Patrick Moore

Sir Alfred Patrick Caldwell-Moore, born in 1923, is an amateur British astronomer best-known for hosting The Sky At Night, the ultimate Long Runner according to Guinness World Records (it's been on since 1957). He is known for his High-Class Glass, being something of a Genius Ditz, his impassioned and occasionally bizarre political stances (a Eurosceptic and something of an isolationist, he nevertheless sides with the Liberal Democrats on things like war, civil liberties, and environmental protection), and his status as a living national treasure.

The author of, among other things, the epoch-making Data Book of Astronomy, Moore is one of the last remaining gentleman scientists, a very old-fashioned and crusty, yet genial, person. He has met, among others, Orville Wright, Albert Einstein, Yuri Gagarin, and Neil Armstrong. His "observatory" is a small room at his house in a Real Life Quirky Town. He is notably not an Omnidisciplinary Scientist.

He has been name-checked in Doctor Who (of which he is reportedly a fan) and appeared in the episode "The Eleventh Hour".

Also, he plays the xylophone (or did, until arthritis set in).

For some reason he was cast as the titular video-game-buff-A.I. in a computer game challenge series called GamesMaster, despite still using a typewriter and refusing to use computers in Real Life. Yes, really.