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:

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!!

Brian’s Horizon on Time tonight is brilliant. Honestly. I watched it a couple months ago and even though I knew what was in it, there was one point at which I actually got a kind of vertigo. Brian talks to mathematical physicist Neil Turok about the idea that the Universe has been around ‘forever’ and didn’t, in fact, start at the Big Bang. That’s what did it to me.

Now, this wasn’t the first time I’d heard about M-Theory or Brane Cosmology at all, but for some reason I had one of those rare moments when I actually attempted to visually imagine what it means. The idea of there being a “start” to the Universe is comforting and easy to deal with even if it was 13.7 billion years ago… the idea, however, that it’s been around forever- when I really REALLY think about what that means- makes me feel like I’m standing on the edge of an endless void. My heart starts racing, everything starts getting tingly, I get a bit dizzy and I can’t sit still – I need to get up and move away from where I am because I start to feel that I might just randomly decide to jump.

That’s what happened to me when watching Brian’s Horizon.

And for a TV science programme to do that to me, makes me very excited. I’m so proud of my lovely husband.

These photos are high speed photographs taken during filming.

The trailer again, in case you’ve not watched it yet.

There are loads of behind-the-scenes videos on the director Paul Olding’s YouTube channel.

Remember: Horizon, December 2, BBC2, 9pm.

More here.

“On this day, of all days.”