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APPLAUSE | 0:00:29 | 0:00:31 | |
Hello and welcome to what promises to be a very special evening. | 0:00:36 | 0:00:41 | |
Tonight, on the occasion of his 90th birthday, | 0:00:41 | 0:00:44 | |
we are privileged to be celebrating the life and career | 0:00:44 | 0:00:46 | |
of a man whose passion and knowledge of the natural world | 0:00:46 | 0:00:49 | |
has fundamentally changed how we see the world. | 0:00:49 | 0:00:52 | |
His unique ability to help us understand our planet | 0:00:52 | 0:00:56 | |
is little short of remarkable. | 0:00:56 | 0:00:58 | |
He is frequently referred to | 0:00:58 | 0:01:00 | |
as THE greatest broadcaster of all time. | 0:01:00 | 0:01:02 | |
He's even beaten David Beckham | 0:01:02 | 0:01:04 | |
in a poll of the coolest men on the planet. | 0:01:04 | 0:01:06 | |
I am, of course, talking about the one and only Sir David Attenborough. | 0:01:06 | 0:01:11 | |
Tonight, we've got rather a different programme for you. | 0:01:11 | 0:01:15 | |
# Don't stop me now | 0:01:15 | 0:01:18 | |
# Don't stop me | 0:01:19 | 0:01:21 | |
# Cos I'm having a good time Having a good time | 0:01:21 | 0:01:24 | |
# I'm a shooting star leaping through the sky like a tiger | 0:01:24 | 0:01:29 | |
# Defying the laws of gravity... # | 0:01:29 | 0:01:32 | |
And top of the menu right now is...salmon. | 0:01:32 | 0:01:37 | |
# ..Go, go, go There's no stopping me | 0:01:37 | 0:01:41 | |
# I'm burning through the sky, yeah | 0:01:41 | 0:01:45 | |
# 200 degrees | 0:01:45 | 0:01:46 | |
# That's why they call me Mr Fahrenheit... # | 0:01:46 | 0:01:48 | |
And for that, he must fight! | 0:01:48 | 0:01:51 | |
# ..I want to make a supersonic man out of you... # | 0:01:51 | 0:01:54 | |
Boo! | 0:01:54 | 0:01:56 | |
# Don't stop me now | 0:01:56 | 0:01:57 | |
# I'm having such a good time | 0:01:57 | 0:02:00 | |
# I'm having a ball | 0:02:00 | 0:02:02 | |
# Don't stop me now | 0:02:02 | 0:02:04 | |
# If you want to have a good time just give me a call | 0:02:04 | 0:02:08 | |
# Don't stop me Yes, I'm having a good time | 0:02:08 | 0:02:11 | |
# I don't want to stop at all... # | 0:02:11 | 0:02:13 | |
Thanks for that. Great talking to you. | 0:02:13 | 0:02:15 | |
# Don't stop me, don't stop me Don't stop me | 0:02:15 | 0:02:19 | |
# Don't stop me, don't stop me Ooh-ooh-ooh... # | 0:02:19 | 0:02:21 | |
-You should see the outtakes. -I would LOVE to see the outtakes! | 0:02:21 | 0:02:24 | |
Maybe we can arrange a viewing. | 0:02:24 | 0:02:25 | |
-Yes, any time. -OK. -LAUGHTER | 0:02:25 | 0:02:28 | |
# ..Don't stop me Yes, I'm having a good time | 0:02:28 | 0:02:31 | |
# I don't want to stop at all... # | 0:02:31 | 0:02:35 | |
Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me the greatest of pleasure | 0:02:42 | 0:02:47 | |
to welcome Sir David Attenborough. | 0:02:47 | 0:02:49 | |
CHEERING | 0:02:49 | 0:02:52 | |
Welcome, welcome, welcome | 0:02:59 | 0:03:01 | |
to your little television party. | 0:03:01 | 0:03:03 | |
Well...I think they are pleased to see you. | 0:03:09 | 0:03:13 | |
-First things first, happy birthday. -Thank you very much. | 0:03:13 | 0:03:15 | |
In your 90th year, building up to the birthday, | 0:03:15 | 0:03:18 | |
