Palaeontologist and Evolutionary Biologist, Neil Gostling, chats to host, Jo Fisher, about how he's adapting to working from home. Neil tells us about his career path from science teacher to university lecturer and from New York State to the back garden. Listen to discover the dinosaur on your windowsill.
Palaeontologist and Evolutionary Biologist, Neil Gostling, chats to host, Jo Fisher, about how he's adapting to working from home. Neil tells us about his career path from science teacher to university lecturer and from New York State to the back garden. Listen to discover the dinosaur on your windowsill.
Jo Fisher: 0:15
Hello and welcome to Universi-Tea. I'm Jo Fisher and I'll be talking to some of my amazing colleagues in the University of Southampton over a nice cup of virtual tea. We'll find out how they are adapting to this new way of working, what pearls of wisdom they can offer and asking important questions like how long is too long to leave the tea bag in or which biscuit is your favourite? This week I'm joined by Dr Neil Gostling, an evolutionary biologist from the School of Biological Sciences. It's very nice to meet, Neil, thanks for joining us today. Have you got a cup of tea ready for our chat today?
Neil Gostling: 0:59
I have a coffee.
Jo Fisher: 1:01
I also have a coffee. So we're failing on the first hurdle there with having alternatives to tea. It's really nice to meet you. How are you finding working from home?It is a challenge in an awful lot of ways. I hadn't realised quite how much I like my little office. It is just a totally different way of interacting with people. It's those funny little things where you have a plan in mind of what you're going to do and when you're going to do it. And then it just takes a little bit longer to have lunch. I've been following friends on Twitter and Facebook and things like that . When it began, the lock down, was quite amusing and quite peculiar, to read people's comments and what have you. "I got up this morning and got to works in the office, and then one of my co workers came in, had a strop, threw their cup of tea all over in the middle of the room and then did a poo". And you think what are they doing?, Oh the co worker was their child. Okay, that makes sense. I am assuming their child isn't 15 but, you know, that would be weird still, but yes, dealing with just a very different way of doing things. But we're lucky that we're still doing things. There's a lot of people I think who aren't doing anything because they're not able to and not allowed to go out. So, yeah, I count myself very lucky. It's just it's a it's a different way of thinking.
: 0:00
Jo Fisher: 3:15
Yeah, I mean, we've had a couple of weeks so far to get used to it. But I think it would take a little bit longer to truly settle down. I also think you're right. You know, we are very lucky to still be able to keep on doing what we do from the safety of our own homes. Do you have a set up? Do you have an office space or you sort of muddling through and working where you can when you can?
Neil Gostling: 3:16
that regard. And as long as he eats his dinner, that's fine. If it takes an hour, it takes an hour,it's just getting is just getting used to things slightly differently. I miss my books. I miss my books. When the lockdown came, I managed to get in before we were told we weren't allowed in at all and I managed to rescue what I think we're 50 of the most important ones, but not necessarily 50 of my favourite ones. I've managed to cram them into a book shelf space, but yeah, 450 or so left behind on my shelves. It's very sad. I don't want them to feel that they were, You know, that they are unloved in any kind of way. Yeah miss the books.
Jo Fisher: 3:58
It sounds like you work in a library with 450 books or more.
Neil Gostling: 4:04
It's funny. I have tutees like we all do, and they come along and they sit down in my office and their mouths drop open because number one I don't I think they own half that many books themselves anyway. Let alone things on esoteric topic like palaeontology and evolution. And they sit down and they say things like, "We really like your office, Neil. It's like a proper academic's office", and I said, "Can you remove the apostrophe please. I am a proper academic. It's like a proper academic office, but I am a proper academic," So this is what I'm allowed to have.
Jo Fisher: 4:44
I think something that I read up last week when trying to find some articles about working from home was talking about how not to be too hard on yourself for not being quite as quick with things in this current situation because we are working from home, you know, in a very different environment. And there's a lot more going on and a lot more for your brain to deal with. So I don't know if your finding the pace a little slower as well, especially if you've got little ones in your family and household.
