Brainy heartthrob Professor Brian Cox says he can no longer pop to his favourite boozer without being mobbed by star-struck fans.
The particle physicist, who will soon be teaching quantum physics and relativity at Manchester University, now gets more public adulation as a scientist than he ever did as a member of hit 90s band D:Ream, famous for the New Labour anthem Things Can Only Get Better.
Despite the fact that his favourite pub on Clapham High Street in south London is now virtually off-limits to him, Professor Cox said that if science experts become famous it helps to spark the public's interest in the field.
Bright star: Professor Brian Cox says the fame he now has after fronting hit shows like Wonders Of The Solar System means he can't enjoy a pint at his favourite south London pub without being recognised
Speaking to the Sunday Times, the 45-year-old spoke of the 19th century, when British scientists including Micheal Faraday and Humphry Davy were 'celebrities hanging out with the romantic poets' and the public clamored to attend science lectures, eager to learn about the latest cutting-edge ideas.
'Why wouldn't you want academics to be celebrities?... Of course I want science to be part of popular culture like that again,' he said.
'It's the way you get people interested in scientific ideas.'
He also denied that his students will be star-struck by him when he hits the lecture hall.
Early fame: Brian Cox (far left) in D:Ream, a pop band that enjoyed success in the 1990s
He said: 'Maybe in the first lecture that I give in September they'll behave differently when they first come in, but within minutes they're criticising the size of your writing or whatever.'
Professor Cox’s recent series, Wonders of Life, got 3million viewers when it aired on BBC2 in January and last year's Stargazing Live, which explores astronomy and the night sky, saw record ratings in 2012, peaking at 3.8million.
He also works on the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, near Geneva in Switzerland
The Oldham-born scientist played the keyboard in a hard rock band called Dare before joining D:Ream.
He played keyboards for several years in D:Ream while studying for his physics PhD degree at Manchester University.
Boffin: Professor Cox has taken up a teaching role at Manchester University, where he used to be a student