My... my love of... of fantasy, in particular fantasy which takes off from existing science and existing humanity, remained with me into my 20s and 30s, and early 40s, and I had at one time… this was before we met, Kate, but I had at one time an entire bookcase full of science fiction. I... I think I read, I don’t know, six science fiction novels a week. I fed on them. I was a voracious reader. I was very fond of Arthur Clarke, and Heinlein, and some of the older writers, and I became very fond of Star Trek when it appeared. It had characters. It had real characters one got to know, Spock, and... and Scotty, and beam... and beaming up, and actually, 25 years later I met Spock. It was rather nice meet... meeting him in the flesh. I think, however, that I slightly preferred the next generation to the original Star Trek, with Jean-Luc Picard, and of course, magnificently acted. One got to know them all.



I never missed a Star Trek, or very rarely. I would put off important engagement – I don’t think there was easy recording at that time – and I’d put off important engagements because I needed to be by the television at 8 o’clock, and that was that. On one occasion, I went... when I was in Los Angeles I went to the studio, because I wanted to... and I met Brent Spiner, who was Data. And I told him he... he was the icon of autistic people everywhere, and I think he looked rather puzzled and he wasn’t quite sure what... what to make of my comment, which was meant to be a high compliment.