking of in October were morning sickness. Obama and Jonathan Ross.

I started keeping a pregnancy diary in October as I wasn’t blogging about it, but after a few entries it was pretty much just, “Nauseated. Constipated. Tired. Fat.’ so I decided to give it up. I realised that even in retrospect it would be boring.

My obsession with Obama, of course, was not unique to me. I mainly kept out of the whole election thing on my blog this time around as the Rightwing Christian Republican Dumbshit Bush-lovers (yes, for long-time readers, I mean Amy Proctor, Bull-headed Donna and the other one) caused me such grief before, during and after the last election (did you know that one of them tried to get me fired from my job on Sunshine?!), I wasn’t up for a second round. I was just hoping that they’d get their reward in November when Obama won. And they did. The twunts.

Now, Jonathan Ross.

The whole Daily Mail-fuelled madness just confirmed to me that most people are absolute illogical fucktards and that includes MANY people in positions of ‘power’ in the media. This whole episode has given me LESS hope for the human race than ever before… Thank Christ Obama changed that in November.

November

OBAMAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!

This month I was up for a new job on telly. I’ve not done any telly for a few years now, mainly because all the web producing I’ve been doing has been keeping me busy. Also because I was enjoying using my brain, being creative, being able to make decisions *myself* which is pretty much unheard of for most TV presenters.

This job, however, seemed different. Not only was it a ‘tech’ programme, but it was a retro tech programme AND it wasn’t a presenter’s role, but an on-camera expert role. So I did the meetings and the screentest and crossed my fingers that I’d get it cos it sounded like it’d be a lot of fun. I had to wait until December for a decision.

This month was also the most stressful pregnancy-wise. Along with waiting for scans and blood tests looking for chromosomal abnormalities in the baby, I also had to have blood tests for various diseases. Having an HIV test- no matter how sure you are- has this funny way of making one become highly illogical. ‘I wonder what the chances are of it turning up a decade later? Two decades later?!! Maybe it DOES and they’ve just not figured that out yet!!! Oh. God. What will I do when they tell me I’ve got HIV?! Oh. God. I’m feeling a bit ill. It’s HIV, I know it.’

Not fun.

Everyone I’ve told about my HIV test worries who has had an HIV test themselves said they went through EXACTLY the same thing. Every. Single. One. So glad to know I’m not the only lunatic… (For the record, I don’t have HIV, nor do I have Hep C or Syphilis. w00t!)

Also, this month Jonathan Ross surprised me by asking me to be his Neu Meeja advisor (or whatever). First thing I did? Got him on Twitter. He’s been Tweeting up a storm!

December

I found out I got the TV job. It’s called Electric Dreams and will be on in April on BBC4. Right before the Christmas break I did the first bit of filming and it’s been good fun.

Brian and I also found out that we’d got a book deal to write a kids’ book on Physics. So that’s going to keep us busy…

This month, generally, has been good mainly because I was finally able to announce my pregnancy. It was getting increasingly difficult for me to hide it as I was getting pretty big fairly early on. This is me a couple days ago.

The other day Brian and I went off to Llandudno in Wales to visit our friend. I got a lovely snap of Brian and Peter talking politics whilst walking along the beach…

And today, the last day of December and 2008, I’m looking forward to an exciting year ahead. I hope you all have a good year!!

January

After rather unbelievably reading a Tweet from someone within my social media sphere who stated that he believed in the Mayan Prophecy (you know, the whole 2012-the-world’s-going-to-end-nonsense). I felt compelled to write a post about my take on the whole end of the world scenario.

It’s now the most popular post on my blog with an average of around 2000 visits to that page alone per week. At times it’s been as high as 15,000 per week. It’s also been the reason for some disturbed individuals sending me nasty messages because I don’t believe in their crazy fantasy world. Hey ho.

Some outtakes from Brian’s Horizon on Gravity were put up on YouTube.

I also found out that I was going to be working on the new X-Files movie. Some of my Tweets from that time (1, 2, 3, 4) are pretty obvious about that fact, but only really in retrospect…

February

February was really all about our trip to San Francisco and the TED conference where Brian spoke.