Neil Gostling: 5:10
The pace. I mean to be fair, my wife is dealing with my little boy and making my life as easy as it possibly can be, I'm very lucky.
Jo Fisher: 5:19
And obviously your so time is split between sort of, would you say evenly or somewhat between research and education, You have those two sides to deal with. So how are you finding the difference between those and dealing with your students, but also with your own research?
Neil Gostling: 5:35
So I'm quite lucky in that my research isn't exactly lab based. I'm not under the same constraints to someone who's going plants in the greenhouse or who's raising animals, little fruit flies or something to a certain stage, and that's when they need them. My fossils have been dead for 125 million years. They'll be dead next week and the week after and when we get out of lock down, they're still dead..
Jo Fisher: 6:12
So for any of our listeners who might not be familiar with your work or might not have heard you speak about your research before, do you mind just giving an overview of what you do at the University of Southampton? What your interests are and your role?
Neil Gostling: 6:26
Certainly. I'm an evolutionary biologist and palaeontologist based in biological sciences. I teach across the undergraduate programme. I have a master's programme in evolution. It's called from evolution from the Galapagos to the 21st century. It involves nine academic units. I know we're schools and departments, but you know, I was gonna say your schools and departments too many words to use and now i've now use too many words to say academic units! There's nine schools and departments involved from computer sciences, ocean and Earth sciences, archaeology, philosophy. Lots of people who are working in evolutionary fields have some input into the topic session. We've got 10 students on it this year, working all sorts of things from the emergence of disease to the, you know, the origins of flight and homeostasis in mammals, all sorts of things going on. What else do i do? Teaching is a very important thing. I came back to the university in 2016 after a little break from research, not through choice, but through funding issues. Three years prior to coming back, I had been a secondary school teacher, but came back in 2016 as a senior teaching fellow developing my research agenda as well. Again evolution and what have you. We go to the Galapagos every year. That's one of the bummers about the lock down. I don't think we're going this year. But my role changed officially in December when I stopped being a senior teaching fellow and moved onto a balanced pathway, and I'm a lecturer now in evolution and paleo biology.
Jo Fisher: 8:08
You certainly sound like you keep yourself extremely busy, so I'm sure that you've got plenty, obviously plenty to do still now. There'll be plenty to get back to you when things settle down and we're back on campus and everything's hopefully goes back to normal. You said about the Galapagos and all your lecturing and things, is that what you would be doing now? If things were normal, would you be on your field trip?
Neil Gostling: 8:34
We wouldn't be in the Galapagos. We would have taken the entire first year to Spain. We would have been collecting arthropods, looking at plants. The south of Spain, in the Easter vacation is really nice because the south of Spain is alive with flowers and plants and insects and what have you buzzing around. So it's a little bit disappointing, little bit sad. We are about to set the first years with a new task to make up for that lack of field trip experience and get them to do some sort of back garden safari and that sort of thing. But yeah, we would have been in the south of Spain. We've been catching centerpedes the thickness of my finger and 10 centimetres long. We would've been finding scorpions and would have been encouraging them not to collect them. They absolutely would have. Um maybe gecko's and chameleons and all sorts of exciting stuff and dozens of different plants. Dozens of different plant families, all alive in flower. It's a remarkable experience. We've come up with a novel and exciting replacement which will allow students to still engage with nature to still look at the arthropods and the plants, birds, depending on if they live in a flat without a garden or if they've got a house with a back garden, if they could go out for a walk somewhere, doing their daily government permitted exercise . Actually, you've got the plants coming back. You've got trees coming back into leaf. You've got the birds migrating back, haven't seen any swallows yet still a bit early. But we'll get some soon. I'm sure there's lots going on . Actually, I think getting back in touch, for a student, but not just anyone can do that. Getting back in touch with the environment that we live in. It is a really good opportunity. I mean, I was startled today for want of a better word as I was in back garden, pre lunch with Mason on the swing and a plane went over. It's the first plane I've seen going over for days and days and days. There's no noise. There's next to nothing. The noise you do have are birds in the trees. You've got just the sound of the leaves and trees rustling and cats running all the way through the undergrowth. Very lucky that my next door neighbours Garden is a little bit unkempt. I think that's the best way to put it. It's brilliant because everything comes into it. I've seen Fox Cubs.
