I recently spoke at a 'Packed Lunch' event for The Wellcome Collection.

'Packed Lunches' are midday seminars – open to the public – that host the ramblings of a local scientist (often funded by Wellcome). The audience are encouraged to bring their sarnies, an open mind, and whatever questions they fancy. In many ways, 'Packed Lunches' are like traditional academic lunchtime seminars, reformatted for the 'public communication of science'.

However, unlike typical lecture-style talks, 'Packed Lunches' are public interviews. There are no slides. No laser pointers.

Frankly, I was surprised Wellcome invited me. They normally interview lab-heads and professors. They'd clearly run out and needed to draft from the B-team. I almost didn't do it for fear of looking unqualified. I was equally surprised that anyone (beyond my parents) came.

In the hypercritical environment of modern research, it can be easy to forget we scientists do something others care about. One of the joys of public engagement is being reminded – that even if all your experiments failed and your paper was just rejected – there are people out there who care you're even trying.

However, being interviewed (and recorded) in-front of a live non-scientific studio audience was very alien to me. A public interview – with no narrative control – is an unsettling prospect. I was terrified.

Fortunately, the interviewer, Tom Anthony from Wellcome, kept the questions simple and my jargon leashed.

Yesterday, Wellcome released the event as a podcast. Unfortunately they don't put podcasts on iTunes (I've no idea why, hopefully this will change). So if you'd like to hear me ramble, a recording of the event can be found below: