26/10/2011 The One Show

Hello. Welcome to the one one -- the One Show. Tonight the king of

natural history, who after nearly 60 years, is still pushing himself

to the ends of the Earth. The ice beneath me, up here on top of the

ice cap, is so thick that I am short of breath simply because of

the altitude. This is mid-summer and the average temperature is some

20 degrees below freezing. I can tell you, it feels much lower than

that. It is, of course, Sir David Attenborough.

APPLAUSE How wonderful to see you and fresh!

Fresh from Borneo as well. A little jet lagged? I got back yesterday.

Thank you very much for joining us. This was the first time you had

been to the North Pole? Last year, yeah. Was it what you expected?

Well, I know it's ice on sea, the another pole. It's not land. I know

what sea ice looks like, so there's not much choice. That's what it's

going to look like. It's ice on sea. We saw you there filming in some

extreme conditions. Did you have to do many tests before they allowed

you to film there? Yes. They have to make sure - you know, in order

to get to those places you have to go to various stations and they are

not places where people are going to have heart attacks. You

shouldn't have a heart attack in a place like that, because you can't

get proper assistance. It's just sense that you show that you are

reasonably fit. That you aren't going to cause a lot of bother.

It's very difficult. I've been in cold conditions, but to actually

speak, that is the problem. It's true, isn't it? I mean, that

actually doesn't look as bad as I thought it was at the time! Pretty

extreme. There was a screaming wind and it was awfully cold. Very, very

cold. If you haven't seen enough isolately and you weren't cold

enough, we have made this wonderful table in your honour. You did that

personally? Of course! These glasses are ice as well. They are

very difficult to pick up. We'll get you a proper glass. By the end

of the show we may be swimming. We'll see how we go. David's series

is a visual series and something not to be missed. We'll find out

how he got so close to this polar bear. Now then, if you think it's

difficult trying to sell your house in these times, spare a thought for

those blighted with brutal weed that can push through brick walls

and break up driveways, ultimately wrecking the whole place. Christine

has been to see a couple who are suffering as a result. We just got

engaged and saw this house. Four- bedroom home. Brand new. No DIY and

we fell in love with it. We wanted to start a family here. What Matt

and Sue didn't realise was that something nasty was lurking deep

under their house. We noticed what looked like a tip coming through

the ground. It didn't look like a weed and how quickly it was growing,

we just knew it was something different. Japanese knotweed

originates from Japan where is is naturally controlled. The tiniest

little fraction of the stem or the root can remain dormant for

anything up to 20 years. Good me. - - goodness me. This is a real nasty.

It's running all down here. Yes. Along the whole side of the house.

This was around about two or three mooters. It can get three metres

high quite easily. What can the council first say to you? First,

they sent a specialist down and the first thing he said to me was this

is a new build home, you need to get a solicitor. Blimey. This is

gravel, so it could run run -- could run quite easily. People

don't realise, because this is a weed that will grow through three

to four inches of concrete or car tack and come up into your property.

-- tarmac and come up into your property. That has led to the weed

shoving its way inside the house through the walls and floor boards.

-- floorboards. How did you both feel when you realised you had a

plant growing inside your house? You have the nightmares that you

are going to have a Jack and the Beans can stalk plant growing

through your bed. The big trouble with this plant is it's not a

normal weed. This is the terrorist of the weed world. It is inadvisive

and it will spread like mad. It can grow three inches in a day. Just

how mad things are getting becomes horribly clear when the floorboards

are taken up. Blimey. Look at it. It is all along here and you can

see it coming up here. Yep. Right along there. Can I have a look?

can see the way it wraps itself around everything. That is a metre

away from the actual foundations. It worries me it has taken a hold

on our property. How do we get rid of it? One is weedkiller on a three

to five-year basis. The other is excavation, so you demolish the

house and you go down at least three to five metres and it is

riddled out and then they return to soil, but you don't want to

demolish your house. I want to enjoy my house and toddlers. We

don't want this. You have got a massive, massive problem on your

hands. Not an easy one to solve. Not at all. Our ice table is slowly

meting. It's soon to be a puddle. Is it a problem in Japan?

because there are natural insects that control it, but they are not

here in Britain. It grows at very quick rates. Could they be

introduced here? There is hope by the environmental agency and there

are licenced releases going on at the moment to look at the

efficiency of releasing it into the wild. There is hope on the horizon,

but the interesting thing is it won't eradicate it, it will just

shrink it. How would we recognise it though? It comes through the

ground in the early spring looking very much like asparagus. As the

stem expands the leaves unfold and she look shovel-shaped. It grows

anything to three to five inches a day. It can get up to three metres

high, produces bright-green foliage and sprays of creamy and white

flowers that are nectar-rich. It looks like dead bamboo by October.

