The Grimm Sky-OPC was one instrument being flown by the UK aircraft at the time of the E15 eruption, and one had been fitted on the flight talked about in that interview. A very reliable source close to the moderator in question tells me that the "mucky" BBC interview was actually the chap's informal brief to the TV crews before several much more measured interviews - that they didn't use, presumably because he used too many long words and measured scientific language.
The source also tells me that the UK response was from two government funded research aeroplanes, not a company, and that central government still hasn't paid all of its bills for that. They probably saved the UK economy several hundreds of millions, and as a result are left half a million down and have withdrawn both aircraft (a D228 and a BAe-146) from availability for civil contingency work.
UK Met Office is currently in the final stages of commissioning a C421 to do the same job, with a lot more instrumentation than the CT can carry and a couple of scientists on board. In particular it'll carry a vacuum pump sampling system which will work: at the speeds and with the power and payload available on a CT I don't believe that that aeroplane can usefully capture samples - you just couldn't put a big enough pump on it. The Met Office aircraft is "G-HIJK" and being called "MOCCA" - Met Office Civil Contingency Aircraft
The Grimm is a fantastic instrument however. I'm told. By a reliable source. A sensible use of the CT, which as an aeroplane probably cost a lot less than the instrument it's carrying. However, the CT is not going to fly at 20-30,000ft for 4+ hours at 250+ knots groundspeed carrying a downward facing LIDAR to map the ash plume, which the BAe-146 did do, and MOCCA will be able to do (okay, not at 250 knots) sometime in the next couple of months once it's been flight tested.
P