Neil Gostling: 11:05
Last year, We got some lovely photographs of a Vixen and her Cubs. I'm sure we'll see them again soon. Haven't heard them yet, so they will probably be around fairly soon. But yeah, I mean, it's a bad situation, so let's find some opportunities for something good.
Jo Fisher: 11:22
I was talking about just that with my friend last week, saying how much more difficult this would be if this were happening in the winter time, because although it is tempting to be outside when you're not actually allowed to be. At least the sun is shining through the window. You could have a breeze. If you have a garden, you can spend more time outside, it does just lift the mood, but the nature as well as you said, you know, you see so much more wildlife just from within your home. It's just so much more positive, and it does make you appreciate the world around us. I read, I think in the news today that pollution levels have reduced significantly in Southampton and hopefully that's a good sign. Hopefully that means that the wildlife is benefiting from this locked down as well. It sounds like your research and your interest in palaeontology is helping you see things in a good perspective in both of the current situation with the pandemic, but also with climate change?
Neil Gostling: 13:54
Don't get me wrong. Beneath this calm, cool exterior beats the heart of a man terrified, but at the same time what are we going to do. You can run around like a headless chicken, or you can get on with life and Hopefully it will sort itself out. So if I can try to keep calm and, make life a little more tolerable for the people immediately around me. I'm very lucky. My wife and I get on, which is not the case for everybody. I've had lots of meetings with my colleagues. I've seen my colleagues more since the lock down. In some cases, then I've ever seen them before. It is brilliant and bringing everyone together.
Jo Fisher: 13:54
I'll come back to what you mentioned about exploring your back garden and things in a second. But I just wanted to talk about your past career highlights because you have worked in various different places and you have various different experiences. So I wondered if you could tell us about how you got here quite quickly and if you've got anything in your near vicinity, in your home, that maybe reminds you off a particular highlight in your career or part of your research on and you could tell us about that.
Neil Gostling: 13:55
So I totally blame three people for me being where I am. The 1st is my mum. She is totally responsible for me being the academic that I am. My mum was a nurse. This wasn't her thing as it were, but she got me to ask questions and in 1975. In about 1979 she sat me down and I have this very strange memory because I only remember it in colour. And it can't have been in colour because I didn't have a colour television in the house until I was 11- difficult times in the 1970s. But She sat me down in front of Life on Earth by David Attenborough. And so that's the second person I blame before or other people complain for me being where I am. Life on Earth- just the most amazing programme and even being 4, just being blown away by it and the sort of the wonders of the nature and life. We live in an amazing time because we're completely aware of what we're doing. We're able to ask questions, and we have the technology now where we can start to answer them and get fairly good answers. I mean, science is only a few 100 years old really. We've got the technology. We've got the computing power. We can actually analyse all sorts of any questions we've got. We can start to address. We don't have all the answers. We won't have all the answers for some time yet. But we can start to ask the questions that are important, if nothing else. So, yeah, biology has always been really interesting to me. I wanted to be a medical doctor, but my A level said I wasn't going to be a medical doctor. And it took me some time to get my head around that and I spent three years as an auxiliary nurse at King's College Hospital. I decided I was gonna go into biology, which was actually what I was most excited about when I was growing up, when I was a kid, when I was a school and I went to University of Reading and it was the best thing I ever did. It wasn't just about the great we got, of course, the grades are important. But it was about a subject that we were doing and learning how to learn and how to love the subject and be interested in the thing that we were doing. And I stayed on and