I was also working on the very fabulous film Water Lilies.

March

Brian was made Professor while we were still in San Francisco, just after his 40th birthday at the beginning of March. That was pretty cool!

My mum came to visit for a bit and during that time we went beachcombing on the Thames and found some cool stuff.

April

This was the coolest month! Right after visiting CERN with both Phil Plait and Chris Morris, I was delivered the super top secret X-Files script. I had a terrible cold and, I learned later in the year, had asthma which was making me very ill. That is my excuse for looking so utterly terrible in this video. :)

May

OK, wait, THIS was the coolest month. Apart from Brian going off to film his Horizon on Time, it included getting my hair cut and dyed like Dana Scully, then flying off to Cannes to ‘interview’ Harrison Ford and having a chat with X-Files’ producer Frank Spotnitz.

June

June was X-Files-tastic!

Excitement was definitely building for the X-Files film and I was caught up in it all. Towards the end of the month, I went to LA for the LA Film Festival to attend a special screening of a couple clips from the film, along with a Q&A with David Duchovny, Frank Spotnitz and Chris Carter.

July

X-Files! X-Files! X-Files!

The film premiered at the end of the month and Chris, Frank, David and Gillian attended the London premiere. The day after the premiere Chris and Frank did a signing at Forbidden Planet.

August

Brian and I went to SciFoo in Silicon Valley and had a fabulous holiday in LA being touristy.

September

This is where things start getting a bit weird for me as I found out I was pregnant so had a bit of a awful time over the rest of the autumn dealing with morning sickness and anxiety over scans and blood tests and the like, all the while being unable to talk about it with anyone.

September was also when CERN swtiched on. Along with all the excitement of the whole build up to it came all the nasty emails from the idiots who thought it was going to destroy the Universe and who thought that Brian was somehow the Sith Lord in charge of the destruction of the human race. All that wasn’t too entertaining. Honestly, it’s just not fun at all to be newly pregnant and then receiving emails calling the father of your unborn child the ‘Black Hand of Death’.

Brian on Newsnight the night of CERN’s switch on reminded me exactly why I love him so much.

October

The main things I was thinking of in October were morning sickness. Obama and Jonathan Ross.

I started keeping a pregnancy diary in October as I wasn’t blogging about it, but after a few entries it was pretty much just, “Nauseated. Constipated. Tired. Fat.’ so I decided to give it up. I realised that even in retrospect it would be boring.

My obsession with Obama, of course, was not unique to me. I mainly kept out of the whole election thing on my blog this time around as the Rightwing Christian Republican Dumbshit Bush-lovers (yes, for long-time readers, I mean Amy Proctor, Bull-headed Donna and the other one) caused me such grief before, during and after the last election (did you know that one of them tried to get me fired from my job on Sunshine?!), I wasn’t up for a second round. I was just hoping that they’d get their reward in November when Obama won. And they did. The twunts.

Now, Jonathan Ross.

The whole Daily Mail-fuelled madness just confirmed to me that most people are absolute illogical fucktards and that includes MANY people in positions of ‘power’ in the media. This whole episode has given me LESS hope for the human race than ever before… Thank Christ Obama changed that in November.

November

OBAMAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!

This month I was up for a new job on telly. I’ve not done any telly for a few years now, mainly because all the web producing I’ve been doing has been keeping me busy. Also because I was enjoying using my brain, being creative, being able to make decisions *myself* which is pretty much unheard of for most TV presenters.

This job, however, seemed different. Not only was it a ‘tech’ programme, but it was a retro tech programme AND it wasn’t a presenter’s role, but an on-camera expert role. So I did the meetings and the screentest and crossed my fingers that I’d get it cos it sounded like it’d be a lot of fun. I had to wait until December for a decision.

