Dear Professor Cox

Dear Professor Cox, or Brian,

May I call you Brian? It seems a little overfamiliar to call you that but then you have been in my living room on more than one occasion so I don't know. Can I?

You're actually known as Coxy at Deeming Villas if I'm honest which sounds as if we are friends, and it certainly shows affection; in the same way that the Australians add an "O" to most names - Steve-o, Jonno, etc - Brits tend to add a "Y" to make a nickname. And so, this is how it is at ours.

I ask permission to be on first name terms because I think it's important to show at this point how highly I think of you, because I do hold you in the highest esteem and respect you enormously. I feel an association there. But there is a danger that it may not be clear to you as you continue to read.

I think you're pretty cool. I was going to write amazing but that felt too creepy-fan like so I've opted for cool because it demonstrates the fact that I relate to you and like your programmes and what you are trying to do through them. I like your delivery and your enthusiasm and the way that your programmes mix visually stunning images with science and make a very complex subject accessible to laypersons like me.

Or, at least, attempt to. I don't mean that to disparage you. It is more a reflection of myself and my limited understanding of particle physics, which, I fear, will remain at the same base level despite your efforts to educate me otherwise.

It is refreshing, I think, to see you with your Manchester haircut and your casual jackets. We've come a long way from stuffy old men in tweed with elbow patches, talking in monotones and assuming a certain level of education before droning on for hours, their delivery as dry as their old men's scalps.

I want to thank you for that. For making science trendy. I think The Big Bang Theory may have helped with this too and in particular, Sheldon Cooper (sorry, Leonard) who with his extreme nerdiness has almost become loveable and has certainly given an insight into the vagaries of theoretical physics. I mean, we're still laughing at nerds in a disparaging way but we are also starting to admire their intelligence at least.

I hope that you continue to grace our screens because I feel, with your presence, that I may just be able to gain an inkling of what this universe is all about. And I am grateful for that. As I am to Patrick Moore and The Sky at Night for pointing my eyes upward and being the archetypal English eccentric with his wild hair, monocle, clipped tones and badly fitting suit.

However, we have come to my reason for my writing to you and it is really an apology. I feel a bit of a fraud really. I just wanted to tell you that it's not your fault but that makes it sound like you're to blame for something and that really is not the case.

You see, the crux of it is this: I can't stay awake.

I'm not narcoleptic. I can stay awake at other times although in the car, I do tend to nod off but not on short journeys. No, it is your programmes that make me sleep but this needs explaining further as they are not boring. Far from it.

It would seem to me that I just shut down. I've not been able to stay awake for any of your programmes. The Planets, Wonders of the Universe - they may as well have been entitled Adventures in Universal Slumberland for me.

I mean, I start off well. I sit and I absorb and I marvel at the fabric of this world that we live in, of which we and our little planet are a mere wet bobble on the blanket of space and time. I drink in the graphics of our solar system and beyond: the stars, the black holes, the dwarfs, the giants, the satellites. I listen to your voice as you explain all of these wondrous things to me in terms that I can understand (sort of) and I think "How interesting!"

I want to learn.

And then, I wake up and the heating's gone off, I've got a crick in my neck and there's a stand-up comedian infront of me on the TV instead of a Professor of Particle Physics.

How does this happen? Is this one of the mysteries of the universe?

The answer to this is, sadly, no.

I know what the answer is. And I've mentioned it already: I shut down. Like an overworked computer whose fan just can't cope with the heat from all that processing. I just stop working.

I literally overload.

I don't like this about myself. It suggests that I'm thick but I'm not. I will admit to finding molecular physics and theories about the universe and Hadron colliders and dark matter challenging at best. Do I have an interest in it? Not enough to push past my current ignorance, no but enough to watch a programme about it on TV, yes. But it would seem that I am not even capable of that.

And so, I wanted you to know: it's not you, it's me.

I don't have the brain capacity to absorb what you can quite easily digest and relate to your audience so readily. I don't. I'm not ashamed of that but I am embarrassed that I haven't been able to make it through an hour of your particular discussions without ducking out, albeit unconsciously.

I mean, chances are you wouldn't be able to deliver a lesson on Hamlet so we all have our strengths. Actually, you probably could teach Hamlet but maybe not well.

Whatever. Your knowledge of Shakespeare here is not relevant. But my abject apology is.

I am sorry. I wish wholeheartedly that I could change but I can't. I've tried. I've watched you at different times of the day. I've made sure I've had a light lunch. I've had coffee after dinner. I've willed my brain to cooperate. I've sat uncomfortably.

The result is always the same.

And I just wanted to apologise. Because I feel bad and I don't like it. You are trying to engage me and I am just incapable, it would seem.

I am so sorry.

I will continue to try and watch. It has become a standard joke in our house (we're not laughing at you, Coxy!) that whenever you appear, either my husband or I will feign sleep in a Homer Simpson drooling kind of way and snort before pretending to jolt awake. Your effect, I want you to understand, is not instantaneous. I generally make my way through 3/4 of an episode in a series so I'm there for most of it. I've just not made the full hour.

I want you to know that I aspire to this: 1 hour of Coxy (if that doesn't sound too suggestive!) and that I love your work. What I've seen of it.

I'm very much looking forward to exploring the universe with you more in the future. Perhaps bring stimulants?

Best wishes,

Rachel

P.S. When you were in D:Ream, did you ever do a gig at Leicester University in the mid 1990s? If you did, I think I may have seen you perform! And I was awake the whole time! Hope so as it would be nice to end on an optimistic note.