Profile: Professor John Prescott, University Professor at Large

Professor John Prescott gave a lunchtime seminar in the Faculty of Veterinary Science on Wednesday, September 10, 2008. His talk looked at public health and zoonoses, with several attention-grabbing examples from research carried out in Canada by the Centre for Public Health at Zoonoses at the University of Guelph. Professor Prescott is in Australia for a month. This profile was sprung on him when he was least expecting it, but the results were very interesting! Let's hope other visiting professors can keep up the standard...
I was born... in a British military hospital in Libya with an identical twin brother... (evil laugh)
At school I... had a very broad education. I went to thirteen schools before I was 12. Usually when a boy changes schools they get beaten up in the playground, but that doesn't happen when you've got a twin brother.
My first relationship was... gee, I've had so many I don't remember.
Friends say I am... interesting, amusing, intelligent, handsome, good-looking...
I'm very bad at... names. People should wear name tags on their foreheads.
If I wasn't me I'd like to be... a Golden Eagle.
At the moment I'm reading... A Dance To The Music of Time, by Anthony Powell. This book was recommended by Bob Carr (Ed: recommendation is in My Reading Life: Adventures in the World of Books) as one of the best English language books in existence. It is catastrophically funny.
My worst job was... bagging barley on a back of a 3' wide combine harvester.
At the moment I'm working... in Australia on trying to improve my bacteriology teaching.
...which is interesting because... I've got quite a few new ideas.