This month was also the most stressful pregnancy-wise. Along with waiting for scans and blood tests looking for chromosomal abnormalities in the baby, I also had to have blood tests for various diseases. Having an HIV test- no matter how sure you are- has this funny way of making one become highly illogical. ‘I wonder what the chances are of it turning up a decade later? Two decades later?!! Maybe it DOES and they’ve just not figured that out yet!!! Oh. God. What will I do when they tell me I’ve got HIV?! Oh. God. I’m feeling a bit ill. It’s HIV, I know it.’

Not fun.

Everyone I’ve told about my HIV test worries who has had an HIV test themselves said they went through EXACTLY the same thing. Every. Single. One. So glad to know I’m not the only lunatic… (For the record, I don’t have HIV, nor do I have Hep C or Syphilis. w00t!)

Also, this month Jonathan Ross surprised me by asking me to be his Neu Meeja advisor (or whatever). First thing I did? Got him on Twitter. He’s been Tweeting up a storm!

December

I found out I got the TV job. It’s called Electric Dreams and will be on in April on BBC4. Right before the Christmas break I did the first bit of filming and it’s been good fun.

Brian and I also found out that we’d got a book deal to write a kids’ book on Physics. So that’s going to keep us busy…

This month, generally, has been good mainly because I was finally able to announce my pregnancy. It was getting increasingly difficult for me to hide it as I was getting pretty big fairly early on. This is me a couple days ago.

The other day Brian and I went off to Llandudno in Wales to visit our friend. I got a lovely snap of Brian and Peter talking politics whilst walking along the beach…

And today, the last day of December and 2008, I’m looking forward to an exciting year ahead. I hope you all have a good year!!

January

After rather unbelievably reading a Tweet from someone within my social media sphere who stated that he believed in the Mayan Prophecy (you know, the whole 2012-the-world’s-going-to-end-nonsense). I felt compelled to write a post about my take on the whole end of the world scenario.

It’s now the most popular post on my blog with an average of around 2000 visits to that page alone per week. At times it’s been as high as 15,000 per week. It’s also been the reason for some disturbed individuals sending me nasty messages because I don’t believe in their crazy fantasy world. Hey ho.

Some outtakes from Brian’s Horizon on Gravity were put up on YouTube.

I also found out that I was going to be working on the new X-Files movie. Some of my Tweets from that time (1, 2, 3, 4) are pretty obvious about that fact, but only really in retrospect…

February

February was really all about our trip to San Francisco and the TED conference where Brian spoke.

I was also working on the very fabulous film Water Lilies.

March

Brian was made Professor while we were still in San Francisco, just after his 40th birthday at the beginning of March. That was pretty cool!

My mum came to visit for a bit and during that time we went beachcombing on the Thames and found some cool stuff.

April

This was the coolest month! Right after visiting CERN with both Phil Plait and Chris Morris, I was delivered the super top secret X-Files script. I had a terrible cold and, I learned later in the year, had asthma which was making me very ill. That is my excuse for looking so utterly terrible in this video. :)

May

OK, wait, THIS was the coolest month. Apart from Brian going off to film his Horizon on Time, it included getting my hair cut and dyed like Dana Scully, then flying off to Cannes to ‘interview’ Harrison Ford and having a chat with X-Files’ producer Frank Spotnitz.

June

June was X-Files-tastic!

Excitement was definitely building for the X-Files film and I was caught up in it all. Towards the end of the month, I went to LA for the LA Film Festival to attend a special screening of a couple clips from the film, along with a Q&A with David Duchovny, Frank Spotnitz and Chris Carter.

July

X-Files! X-Files! X-Files!

The film premiered at the end of the month and Chris, Frank, David and Gillian attended the London premiere. The day after the premiere Chris and Frank did a signing at Forbidden Planet.

August

Brian and I went to SciFoo in Silicon Valley and had a fabulous holiday in LA being touristy.

September

This is where things start getting a bit weird for me as I found out I was pregnant so had a bit of a awful time over the rest of the autumn dealing with morning sickness and anxiety over scans and blood tests and the like, all the while being unable to talk about it with anyone.

