[Outreach; Miscellaneous] My first TV appearance!

Something a little bit different today - I've been on television!

I've mentioned it briefly before, but my boss is the 'Head of the Science Team' for the new ESA PLATO mission. Since it was selected by ESA last month he's been very busy giving talks, presentations, and interviews about the mission. Yesterday he had the science team from the local BBC TV channel along to interview him about it for a short piece. Since he was getting a bit fed up with the whole thing he decided that it would be good for myself and Dave (one of his PhD students) to get involved too!



I was a little nervous about it, as I've not had any interaction with the press before. But it turned out to be a lot of fun. The science reporter was very easy going, and made it seem more like a chat than an interview. He did give me one piece of advice, which was to finish my thoughts even if I stumble rather than trying to restart, as you can always edit and do retakes. Very much like being a musician in that sense - just keep going.

In the end they used a bit from all three of us, but there were definitely bits of my answers in the science correspondent's stuff too. It was only a short interview, but now I can say that I've been on the news!


24th March edit: I've found the video on the BBC website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-26583374

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