Geoffrey Beattie is a professor at the University of Manchester. Television viewers know him better as the resident psychologist in the popular reality show Big Brother. His academic publications have appeared in a wide variety of international journals, including Nature, and he has also written for a diverse range of newspapers and magazines, including The Guardian, The Times, The Independent and The Observer.Ben Beattie's ambition is to become an elite runner, a goal that he juggles with full-time work. If he takes two minutes off his half-marathon time, his ambition will be fulfilled, but those two minutes could take a lifetime.