Sue Lawley's castaway this week believes he has the answer to "life, the universe and everything". According to mathematician Ian Stewart, it's 137-and-a-half degrees. He calls it "the golden angle", and says it can be found everywhere in nature - whether in the pattern of seeds on a sunflower head or in the spiral of a snail's shell. Mathematics, he says, has nothing to do with arithmetic and everything to do with being able to pack the luggage into the boot of the car. But for a broken collarbone which meant he stayed at home working out puzzles with his mum, he would have remained bottom of the class and never discovered how much fun maths could be.  [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]  Favourite track: Scarborough Fair by Simon and Garfunkel
Book: Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter
Luxury: Mrs Thatcher pickled in a Damien Hurst sculpture

Ian Stewart

Guests are invited to choose the eight records they would take to a desert island

Personal Journals

Society & Culture

History

Philosophy

Places & Travel

Sue Lawley's guest this week is Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber. His musicals dominate London's West End, including Cats, Phantom of the Opera and Starlight Express. He traces a career which began more than 30 years ago when he teamed up with Tim Rice to write Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]  Favourite track: Some Enchanted Evening by Rossano Brazzi
Book: England's Thousand Best Churches by Simon Jenkins
Luxury: Herb garden

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber

Sue Lawley's guest this week is Michael Crawford. Renowned for his attention to detail, he has always performed his own stunts - whether roller-skating under moving lorries in Some Mothers Do Have 'Em, or walking the tightrope in the musical Barnum. A consumate professional, he admits to escaping from his hospital bed, where he was recovering from exhaustion, so the show could go on! [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]  Favourite track: Gloria from Mass in B Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach
Book: The complete book of self-sufficiency by John Seymour
Luxury: Pen and paper

Michael Crawford

Sue Lawley's guest this week is Michael Nyman. Said to be the best-selling classical composer in Britain, as a child visiting the opera or concert hall his imagination would be caught by a particularly pleasing sequence of notes. Later, he was to use these as inspiration for his own compositions. A Purcell manuscript inspired his music for the The Draughtsman's Contract. Scottish folk songs the soundtrack to The Piano. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]  Favourite track: Farewell (Das Lied von der Erde (the song of the Earth)) by Gustav Mahler
Book: Tristram Shandy  by Laurence Sterne
Luxury: A toilet

Michael Nyman

Sue Lawley's guest this week is Oz Clarke. As a wine expert, he has sipped, slurped and spat his way through thousands of vintages from around the world. Renowned for his enthusiasm for trying new flavours and varieties, his earliest memory is of drinking his mother's damson wine when he was just three years old. And it didn't put him off. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]  Favourite track: Thanks for the Memory by The Mitford Girls Original London Stage Cast
Book: French Provincial Cookery  by Elizabeth David
Luxury: His memory

Oz Clarke

Sue Lawley's guest this week is Sir Richard Sykes. The chairman of Glaxo Welcome, as a boy he was not a natural scholar, until he went to work at the pathology laboratory of his local hospital. Understanding the application of science led him to become a research scientist at Glaxo Welcome. He describes how later the Board Room lured him away from the lab, and how he came to mastermind one of the most audacious take-overs in the city. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]  Favourite track: Second Movement from Cello Concerto in B Minor by Antonin Dvořák
Book: The Origin of Species  by Charles Darwin
Luxury: Telescope

Ian Stewart

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