September was also when CERN swtiched on. Along with all the excitement of the whole build up to it came all the nasty emails from the idiots who thought it was going to destroy the Universe and who thought that Brian was somehow the Sith Lord in charge of the destruction of the human race. All that wasn’t too entertaining. Honestly, it’s just not fun at all to be newly pregnant and then receiving emails calling the father of your unborn child the ‘Black Hand of Death’.

Brian on Newsnight the night of CERN’s switch on reminded me exactly why I love him so much.

October

The main things I was thinking of in October were morning sickness. Obama and Jonathan Ross.

I started keeping a pregnancy diary in October as I wasn’t blogging about it, but after a few entries it was pretty much just, “Nauseated. Constipated. Tired. Fat.’ so I decided to give it up. I realised that even in retrospect it would be boring.

My obsession with Obama, of course, was not unique to me. I mainly kept out of the whole election thing on my blog this time around as the Rightwing Christian Republican Dumbshit Bush-lovers (yes, for long-time readers, I mean Amy Proctor, Bull-headed Donna and the other one) caused me such grief before, during and after the last election (did you know that one of them tried to get me fired from my job on Sunshine?!), I wasn’t up for a second round. I was just hoping that they’d get their reward in November when Obama won. And they did. The twunts.

Now, Jonathan Ross.

The whole Daily Mail-fuelled madness just confirmed to me that most people are absolute illogical fucktards and that includes MANY people in positions of ‘power’ in the media. This whole episode has given me LESS hope for the human race than ever before… Thank Christ Obama changed that in November.

November

OBAMAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!

This month I was up for a new job on telly. I’ve not done any telly for a few years now, mainly because all the web producing I’ve been doing has been keeping me busy. Also because I was enjoying using my brain, being creative, being able to make decisions *myself* which is pretty much unheard of for most TV presenters.

This job, however, seemed different. Not only was it a ‘tech’ programme, but it was a retro tech programme AND it wasn’t a presenter’s role, but an on-camera expert role. So I did the meetings and the screentest and crossed my fingers that I’d get it cos it sounded like it’d be a lot of fun. I had to wait until December for a decision.

This month was also the most stressful pregnancy-wise. Along with waiting for scans and blood tests looking for chromosomal abnormalities in the baby, I also had to have blood tests for various diseases. Having an HIV test- no matter how sure you are- has this funny way of making one become highly illogical. ‘I wonder what the chances are of it turning up a decade later? Two decades later?!! Maybe it DOES and they’ve just not figured that out yet!!! Oh. God. What will I do when they tell me I’ve got HIV?! Oh. God. I’m feeling a bit ill. It’s HIV, I know it.’

Not fun.

Everyone I’ve told about my HIV test worries who has had an HIV test themselves said they went through EXACTLY the same thing. Every. Single. One. So glad to know I’m not the only lunatic… (For the record, I don’t have HIV, nor do I have Hep C or Syphilis. w00t!)

Also, this month Jonathan Ross surprised me by asking me to be his Neu Meeja advisor (or whatever). First thing I did? Got him on Twitter. He’s been Tweeting up a storm!

December

I found out I got the TV job. It’s called Electric Dreams and will be on in April on BBC4. Right before the Christmas break I did the first bit of filming and it’s been good fun.

Brian and I also found out that we’d got a book deal to write a kids’ book on Physics. So that’s going to keep us busy…

This month, generally, has been good mainly because I was finally able to announce my pregnancy. It was getting increasingly difficult for me to hide it as I was getting pretty big fairly early on. This is me a couple days ago.

The other day Brian and I went off to Llandudno in Wales to visit our friend. I got a lovely snap of Brian and Peter talking politics whilst walking along the beach…

And today, the last day of December and 2008, I’m looking forward to an exciting year ahead. I hope you all have a good year!!

January

After rather unbelievably reading a Tweet from someone within my social media sphere who stated that he believed in the Mayan Prophecy (you know, the whole 2012-the-world’s-going-to-end-nonsense). I felt compelled to write a post about my take on the whole end of the world scenario.