How did it get there in the first place? Often it is fly-tipped and

sometimes on clothing and fragments in the cleets on your feet.

Movement by traffic sometimes. And the tiniest little bit, you just

need a couple of centimetres that remain dormant in the soil for up

to 20 years. It was introduced because they thought it was nice?

It's ornamental. Same as the grey squirrel. Don't get me started on

that. Sir David, you have come up close to lots of vegetation, but is

there one particular species that sticks out? Another monster is

Dodder. It's an extraordinary plant. That actually strangles plants.

Ones it's around it stabs little injection tubes into the stem of

the host and sucks out the sap from the host and then produces the

flowers. They overwhelm whole beds of nettles, which is not a bad

thing to do. Serve it right! Absolutely. You would be a fan of

that? Yes. What else? Well, there was one plant in David's series

that I would love to come very close to and that is the Titan arum.

Technically it's a whole group of flowers, clustered around this, but

you could be justified for regarding it as one flower. It's a

beauty. Huge. It's a little cracker. It can get quite big and it's the

stench that I would like to smell. How you managed to film without a

gas mask. It wasn't as bad as that. I smelt it at Kew. It was like

rotten meat. Well, a bit of corruption! Rotten flesh! These two

could chat all day. Apart from your love of nature, you two have

something else in common, which is that you both have honorary degrees.

David, you have 29 of them. That's more than anybody else in the UK.

There you are, both looking very smart. But there has been a lot of

criticism over universities handing them out to any old Tom, Dick or

Harry. Arthur Smith wonders if it's gone a degree or two too far. The

modern groves of academia. A place of learning. There are lots of

clever, young people around here, but I bet none of them can answer

this - who is the odd one out among this lot? Bob Dell Gough, Ryan

Giggs, Kerr met the frog and me. Well, the answer is me, because I'm

the only one without an honorary degree. What has Kerr met the frog

got that I haven't? His dock rate for green issues was from an

American university, but even in this country we awash with

individuals awarded an honorary degree for services to this or that.

My grumble is about these dock rates being down to jealousy,

because I would quite like that. Other people like Chris have other

objections. I'm the chairman of the campaign for real education, so

naturally we are in favour of real education and honorary degrees of

part of a fake education and a devaluing education. Giving actor

Alexander a degree because they went there for six months and

appears in True Blood What about the Bee Gees? I suppose that makes

their doctors of disco. Honorary degrees for pop stars, but what

about a Victoria Cross for winning the World Cup at rugby? Or a Nobel

Peace Prize for defeating Lord Voldermort to Harry Potter? What do

real students think? Bring a celebrity to give a talk, but a

degree is a bit far. Positive towards the students. I think it's

good. Cheapen the person who receives it and the institution.

Would a student open up a prospectus and say, "He's gone

there, so I'll go there."? Some people like the late mother Teresa,

have huge numbers of awards and take Sir David Attenborough -

may have to fight to get your fair share of them. Last year one survey

reckoned he had 29. Proassumeably his business card look like this.

He was given the awards mainly for services to broadcasting. Because,

yes, he did and invent the genre of wildlife documentary and yes, he

was controller of BBC Two, brought colour to television and

commissioned Monty Python, but has he ever done a 20-minute stand-up

set down the Bedford Arm in Balham? I doubt it. I can understand why

he's a popular choice. But what about Iron Maiden's singer Bruce

Dickinson? He was given a dock rate by Queen Mary University of London

presumably for services to headbanging. I wonder what the

principal of this place has got to say about that? I wonder if he'll

give me a degree Professor, Bruce Dickinson, what is going on there?

He's an alumnus of here. He went on to great success as a singer and

songwriter, but also a very talented author. He's written a

couple of novels and he's a qualified airline pilot and that

makes him an inspiring role model. Isn't it just PR? It is, but it's

more than that. If you saw the faces of the students and how they

were inspired by looking at people like him, someone who has become an

extremely eminent scientist, having been a student here or done

extraordinary charity work, you would recognise the value of the

honorary degree. You have got the hat there. It's already for you.

just want to try it on, if I may. We might need to do something about

the shirt. Well, I've bribed a couple of students to start a

campaign. Surely, by this time next year, I will be Dr Arthur Smith

yes! Well, then Sir David, have you ever done a 20-minute stand-up act?

