If David Attenborough isn't the GLE (Greatest Living Englishman) I'd like to know who is. In a career that goes back as long as I have been alive, he has done more than anyone else to showcase the astounding variety and beauty of the Earth's stock of living creatures, and in the last few years to demonstrate how many of them are now under threat from Earth's dominant life form: us.
Some personal stories. In 1974 it was he who presented me with my medical degree, he being awarded an honorary DSc for his efforts in popularising science- and that before Life on Earth and all those other unforgettable wildlife programmes were made. In the 1970s I didn't watch much TV (don't faint) though I did have a small monochrome set. I saw the first few Life on Earth episodes on it before seeing one on a colour set at a friend's house. The following day I went out and bought a colour set myself.
Decades later I was watching Frozen Planet when I thought David might have made a mistake naming the longest (non Antarctic) glacier as the Biafo in Pakistan. I checked my Guinness Book of Records and found they cited the Siachen in north-west India. I wrote to him c/o the BBC and pointed this out. About two weeks later I got a handwritten letter from him admitting his error, saying that he had mistakenly relied on data supplied by the Pakistani Airforce and expressing his apologies. How about that?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment