2022: What happened?

January: I launch Mission Transmission – a project to send a radio programme to space. The UK KIDZ BOP Kids cover Coldplay’s My Universe – which has since been streamed 1.2 million times. Tim Peake lends his support to the project.

I’m interviewed by countless journalists across the nation as they cover it and thousands of children head to the Fun Kids website to send us their hopes, dreams, and aspirations for the future.

The 1975 and Greta Thunberg give us permission to use their song in the project which we intertwine with children’s voices…

February: I write a piece for The Week Junior’s Science+Nature magazine all about multiverses and whether this universe might be one of many.

In an event at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, six kids, KIDZ BOP, a host of Fun Kids presenters and astronaut Tim Peake slams a big red button and we send that radio programme to space.

That same night, Russia goes to war in Ukraine.

March: The US and UK announce a ban on Russian oil, while the EU announces a two-thirds reduction in its demand for Russian gas.

April: Podcast Mysteries of Science wins Best Science & Medical Podcast and Best Launch at the Publisher Podcast Awards.

May: I head to Copenhagen with Paul and Meg and spend three days in Malmo in Sweden for Radiodays Europe – my favourite talk from Jonas, the presenter of Songwriter.

June: I move. The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee takes place. I watch a Whitney Houston tribute concert.

July: The British Podcast Awards swing into town and Activity Quest picks up bronze in the very grown-up sounding Arts and Culture category.

The first operational image from the James Webb Space Telescope, the highest-resolution image of the early universe ever taken, was revealed to the public. It shows thousands of galaxies in a tiny sliver of the universe – an area of sky with an angular size approximately equal to a grain of sand held at arm’s length.

Looking at that image, we look back in time. A wave from the universe – light only just reaching Earth – from four billion years ago.

August: I went to see Coldplay. I discover the work of Ryan Holiday and become engrossed in philosophy and stoicism.

September: Queen Elizabeth II dies. We launch Mysteries of Science season four and kick off by chatting to an old pal, Tim Peake, and illusionist Derren Brown.

Liz Truss is appointed Prime Minister of the UK.

October: Rishi Sunak is appointed Prime Minister of the UK and inherits a burgeoning cost of living crisis. I got to feed giraffes.

November: I got to pet a rhino!

The world population reached an estimated 8 billion people.

NASA launches Artemis, the most powerful rocket ever into orbit. The Orion capsule makes a close pass at the Moon, venturing further into space than any previous habitable spacecraft.

James Webb looked outwards but Orion pointed home, capturing stunning photos of Earth from afar, our tiny blue planet suspended in the immensity of space. Like a grain of sand at arm’s length. Nothing but us.

You and me. And the largest family portrait ever taken.

The World Cup kicks off…

December: I go to so many Christmas lights trails that I’ve entirely lost count…

I take the technology we used to launch our radio programme into space in February and turn it into a business: sendamessagetospace.com

I write a piece on the abominable snowman and end up on the cover of The Week Junior’s Science+Nature magazine.

And I finish the year, right here, where I started it – home, with my parents, my family, full of gratitude (and food) and ready to go again...