did my PhD. I did my PhD in evolutionary developmental biology, looking at embryos and of little worms and sea squirts and things which are ethically no one really gives a monkey's about. They should do, everyone should be. But you know what I mean. When you say embryos, people automatically don't picture an embryo. They picture a little baby in a nappy crawling along with blue eyes, normally smiling "Awwwwh embryos". No, that's not an embryo, that's a baby. Didn't work on those you, but you know what I mean. So, yeah, I was working on sea squirts and sea urchins and marine worms. And what have you. Comparing their development to get ideas of relationships and having raise lots of different species off marine creatures, I then went to Bristol and worked with a chap called Phil Donahue, and we worked on fossilised embryos from half a billion years ago. So, understanding from my Evo Devo PhD that understanding the similarities in development helps you to understand relationships. But 500 million years or 540 million years ago is when animals appear in the fossil record and major groups of animals all appear and starting to be fixed and starting to get an understanding of the development and embryology at that time helps us to understand how characters develop, how the major groups separate from one another. We don't have all the answers yet because we don't have embryos from everything. But we've made the start. So we were CT scanning embryos, which are half a millimetre in diameter from half a billion years ago and using high resolution CT, we were able to determine what was geology, sort of half a billion years in the ground and turning into rock on what was preserved biology. It was phenomenal, had a really lovely time. From there I went to upstate New York and I taught evolution in small town America. So upstate New York is about about 300 miles north of New York- London to Newcastle that sort of distance. There was a little place called Oswego, right on the shores of Lake Ontario, absolutely beautiful. But evolution in small town America... It was fine in the college, but I was naive, and I wrote letters to the newspapers because it was 2009 and it was 150th anniversary of the origin of species in the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth. "Oh, Charles Darwin, evolution, haven't got to worry about evolution." Yeah, people were praying for me, and I got a phenomenal letter written in a very angry fist- a biro held in a fist- praying for my eternal soul and hoping that I would find salvation before it was too late and the fiery pits of damnation would take me forever. So it was nice that they were concerned. Yeah, that was an experience. I then came back to Britain and I worked Alan Marchant in biological sciences. Looking at roots developments, I plant roots in soil in three dimensions. So growing plants in soil, you can see exactly how the roots are growing and how they're developing and how they're interacting with particles of soil. CT scanning it so you can get the three dimensions because otherwise you pull the plant out of the ground, wash the soil off and all the roots collapse or you can grow it between two sheets of glass. But then you've basically constrained your root system into two dimensions. So we were CT scanning. That was very good fun. Then I ran out funding, so I thought, well what am I going to do? I'll give something back!
Neil Gostling: 0:00
When I was in Crystal I, we published loads of papers. It was really good with the bunch productive I've ever seen until now. Actually, now is really picking up. But I had a really fantastic research experience there on DH. A kid's magazine got in touch with Mei, too, because it was able to the same year that the last Indiana Jones film came out and some awful person had put on the Internet that they put this thing about Indiana Jones and some terrible human who I know exactly who it was, and I never forgiven them exactly. Oh, no. Indiana Jones wasn't based on that person. Everyone knows Indiana Jones's Neil Gosling from the university. Because I have a hat. I have a very nice hat on. That's that's it. And I was really annoyed. And take that down. That's not funny. You're taking the Mickey out. Meet people on DH Kids magazine called Flip Side got in touch because they wanted to do something about the real Indiana Jones, and they did this whole piece, which was very nice. And I'll be honest. I've got that magazine on light on my shelf as well. But my mom got hold of it and my mom was exceptionally pretty.