it strikes me you've been as happy as ever. | 0:03:18 | 0:03:20 | |
I've been talking to people behind the scenes, | 0:03:20 | 0:03:22 | |
they say Argentina to Australia and everywhere in between. | 0:03:22 | 0:03:24 | |
Remind us of what you've been filming in the last 12 months. | 0:03:24 | 0:03:27 | |
Well, I filmed that big dinosaur, | 0:03:27 | 0:03:29 | |
the biggest one yet found, in Argentina. | 0:03:29 | 0:03:32 | |
I've filmed luminous earthworms in France, believe it or not. | 0:03:32 | 0:03:39 | |
I've been on the Barrier Reef. | 0:03:39 | 0:03:41 | |
So I've had a good time. | 0:03:41 | 0:03:42 | |
Your fascination with the natural world is obvious | 0:03:42 | 0:03:45 | |
to all of us and it's interesting that | 0:03:45 | 0:03:47 | |
the beginnings of your career in television | 0:03:47 | 0:03:49 | |
were really the beginnings of television. | 0:03:49 | 0:03:51 | |
I mean, that's when it really got off the ground, | 0:03:51 | 0:03:54 | |
in those very early 1950s. | 0:03:54 | 0:03:55 | |
How did you get into television? | 0:03:55 | 0:03:57 | |
Oh, by accident and certainly not by design, | 0:03:57 | 0:04:00 | |
because I had never seen television in 1952. | 0:04:00 | 0:04:04 | |
And the number of people who could see it were tiny, | 0:04:04 | 0:04:07 | |
they were just in London, a few thousand people. | 0:04:07 | 0:04:09 | |
And then I was working in publishing in an extremely boring job, | 0:04:09 | 0:04:15 | |
putting commas into manuscripts | 0:04:15 | 0:04:17 | |
or occasionally taking them out if I was feeling bad-tempered. | 0:04:17 | 0:04:20 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:04:20 | 0:04:22 | |
And it was... it was indescribably boring. | 0:04:22 | 0:04:25 | |
And I saw an advertisement in the paper that said | 0:04:25 | 0:04:28 | |
the BBC wanted a radio producer, a talks producer, | 0:04:28 | 0:04:31 | |
and I thought, "Well, I can talk, I must know how to talk," | 0:04:31 | 0:04:34 | |
and so I applied and I got a polite refusal, | 0:04:34 | 0:04:38 | |
-I didn't get an interview or anything. -Right. | 0:04:38 | 0:04:40 | |
It just said, "No, thank you very much," | 0:04:40 | 0:04:42 | |
which was understandable, I'm sure they got thousands. | 0:04:42 | 0:04:45 | |
And then about a fortnight after that, | 0:04:45 | 0:04:47 | |
I got another letter from someone else in the BBC, | 0:04:47 | 0:04:51 | |
saying, "We are starting this new thing called television, | 0:04:51 | 0:04:55 | |
"which a lot of people are rude about, | 0:04:55 | 0:04:57 | |
"and we think that there could be something in it | 0:04:57 | 0:04:59 | |
"and we've seen your... we've seen your application | 0:04:59 | 0:05:02 | |
"and you're the sort of person we're looking for. | 0:05:02 | 0:05:04 | |
"Would you like to apply?" | 0:05:04 | 0:05:05 | |
And you ranged across, as a young producer, all subjects, then? | 0:05:05 | 0:05:08 | |
-What would you have been covering as a young producer? -Nonfiction. | 0:05:08 | 0:05:11 | |
And so I did... | 0:05:11 | 0:05:13 | |
I mean, I started off by doing an archaeological quiz | 0:05:13 | 0:05:16 | |
called Animal, Vegetable, Mineral? | 0:05:16 | 0:05:18 | |
But I did political talks, I did political discussions, | 0:05:18 | 0:05:22 | |