All the time. They can't stop me. There's number 30. It's chilly in

here. Even a polar bear has joined us on the coffee table. Speaking of

chilly, your landmark series starts tonight on BBC One, Frozen Planet.

It follows the poles over different seasons. Seven episodes in total.

Very difficult because the footage is incredible, but what is your

standout moment from the series? don't know. That thing you start at

the beginning was unforgetable. I must say I was jolly cold and to be

truthful, it was colder than we thought it was. Looking back, we

got up there with a helicopter and we were quite high. We got out just

in time really. In the series you feature things that have never been

seen on film before. One of which is this killer whale motion. We

have got some footage. Talk us through what is going on.

Unbelievable. There is a team and they are co-ordinating and they are

speaking to one another. They are communicating all the time and they

are after a seal which is on an ice flow there. They co-ordinate their

action so they produce that tomb which washes the seal off the --

tsunami which washes the seal off the ice flow. Nobody has seen this

on film. It's a legend that they do that. That's the first time it's

ever been filmed, or anybody really believed it. People used to say

it's exaggerated, because it's quite dangerous. Are you in danger

or are you not? The answer is you As far as I am concerned it's a

huge privilege because I did nothing whatever to get those shots.

The director who worked out the tactics that you had to do, where

you had to be, how you could predict what was going to happen.

Because if you are going to film these sort of things you have to

know those things. It doesn't happen by accident the camera is in

the right place. She in fact so cleverly worked out what the

tactics were that they would have filmed that 22 times and then

combined the very best of the sequences to get you what we are

going to show. At the end of every episode you see the crews

struggling in extreme conditions. How far do you think things can be

pushed to get this footage? Well, there's a shot of a chap under the

ice and you wouldn't catch me doing that, I must say, not in a million

years. But it's really horrifying that you actually dive beneath the

ice, go into this underwater world with a solid ceiling above you and

a little hole big enough for you to get through and you swim away

looking for seals and you come back, suppose you lost your way? What you

are saying is you didn't do that bit? It's one of the few pieces I

didn't personally film. Above the ice it's incredible, the story of

the polar bears that you follow and obviously aggressive juveniles. We

have lovely footage. This is them sizing each other up. These are not

juveniles. This is really tough stuff. He is defending her against

another male. During the autumn these solitary creatures become

friendly. When the ice melts they come ashore and particularly the

juveniles they actually indulge in play fighting like that. It's the

same tactics but they aren't injuring one another. They aren't

biting one another. They're just playing. In the course of that

they're exercising the muscles which will make them lethal in the

winter. You wouldn't want to get close to them there in that

situation. We have this photo, how did you get this close? He was

sleeping, I just crept up! It's anaethised. Every now and again

they approach from a helicopter and shoot an anaesthetic dart, then

they can measure them and see how they're doing. It's a creepy

feeling actually, this wonderful powerful huge animal just lying

there and you are able to pat it and the fur is so soft and

beautiful. There was something strange about seeing such power

neutralised. But you have to get out of there before he wakes up.

Yes, well there is the moment when they say I will put in the thing

that makes them wake up and you think - they say we will hang on to

make sure it's OK and... Well, I will get in the helicopter before!

Frozen Planet starts tonight on BBC1 at 9.00. If you want you can

take this table for the premiere. In a few weeks time I will be

taking to the road in this to help raise money for disadvantaged

children across the UK. Tonight Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen looks at

one of the many projects supported by Children in Need and explores

the issues faced young carers, something he has personally

experience of. Some children just have it tougher than others. An

accident at work has left 14-year- old Jordan's mum, Viv, with a

chronic back condition so painful she's often confined to her bed.

She needs constant care. Much of that responsibility falls on

Jordan's shoulders. What time does a day start for you? About 6.30.

That's actually very early. What do you do? What are your

responsibilities? Well, I do the basic household chores and do my

mum's tablets, make sure she's taking the right medication and

then I make sure I have all my books and homework, do the washing

up and things like that from breakfast. She gives me faith. She

is so giving and she never says no. Nobody appreciates her sacrifice as

much as her mother. I am trying not to be the way I am, but she will

help me, you know, you will do it, mum. We do do it. It's estimated

that there are 700,000 young carers in the United Kingdom. It's a tough,

tough life and it's a life that they haven't chosen for themselves.

