You then re-sat your A-levels, passed, but still not great, coz you got rejected from all the unis - which is a nice touch - for someone who would go onto rule them all.

Interestingly, 40 years later, you still have nightmares about those exams:

Desert Islands [00:14:25]
I used to wake up with nightmares thinking 'I've got to do my bloody A-levels again' - for years! Uhmm, so it's only in the last year or two I've gotten over that, actually. It's amazing the scars.

Yeah, amazing. So how did you get in?

You got proactive - you went up to stay with your big sister, a nurse in London, to "knock on doors" of all the unis. Still, most of them brushed you off:

Desert Island Discs [00:15:09] I went round all of them and they all said, no, of course, because the world doesn't work like that. Except one. And a character called Robin Forrest who is still alive and still well and still in contact with, opened the door and said, oh, you must be here for the interviews.

So the world does, or doesn't work like that? Or it does and it doesn't?

And I said, making it up, ‘Yeah, actually, I am.’ And obviously people have been written to and I got a place at medical school and I'm eternally grateful.

I'm less eternally grateful, Jeremy, but that's just me - Robin Forrest - your door-opener - i’m guessing it’s this one?

Robin Forrest: Visiting Expert at the Beijing Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, visiting Scientist at Xerox PARC, Honorary Professor of Shandong University, Consultant for General Motors, Boeing, Lockheed, Xerox, Digital, Apple, Philips, Adobe, Rolls-Royce, worked for the defense in various patent cases concerning computer painting systems.

Also wondering was your father, Eric, one of those who helped with ‘the people having been written to’ part? Doesn’t matter, i don’t doubt you’ve got talent. Charm has always been your strong suit - i see how you could have done it. The cocky, quick-witted 19 year-old - with the exotic upbringing - rocking up at universities trying to talk his way in.

Anyway, the important part is you got your foot in the door of academia - the rest being history.