Neil Gostling: 22:16
I started my teacher training and I did my teach training with School of Education, but it was the schools direct. So I was in school from day one. I did my training here in RedBridge on the west side of Southampton, and then I did my first year at Chamberlain College on the other side of the of the city. Yeah, it was really interesting. And it turned out what I wanted to give back, most kids didn't want. But, you know, it was really nice. And I had an email actually from one of the kids, whose not a kid he's now 19 doing cycling for the Sky team or someone, I can't remember what he said. But about what he has been up to and what he's doing and thanking me for being interested in them, which I thought was really lovely. By 2016 I came back to Southampton and the rest is history. When I was in Bristol, we published loads of papers. It was really good - the most productive I've ever been until now. Now is really picking up. But I had a really fantastic research experience there and a kid's magazine got in touch with me because it was the same year that the last Indiana Jones film came out. Some awful person had put on the Internet about Indiana Jones and some terrible human, who I know exactly who it was, and I've never forgiven them exactly. They put " Oh, no. Indiana Jones wasn't based on that person. Everyone knows Indiana Jones is Neil Gosling from the university of Bristol". Because I have a hat. I have a very nice hat and that's that's it. And I was really annoyed. And thought take that down. That's not funny. You're taking the Mickey out of me. And a Kids magazine called Flip Side got in touch because they wanted to do something about the real Indiana Jones, and they did this whole piece, which was very nice. And I'll be honest, I've got that magazine on my shelf as well. But my mum got hold of it and my mum was exceptionally proud.
Neil Gostling: 22:16
"I had a front cover of Nature magazine Mum, a front cover." No, she was only interested in flip side, and you know that her son was a real Indiana Jones. I'm really know, maybe from the head up with the hat.
Jo Fisher: 22:28
I think you should definitely embrace the Indiana Jones persona. I think that's something to be proud of.
Neil Gostling: 22:33
From the hat up, maybe. From the rest, I don't think I could really carry it off.
Jo Fisher: 22:37
You are your own person. You put Indiana Jones to shame by the sounds of it, you don't steal relics.
Neil Gostling: 22:49
I don't, that's true. That's one of my lines in the sand is I don't steal relics. So I think that's a very important point.
Jo Fisher: 22:56
Good to know. Do you have an object at all in your home or your new office, as it were, that reminds you of your career or highlights your research?
Neil Gostling: 23:07
One of the things-. This really does go right the way back to life on Earth and David Attenborough and the work that I'm doing now. The thing that I was really excited about, and it really took off by the time I started university in 1997. Loads of fossils were coming out of China that looked like dinosaurs, but they were covered in feathers and it really sealed the argument that's been going on from the 1860s really about Archaeopteryx. So this is my cast of Archaeopteryx .
Jo Fisher: 23:42
Amazing.
Neil Gostling: 23:42
It's not the real one. The real one is in Berlin. If it was the real one, the police would be after me and they've got guns and German shepherds.
Jo Fisher: 23:51
and you really would be Indiana Jones.
Neil Gostling: 23:54
But it's beautiful. There's its skull and its backbone comes all the way down. Long, bony tail covered in feathers, long arms with fingers with claws, with a jaw with no beek but has got teeth but covered in feathers. And this is for me, Archaeopteryx is the most important fossil because it's predicted by Charles Darwin in the origin of species.
Jo Fisher: 24:16
Is that to scale as it were? Because when I was growing up, I always imagined it to be huge, but that's almost normal bird size.
Neil Gostling: 24:26
Archaeopteryx was the size of a magpie. Absolutely. It was small theropods dinosaurs that evolved into the birds.
Jo Fisher: 24:32
That's taught me something today, definitely.
Neil Gostling: 24:36
That velociraptor in Jurassic Park is not velociraptor. Uh, Velociraptor in Jurassic Park is possibly dynonacus, possibly Utahrapter. It's not Velociraptor. Velociraptor would have been about six feet long, but it would have been about the size of a really angry turkey with a great big tail. I still wouldn't want to meet one. It still had the slashing claws. It would have been quite unpleasant, But you could have held it under your arm like I don't know, like a large terrier. Small hound. Kind of. Yeah, it wouldn't have been big. There were large Raptor and they would have been, don't get me wrong, they would all have been absolutely awful. You would not have wanted to meet them in a darkened forest.