They really do need your support. It's something that I know about at

firsthand, when I was five my mother was diagnosed with a

debilitating disease, multiple sclerosis and four years later my

father died leaving me at nine feeling suddenly very isolated,

very anxious and extremely responsible for my mother and my

brother and my sister. It's an incredibly hard life for children

like Jordan but she deals with it like an adult. Are there moments

where you still think this is quite tough? At first it was, especially

when my mum got like to now where she can't do very much at all,

actually. Despite all of these pressures Jordan tries to use her

experiences to help others by giving presentations in schools on

the issues young carers face. you think that if you knew more of

the people that are young carers in school would you be happy to help

them? As many as one in 12 school children are carers but few of

their classmates and teachers realise what it takes away from

their childhood. Do you not just think I would love to do what I

want to do for a couple of days? Yeah. Yeah, sometimes. But not all

the time. No. I understand that I have a responsibility. But every

child deserves a childhood and that's why Children in Need steps

in. Your donations help fund the centre 33 project in Cambridge

where Jordan can meet other young carers, relax, gossip, and just be

the teenager she really is. You are obviously with other young carers,

with people that have a similar experience. Definitely. It's a nice

break from everyday life. It's good. The harsh realities of her life are

made a little bit more bearable by this brief respite, thanks to you

and your donations. It's why Matt's riding a rickshaw

484 miles from Edinburgh to London in just eight days.

To support projects like that donate to Matt's rickshaw challenge

you can text: Messages will cost �5 plus standard

network charge. For full terms and conditions you can visit our

website. David, you have been everywhere,

captured amazing footage but have you placed hi-tech cameras in the

night in places like Bathampton to catch all sorts of things like

skeurls and bats -- skeurls -- squirrels and bats?

Watch and learn, David. To find all the wildlife here in

Bathampton we have set up a series of specialist cameras.

It's day three and earlier in the week 11-year-old Joe and Ursula,

who is seven, set up a stealth camera to find out what's making

this tiny hole in their garden. The results are in. What do you think

it was? A mouse. I think it's a mouse, it's not a shrew. See it's

got something in its mouth. Do you know what that is? Peanut. Yes,

it's gone up to your bird feeders, stolen a peanut and ran back into

the hole. That's why it's not a shrew, because they eat insects.

Mice like... Peanuts. They do indeed. Because it's close to the

woodland edge this is probably a wood mouse but surprisingly, it's

not the only animal we found coming out of the hole. There he is! This

is not a mouse. This is an animal called a vole. Yeah, well done.

It's tiny ears. It's a blunt nose, a really short tail. And it's all

gingery all over the back. It lives in a bank, it's a bank vole. Small

mammals will often share the same tunnels because it saves them

digging their own. At the other end of the garden Joe and and -- Ursula

wanted to know who had been making the hole. We have seen a fox,

badger and deer on the lawn, so it could be one of these. Something's

walked through here. I am pretty sure it's a badger. The reason why

it's a badger is it's a really broad heel or pad, a fox doesn't

have. The other thing that tells me it's a badger, look at the shape of

that hole. A badger is low to the ground and it's big, fat and round.

That hole is big, fat and round. There is also a bird. You can see

the three three toe ofs of a bird. Any idea? Wood pigeon. You are a

fully pledged, qualified wildlife detectives. Case closed. But at

number 57, while she is enjoying a barbecue, Sue often notices other

mysterious visitors. Can you see anything? Not really. It comes at

you and disappears and I am sure they're bats. But I am not sure

what species they are. Well, I am excited about this, because we have

the latest in bat technology here. I have never used before, but we

will put it to the test tonight. It converts the bat's ultra sound

calls into a visual readout that can tell us exactly which bat Sue

has visiting her garden. And as soon as darkness falls the bats

Fantastic, they're hockey shapes, like an L-shape. This one is higher

than 50. They're two distinct species. Another bat flies right

past us. This one is a seratin bat. Physically they're much larger.

They've wide wings and the others tend to fly in more of an Oval

shape. This gadget keeps delivering as it detext another larger bat --

detects another larger bat. That's definitely four species of bat we

have here. We are here only an hour and we have common and soprano.

what a night. That's great and you never knew. Now, hot chocolate, I

reckon. We have earned it. What a great way to spend the evening and

that's another mystery solved on garden watch.

Sir David, we couldn't have you here without asking if you would

put narrative to our footage, would you do that for us? I will try!

here we go. We have a vole. Now, am I to have a meal or a bed? What am

I going to do? Don't like that. What about this? Ah, just what is