It’s now the most popular post on my blog with an average of around 2000 visits to that page alone per week. At times it’s been as high as 15,000 per week. It’s also been the reason for some disturbed individuals sending me nasty messages because I don’t believe in their crazy fantasy world. Hey ho.

Some outtakes from Brian’s Horizon on Gravity were put up on YouTube.

I also found out that I was going to be working on the new X-Files movie. Some of my Tweets from that time (1, 2, 3, 4) are pretty obvious about that fact, but only really in retrospect…

February

February was really all about our trip to San Francisco and the TED conference where Brian spoke.

I was also working on the very fabulous film Water Lilies.

March

Brian was made Professor while we were still in San Francisco, just after his 40th birthday at the beginning of March. That was pretty cool!

My mum came to visit for a bit and during that time we went beachcombing on the Thames and found some cool stuff.

April

This was the coolest month! Right after visiting CERN with both Phil Plait and Chris Morris, I was delivered the super top secret X-Files script. I had a terrible cold and, I learned later in the year, had asthma which was making me very ill. That is my excuse for looking so utterly terrible in this video. :)

May

OK, wait, THIS was the coolest month. Apart from Brian going off to film his Horizon on Time, it included getting my hair cut and dyed like Dana Scully, then flying off to Cannes to ‘interview’ Harrison Ford and having a chat with X-Files’ producer Frank Spotnitz.

June

June was X-Files-tastic!

Excitement was definitely building for the X-Files film and I was caught up in it all. Towards the end of the month, I went to LA for the LA Film Festival to attend a special screening of a couple clips from the film, along with a Q&A with David Duchovny, Frank Spotnitz and Chris Carter.

July

X-Files! X-Files! X-Files!

The film premiered at the end of the month and Chris, Frank, David and Gillian attended the London premiere. The day after the premiere Chris and Frank did a signing at Forbidden Planet.

August

Brian and I went to SciFoo in Silicon Valley and had a fabulous holiday in LA being touristy.

September

This is where things start getting a bit weird for me as I found out I was pregnant so had a bit of a awful time over the rest of the autumn dealing with morning sickness and anxiety over scans and blood tests and the like, all the while being unable to talk about it with anyone.

September was also when CERN swtiched on. Along with all the excitement of the whole build up to it came all the nasty emails from the idiots who thought it was going to destroy the Universe and who thought that Brian was somehow the Sith Lord in charge of the destruction of the human race. All that wasn’t too entertaining. Honestly, it’s just not fun at all to be newly pregnant and then receiving emails calling the father of your unborn child the ‘Black Hand of Death’.

Brian on Newsnight the night of CERN’s switch on reminded me exactly why I love him so much.

October

The main things I was thinking of in October were morning sickness. Obama and Jonathan Ross.

I started keeping a pregnancy diary in October as I wasn’t blogging about it, but after a few entries it was pretty much just, “Nauseated. Constipated. Tired. Fat.’ so I decided to give it up. I realised that even in retrospect it would be boring.

My obsession with Obama, of course, was not unique to me. I mainly kept out of the whole election thing on my blog this time around as the Rightwing Christian Republican Dumbshit Bush-lovers (yes, for long-time readers, I mean Amy Proctor, Bull-headed Donna and the other one) caused me such grief before, during and after the last election (did you know that one of them tried to get me fired from my job on Sunshine?!), I wasn’t up for a second round. I was just hoping that they’d get their reward in November when Obama won. And they did. The twunts.

Now, Jonathan Ross.

The whole Daily Mail-fuelled madness just confirmed to me that most people are absolute illogical fucktards and that includes MANY people in positions of ‘power’ in the media. This whole episode has given me LESS hope for the human race than ever before… Thank Christ Obama changed that in November.

November

OBAMAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!

This month I was up for a new job on telly. I’ve not done any telly for a few years now, mainly because all the web producing I’ve been doing has been keeping me busy. Also because I was enjoying using my brain, being creative, being able to make decisions *myself* which is pretty much unheard of for most TV presenters.

