It’s said that vampires suffer from a syndrome called arithmomania or an obsessive love of counting, so much so that to escape a vampire you just need to throw loads of cloves of garlic on the floor and the vampire can’t resist counting them, allowing you to make a hasty exit. It was this obsession
I was ready for the depression but it still doesn’t stop it hitting. Doing the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures was such an exhilarating, exhausting six-month roller-coaster ride. The climax was a two-week adrenaline-charged loop-the-loop staging what felt like five wild maths pantos. Then the last lecture is given, filmed and delivered and bang, the ride