David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

A true hero in my life. I had VHS copies of Trials Of Life that I wore out through watching over and over as a child. It opened my eyes to the world and wonder of nature. In college I started hunting down every single appearance he had listed in any filmography I could find and have a hard drive in my attic with all but a couple of his earliest Black and White appearances from the earliest part of his career. I haven’t kept up with it with the newest stuff in the past 15 or so years but I definitely need to pull that out and see if I can finalize his catalog.

Top man, lives up on Richmond Hill and absolutely loves it - when asked about his travels and adventures and where he would choose to live, he replied, "I already live there"

Fairly well-known locally is that my favourite bookshop, The Open Book in Richmond, stocks signed copies of all his books. They used to be signed directly on the page, but since he got to the mid-to-late nineties in age, tons of hardbacks are too much, so Helena wanders up there to get a load of bookplates signed these days.

Apart from that, I order all my books from them when I'm in London and a subsequent chat with Madeleine usually lasts ten times as long as the book shopping.

Anyway, I digress, yes, Sir David, amazing body of works and the books are wonderful.

He was just mentioned on today's Lateral podcast with Tom Scott.

Apparently, he's the reason tennis balls are yellow.

I guess they were traditionally white but when they started broadcasting matches on TV it was too hard to see the ball.

David who was at the BBC at the time suggested they use yellow balls instead so they would come through on camera. Ever since then tennis balls have been yellow.

I just love those documentaries where he starts off in Europe following some bird and ends up on a rock in the middle of the ocean. And he's been at it since when the world was much bigger. What a life!

He definitely influenced my life and choices; some of the strongest memories of my youth in the '80s are tied to his documentaries Life on Earth and The Living Planet. I was lucky to live in the countryside and near a beautiful lake but his documentaries expanded my horizons so much more. I didn't love watching TV but that content was a magic window. They were dubbed by the magnificent voice of Claudio Capone and skillfully commented by Piero Angela, who died recently at 93. Piero was the most prominent Italian science journalist and his own career shaped TV and spanned 70 years. Their work made me and my family definitely more environmentally conscious. I don't doubt this content will have a lasting impact on humanity even if we can't clearly discern its effects right now.

Happy Birthday David! I'm so happy you are still alive and well.

I wonder how many scientists and engineers were first pulled toward their field by an Attenborough documentary. That kind of slow cultural influence is hard to measure.

Searching for David Attenborough on Google also shows a tribute, with drawings of animals and a "Thank You Sir David".

https://www.google.com/search?q=david+attenborough

An outstanding voice for nature for all these years, and how kind nature has been to him in return. Long Live Sir David!

The best of us.

One of the most iconic voices.

https://youtu.be/P3ump1Buszo?si=0DoXiDTqZOyTBUst

I'll never forget the disgust amongst me and my friends when we found out that American television had replaced Attenborough's documentary voice with Oprah fucking Winfrey. Cultural vandalism.

Always found his voice genuinely soothing and a nice reprieve from all the other pressing issues

I remember watching blue planet seas of life in middle school in the early 2000s crazy.

What's the opposite of the black bar? Should HN have a green bar for things like this?

TIL he's the brother of director Sir Richard Attenborough.

Protect David at all costs.

It's also fascinating to see he is still active with regards to BBC documentations. I watched some newer BBC documentaries with other people voicing it, and while they are not terribly, all (!) of those newer guys are significantly more boring than even an old David. David understands things better than the newer guys do.

He is a legend and has educated more people in natural history than anyone else ever...

Glad to hear. I thought all those videos recently of him were AI.

A truly great communicator, we need more like him.

He outlasted his brother by quite a while. Managed to travel more miles than nearly anyone else apart from popes and political leaders.

Legend

Happy Birthday

The sad thing is Attenborough has lived to see the destruction of nature he loved so much. His constant warnings have gone mostly unheard. In some ways I think excellent nature programming like his own Nature is doing a disservice by making it seem like there's lots of wild nature left.

I wish humans would come together to re-wild more of the earth. Restoring wild nature and cutting emissions is the only way to really restore natural ecosystems. We're nowhere close to doing that.

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A lifestyle impossible for any foreseeable generation.

I'm surprised none of these threads made it to the front page.

Unpopular opinion: I don't understand why people are so fascinated with a man simply because of his voice narrating truly marvelous, artistic documentaries. I have way more respect for operators, who spent months in harsh conditions with a slim chance to film anything interesting.