This job, however, seemed different. Not only was it a ‘tech’ programme, but it was a retro tech programme AND it wasn’t a presenter’s role, but an on-camera expert role. So I did the meetings and the screentest and crossed my fingers that I’d get it cos it sounded like it’d be a lot of fun. I had to wait until December for a decision.

This month was also the most stressful pregnancy-wise. Along with waiting for scans and blood tests looking for chromosomal abnormalities in the baby, I also had to have blood tests for various diseases. Having an HIV test- no matter how sure you are- has this funny way of making one become highly illogical. ‘I wonder what the chances are of it turning up a decade later? Two decades later?!! Maybe it DOES and they’ve just not figured that out yet!!! Oh. God. What will I do when they tell me I’ve got HIV?! Oh. God. I’m feeling a bit ill. It’s HIV, I know it.’

Not fun.

Everyone I’ve told about my HIV test worries who has had an HIV test themselves said they went through EXACTLY the same thing. Every. Single. One. So glad to know I’m not the only lunatic… (For the record, I don’t have HIV, nor do I have Hep C or Syphilis. w00t!)

Also, this month Jonathan Ross surprised me by asking me to be his Neu Meeja advisor (or whatever). First thing I did? Got him on Twitter. He’s been Tweeting up a storm!

December

I found out I got the TV job. It’s called Electric Dreams and will be on in April on BBC4. Right before the Christmas break I did the first bit of filming and it’s been good fun.

Brian and I also found out that we’d got a book deal to write a kids’ book on Physics. So that’s going to keep us busy…

This month, generally, has been good mainly because I was finally able to announce my pregnancy. It was getting increasingly difficult for me to hide it as I was getting pretty big fairly early on. This is me a couple days ago.

The other day Brian and I went off to Llandudno in Wales to visit our friend. I got a lovely snap of Brian and Peter talking politics whilst walking along the beach…

And today, the last day of December and 2008, I’m looking forward to an exciting year ahead. I hope you all have a good year!!

January

After rather unbelievably reading a Tweet from someone within my social media sphere who stated that he believed in the Mayan Prophecy (you know, the whole 2012-the-world’s-going-to-end-nonsense). I felt compelled to write a post about my take on the whole end of the world scenario.

It’s now the most popular post on my blog with an average of around 2000 visits to that page alone per week. At times it’s been as high as 15,000 per week. It’s also been the reason for some disturbed individuals sending me nasty messages because I don’t believe in their crazy fantasy world. Hey ho.

Some outtakes from Brian’s Horizon on Gravity were put up on YouTube.

I also found out that I was going to be working on the new X-Files movie. Some of my Tweets from that time (1, 2, 3, 4) are pretty obvious about that fact, but only really in retrospect…

February

February was really all about our trip to San Francisco and the TED conference where Brian spoke.

I was also working on the very fabulous film Water Lilies.

March

Brian was made Professor while we were still in San Francisco, just after his 40th birthday at the beginning of March. That was pretty cool!

My mum came to visit for a bit and during that time we went beachcombing on the Thames and found some cool stuff.

April

This was the coolest month! Right after visiting CERN with both Phil Plait and Chris Morris, I was delivered the super top secret X-Files script. I had a terrible cold and, I learned later in the year, had asthma which was making me very ill. That is my excuse for looking so utterly terrible in this video. :)

May

OK, wait, THIS was the coolest month. Apart from Brian going off to film his Horizon on Time, it included getting my hair cut and dyed like Dana Scully, then flying off to Cannes to ‘interview’ Harrison Ford and having a chat with X-Files’ producer Frank Spotnitz.

June

June was X-Files-tastic!

Excitement was definitely building for the X-Files film and I was caught up in it all. Towards the end of the month, I went to LA for the LA Film Festival to attend a special screening of a couple clips from the film, along with a Q&A with David Duchovny, Frank Spotnitz and Chris Carter.

July

X-Files! X-Files! X-Files!

The film premiered at the end of the month and Chris, Frank, David and Gillian attended the London premiere. The day after the premiere Chris and Frank did a signing at Forbidden Planet.

August

Brian and I went to SciFoo in Silicon Valley and had a fabulous holiday in LA being touristy.

