Giovanni Antonelli, you are a gentleman and a scholar.
This secondary school science teacher is a self-described “Super-Nerd” with a special claim to fame: he can name every single Doctor Who story every made – in order. Normally, this might just be an interesting quirk to pull out at slow parties, but recently, Antonelli used his powers for good by performing the feat to raise £100 for Children In Need. He explained that the stunt is “a result of 40 years of love for the program.”
Antonelli regularly incorporates Doctor Who into his science lessons. He says this habit gets him mixed reactions from the students:
“Generally, when I use it in lessons, there’s two responses – some groan and say ‘not this again,’ but others seem genuinely enthusiastic.”
He hopes that students will learn something from his Doctor Who memory feat as well as be entertained:
“I tell the kids to learn through repetition – this is a perfect example of how that can work.”
It only took Antonelli a week of practice to be able to recite all 240 stories without making a mistake. Why was it so easy? Antonelli says that “most of it has been rattling around in [his] head for years” anyway, so polishing off the feat wasn’t much of a stretch. Doctor Who, he explained, was the show that sparked his lifelong interest in science, which eventually led him to his career in teaching.
Don’t try to say you’re not getting a bit teary-eyed about the power of fan passion to do good things for the world. I know I am.
See a video of some of Antonelli’s recitation over at Mirror Online.
(via: Mirror)
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