I had become very close to Stephen Jay Gould, I will... I’ll come back to this. Stephen Jay Gould had a monthly column in the magazine Natural History which he had maintained, I think, for 25 years. He had written 300 articles, whether he felt well or ill, and there were times when he was almost fatally ill, he would have an article every month without fail in Natural History.  But he died early in 2002, and I was asked to fill in for him, and write an article about astrobiology, so called... life on other planets, possibilities, what might it be like. It was an assignment I enjoyed because I have a taste for science fiction and I thought of all the Wellsian novels and the War of the Worlds and The First Men in the Moon, and so forth.

And... but there was a new editor, not Steve’s editor. Steve’s pieces had never been messed around with by an editor, they really went straight through. Whereas, this new editor was very pernickety, and... and also, very reluctant to send me a proof. He said, 'We don’t use proofs'. I said, 'But, you know, how can we work together if I don’t have a proof?' I was then sent a proof and we agreed, or I thought we had agreed on what was there, what was to be said, but when the article came out it had some sentences, whole sentences which made me cringe because I hadn’t said them, I would never put them in this way, and they’d been stuck in by the editor. I... I was considerably upset at this.

I think, now, this particular editor has matured and mellowed and is probably very good. It was an unfortunate coincidence that I got him at what he felt was... was a very vulnerable time, and had probably... was submitting a highly idiosyncratic article in place of... in place of the Stephen Jay Gould articles which had appeared in the previous 300 issues. So, perhaps, the circumstances were special, but I thought it dishonest to change my words or put in his own words after we had agreed. But... so there are editors and editors.