Poster boy for science “Professor” Brian Cox dropped out of sixth form and didn’t even attend university, he has admitted today in a revealing interview. The 48-year-old claims he applied for the BBC job as a dare, and was blown away when he received a letter telling him he had been successful.

While initially planning to come clean and move on, he decided to continue with the ploy after seeing the massive BBC salary on offer.

“I honestly just wing it. I just draw things in the sand and stare meaningfully into the camera. About 10% of what I say on telly is pinched from various episodes of Futurama I watched at home, and the remaining 90% is just utter bollocks. I’m no professor. I did an O-Level course in Geography but I dropped out after a few weeks and just worked at Pizza Hut until I was 38.”

When asked how he is able to come across as such a genius, he said: “Take this statement as an example: Photons travelling through a spacial vector will compress and slow down, causing their light to refract”.

“Now that’s a complete load of made up bollocks, but how is Gemma from Wrexham sitting at home watching me in her Disney pyjamas going to prove me wrong? She can’t, she just assumes I’m a clever bastard. And sexy. She probably thinks I’m sexy too”.