Jo Fisher: 25:25
That sounds brilliant, although I am quite disappointed that Jurassic Park has been lying to us for all these years. But now we know
Neil Gostling: 25:32
When Jurassic Park came out in 1993 which was phenomenal film. Don't get me wrong. It's really good. People didn't really know that dinosaurs were covered in feathers. Velociraptor should be covered in feathers. When they came back for Jurassic World , they didn't have feathers. They actually addressed that in the film and said, "Of course, they should have feathers. But people don't want to see feathery dinosaurs. They want to see what they think they look like." So they engineered the dinosaurs to not look like dinosaurs should look. Oh clever. one Jurassic Park, you got out of that one.
Jo Fisher: 26:07
Very smart! We'll let them get away with that. But we know the truth. That's amazing. Thank you so much for sharing. When I was really young, I really wanted to go into into palaeontology. You know, one of those careers that you have when you're small and I was really obsessed with dinosaurs,
Neil Gostling: 26:28
Absolutely I'm nurturing my inner six year old.
Jo Fisher: 26:33
So many of my friends Children love dinosaurs as well, which is great. That's fascinating for your personal level as well, as a professional level. Hopefully for our podcast listeners as well. And it leads us on nicely to what you're doing now you mentioned about backyard safaris and how we can really enjoy the nature that surrounds us, but also talking about birds being dinosaurs. You have your project about dinosaurs on your windowsill. So could you tell us a bit about that?
Neil Gostling: 27:09
I love outreach. I love going out to schools and talking to kids. I love talking to the parents. The best thing that kids can ever do is ask a question and if a parent can give an answer- that's got to be a good thing. So I set up the page on Facebook. It's called Dinosaur. On your window sill and it's a way again- looking for positives in the time that we're in at the moment -a way that we can engage with nature so you don't need to have a back garden, you don't need to have a balcony. You just need to have a window in the ability to make observations and see what's going on around you. I've been setting challenges every couple of days and go and find as many wood lice as you can. How many different kinds of Bumble Bee can you find? It's quite nice because people coming onto it. "So I didn't know there were different kinds of Bumble Bee. I think they're all the same". And that's lovely because I'm getting to show people the things that I love. The funniest thing was it's gone international. People have been posting things that they've seen on their walk. One of my old school friends has joined and he said, "Oh, on my walk during locked down I bumped into this chap" and it's a macaque because he's in Singapore. So it's it's allowing us to not only engage with our immediate nature and our immediate environment, but allowing us to see what other people are doing as well. I think that's be a good thing, but is actually showing interconnectedness between people. It's showing different experiences that people have. So, yeah, have a look at the dinosaur on my window sill.
Jo Fisher: 28:48
Sounds like something that all age groups can get involved with this as well. If you've got kids you can get them engaged when they need to give them a project or something like that.
Neil Gostling: 28:58
All of a sudden, people home schooling their Children and all of a sudden, they've realised that teachers - they've gone the extra mile, and maybe it's okay for them to have some time off during the year. Yeah, teaching is really difficult, and people are starting to experience that. But all all teachers have had a degree and training year and the registration year. They have been trained. They know how to interact with kids for eight hours nonstop. They know how to do it. All of a sudden, people might have kids. Well people who are parents have had kids in one way, shape or form. I tell you one thing that I'm finding difficult, I'm finding it hard being a dad all the day. I would like to think I'm pretty good at it in the morning before I go to work, and when I come home just before he goes to bed, three hours or two hours after I get in, you know, that's easy. Kids are just difficult, and they should be because they are learning and trying to experience the world and why is really important. And I want my little boy to always ask why, Why, why, why, why, why I don't ever want to say enough. I'm working. There's a brilliant kids science magazine called Whizz Pop Bang so we're posting things to that which is then taking them to the Whizz Pop Bang site. We're posting a guide to identify Bumble bees. We're posting anything that we can find that allows kids, parents, anyone to answer those questions and to engage with us and engage with their back garden or whatever environment they've got. A window box with a couple of plants. There will be animals in those window boxes.
