Adrian Koster

Consultant, Ginnel Studio

Where do you work?
Ginnel Studio. My base is my studio crammed with books on agriculture, veterinary science, environment and language, responsible to many organisations.

What is your job there?
Largely a continuation of my life as a journalist. I am also interested in livestock and crop husbandry and experimental agriculture, now contributing as a desk ecosystem agronomist and writer.

Why did you join SCI?
Science is vital. Attitudes to science can be dismissive, so I believe in plugging science and creating awareness.

What is your favourite holiday destination?
Recently, Iceland and in particular Solheimar, for the ruggedness, grandeur and rawness of this evolving landscape.

What would you like to have invented?
The ultimate 21st century flying boat to reduce aeronautical land use; also a sane and safer approach to the usefulness of GM technology.

What is the best advice you have received?
As an observer journalist on a Royal Navy mine counter-measures exercise, I was told to drink Drambuie by the half-pint to stop sea-sickness.

Which book would you recommend as a ‘must read’?
‘The Pig Who Sang to the Moon’ by Jeffrey Masson and ‘The Adventure of English’ by Melvyn Bragg.

With whom would you most like to spend an evening in serious discussion?
Nicolas Sarkozy, the French Minister for Economy, Finance and Industry, with Jeremy Paxman, anchor presenter of BBC2 Newsnight.

What is your motto in life?
I have several. ‘Hold the front page’ — I still get that adrenalin rush from my newspaper days; and ‘automagically", jargon for incomprehensible computer technology which really does the job.