September

This is where things start getting a bit weird for me as I found out I was pregnant so had a bit of a awful time over the rest of the autumn dealing with morning sickness and anxiety over scans and blood tests and the like, all the while being unable to talk about it with anyone.

September was also when CERN swtiched on. Along with all the excitement of the whole build up to it came all the nasty emails from the idiots who thought it was going to destroy the Universe and who thought that Brian was somehow the Sith Lord in charge of the destruction of the human race. All that wasn’t too entertaining. Honestly, it’s just not fun at all to be newly pregnant and then receiving emails calling the father of your unborn child the ‘Black Hand of Death’.

Brian on Newsnight the night of CERN’s switch on reminded me exactly why I love him so much.

October

The main things I was thinking of in October were morning sickness. Obama and Jonathan Ross.

I started keeping a pregnancy diary in October as I wasn’t blogging about it, but after a few entries it was pretty much just, “Nauseated. Constipated. Tired. Fat.’ so I decided to give it up. I realised that even in retrospect it would be boring.

My obsession with Obama, of course, was not unique to me. I mainly kept out of the whole election thing on my blog this time around as the Rightwing Christian Republican Dumbshit Bush-lovers (yes, for long-time readers, I mean Amy Proctor, Bull-headed Donna and the other one) caused me such grief before, during and after the last election (did you know that one of them tried to get me fired from my job on Sunshine?!), I wasn’t up for a second round. I was just hoping that they’d get their reward in November when Obama won. And they did. The twunts.

Now, Jonathan Ross.

The whole Daily Mail-fuelled madness just confirmed to me that most people are absolute illogical fucktards and that includes MANY people in positions of ‘power’ in the media. This whole episode has given me LESS hope for the human race than ever before… Thank Christ Obama changed that in November.

November

OBAMAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!

This month I was up for a new job on telly. I’ve not done any telly for a few years now, mainly because all the web producing I’ve been doing has been keeping me busy. Also because I was enjoying using my brain, being creative, being able to make decisions *myself* which is pretty much unheard of for most TV presenters.

This job, however, seemed different. Not only was it a ‘tech’ programme, but it was a retro tech programme AND it wasn’t a presenter’s role, but an on-camera expert role. So I did the meetings and the screentest and crossed my fingers that I’d get it cos it sounded like it’d be a lot of fun. I had to wait until December for a decision.

This month was also the most stressful pregnancy-wise. Along with waiting for scans and blood tests looking for chromosomal abnormalities in the baby, I also had to have blood tests for various diseases. Having an HIV test- no matter how sure you are- has this funny way of making one become highly illogical. ‘I wonder what the chances are of it turning up a decade later? Two decades later?!! Maybe it DOES and they’ve just not figured that out yet!!! Oh. God. What will I do when they tell me I’ve got HIV?! Oh. God. I’m feeling a bit ill. It’s HIV, I know it.’

Not fun.

Everyone I’ve told about my HIV test worries who has had an HIV test themselves said they went through EXACTLY the same thing. Every. Single. One. So glad to know I’m not the only lunatic… (For the record, I don’t have HIV, nor do I have Hep C or Syphilis. w00t!)

Also, this month Jonathan Ross surprised me by asking me to be his Neu Meeja advisor (or whatever). First thing I did? Got him on Twitter. He’s been Tweeting up a storm!

December

I found out I got the TV job. It’s called Electric Dreams and will be on in April on BBC4. Right before the Christmas break I did the first bit of filming and it’s been good fun.

Brian and I also found out that we’d got a book deal to write a kids’ book on Physics. So that’s going to keep us busy…

This month, generally, has been good mainly because I was finally able to announce my pregnancy. It was getting increasingly difficult for me to hide it as I was getting pretty big fairly early on. This is me a couple days ago.

The other day Brian and I went off to Llandudno in Wales to visit our friend. I got a lovely snap of Brian and Peter talking politics whilst walking along the beach…

And today, the last day of December and 2008, I’m looking forward to an exciting year ahead. I hope you all have a good year!!