Jo Fisher: 30:43
It sounds brilliant. I think I might have to give it a go and see what is outside my window, and I'm sure there's more than meets the eye. I look forward to seeing what other people can find as well. I don't have a garden, so I live vicariously through people who do. Moving slightly away from work and things. Have you found that you've had any time? Because I know you're very busy. In your spare time that you may have while we're in lock down, have you discovered any, or have you been taking advantage of the time to nurture any current hobbies or anything like that? Or you you enjoying just being with your family?
Neil Gostling: 31:18
It's really lovely, actually. This is an experience that I didn't imagine I was going to get with her little boy. He is absolutely smashing. I'm learning to be a dad properly and it's just really nice. We've got swing in the back garden and he's potty for the swing. He would happily sit on the swing all day. The other thing we've discovered, which is quite good fun is sitting on the wall. He's 23 months, he's not old. He likes to be picked up and sit on the wall and look into the next door neighbour's garden. The next door neighbour can't get into his garden. But there's all sorts. There's a woodpile, and there's plants and birds flying around and all sorts of things. He just likes to sit there, and he sort of makes little cooing noises and points and stuff. It's just really nice to spend some time with him, which is not what I expected. You know, not what I expected to have. Positives.
Jo Fisher: 32:14
As much as this locked down and everything is, is keeping people apart. I think it's doing wonders for smaller relationships. So even online, I'm talking to friends more on video calls than I ever have done as you say. So it's those little relationships like the ones you were describing that are really almost benefiting from this very strange situation. I was wondering if any of our listeners would like to engage with what you're doing at the moment, any of your research. Obviously you've mentioned the Facebook Page. Where can people find you online, as it were?
Neil Gostling: 32:47
Well, I mean the Facebook page. They can get me on Twitter, I'm Neil J. Gosling on Twitter. You can find my email address via the biological Sciences Web page. Come and say Hello.
Jo Fisher: 32:59
Obviously, we're having our tea or coffee today together. What is your favourite biscuit to snack on whilst you're having a cup of tea or a cup of coffee. Do you have a preference?
Neil Gostling: 33:09
It has to be a chocolate digestive. There's no competition, really. There are other better biscuits that are better. Basically your go to biscuit should be something like a chocolate digestive. It's simple. It has everything you need. It's got a crisp crunch, but he's got that chocolate topping. I mean, it's the biscuit of champions.
Jo Fisher: 33:29
I think I might have to go and hunt one down for my next cup of tea now. Thank you very much for talking to me, Neil, it's great hearing about your work and everything you're doing at home at the moment. I'm sure you'll be back on your field trips as soon as this is all over and everyone's able to travel again. Otherwise, I hope you stay safe and well, and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.
Neil Gostling: 33:52
Thank you very much.
Jo Fisher: 33:53
Thank you, Neil, for joining me for a virtual cuppa today and make sure to subscribe to the podcast for future episodes. To wet your whistle here's a little taste of what to expect from this series of Universi-Tea.
Nick Povey: 34:04
You know, trying to make sure that the students and staff have got what they need and are experiencing a positive outcome from whatever interaction they have with security. And it's more than just opening doors.
Delia Crowe: 34:17
We all wear clothes, it effects all of us. You might think you don't care about fashion, but it's a huge industry, one of the biggest industries globally. We all wear clothes. It affects every person, everybody.
Nikhil Mistry: 34:28
I had no tattoos before that. I just thought you know what, lets just do it. Who cares? Let's do something new. And actually that kind of reinvigorated me to just wake up and do stuff in life. And get on with my PhD.
Jo Fisher: 34:43
I'm Jo Fischer. Thank you for listening. This has been a podcast from the University of Southampton.