I did gardening. | 0:05:22 | 0:05:24 | |
What else did I do? Erm... | 0:05:24 | 0:05:26 | |
-Knitting! -LAUGHTER | 0:05:26 | 0:05:28 | |
They had a programme on knitting, yeah! | 0:05:28 | 0:05:31 | |
By 1954, you had honed your skills enough | 0:05:31 | 0:05:34 | |
to be allowed to work on something... | 0:05:34 | 0:05:36 | |
I mean, it was called Zoo Quest | 0:05:36 | 0:05:37 | |
and actually it would go on to be a very, very popular series, | 0:05:37 | 0:05:40 | |
but you were working as a producer, or you were working as a presenter? | 0:05:40 | 0:05:43 | |
I was working... Oh, no, not at all, I was entirely a producer, | 0:05:43 | 0:05:46 | |
I had no intention of being a presenter | 0:05:46 | 0:05:48 | |
and the only reason I did was because the man from the zoo, | 0:05:48 | 0:05:51 | |
-Jack Lester, became very ill. -Yes. | 0:05:51 | 0:05:54 | |
And it was a live show, so I was told by the head of television, | 0:05:54 | 0:05:59 | |
"The only other person who can do this is you." | 0:05:59 | 0:06:02 | |
So I appeared by accident, really. | 0:06:02 | 0:06:04 | |
So, you travelled around the world for Zoo Quest with... | 0:06:04 | 0:06:08 | |
Your companion at the time | 0:06:08 | 0:06:09 | |
was a cameraman called Charles Lagus. | 0:06:09 | 0:06:11 | |
He's a slip of a lad, David, he's just 88. | 0:06:11 | 0:06:14 | |
And we went to hear some of his memories | 0:06:14 | 0:06:16 | |
of those early days working with you. | 0:06:16 | 0:06:18 | |
I met this young man called Attenborough. | 0:06:18 | 0:06:21 | |
We seemed to hit it off straightaway. | 0:06:22 | 0:06:25 | |
And David's knowledge just staggered me. | 0:06:28 | 0:06:30 | |
When we first got off this aeroplane and started walking, | 0:06:33 | 0:06:36 | |
there would be the odd bush animal that would walk past, you know. | 0:06:36 | 0:06:40 | |
He instantly knew what it was, what genus it was. | 0:06:40 | 0:06:45 | |
Look at trees, he knew what tree it was. | 0:06:46 | 0:06:49 | |
His zoological knowledge in a country he'd never been to - | 0:06:50 | 0:06:56 | |
he'd never been out of England - | 0:06:56 | 0:06:58 | |
was absolutely brilliant, I mean, it was just so reliable. | 0:06:58 | 0:07:01 | |
We slept in hammocks, | 0:07:04 | 0:07:06 | |
we spent a lot of time eating boiled rice. | 0:07:06 | 0:07:10 | |
And yet, we just got on and did it, it just seemed natural. | 0:07:12 | 0:07:17 | |
But it was quite good coming back and having a proper meal! | 0:07:17 | 0:07:21 | |
When... When you look at that film, what are your memories? | 0:07:27 | 0:07:30 | |
Are you suddenly back there, are you taken back to the moment? | 0:07:30 | 0:07:34 | |
Er, yes, yes, I truly am. | 0:07:34 | 0:07:36 | |
They were marvellous trips, of course, | 0:07:36 | 0:07:40 | |
and you couldn't do anything like it now | 0:07:40 | 0:07:42 | |
because there were no mobile phones, there were... | 0:07:42 | 0:07:45 | |
You know, when you left, you left. | 0:07:45 | 0:07:46 | |
And so the animals that you would bring back then, | 0:07:46 | 0:07:50 | |
one of the most notable is the python. | 0:07:50 | 0:07:53 | |
Well, that was one we caught in Indonesia, in Java. | 0:07:53 | 0:07:58 | |
Did you catch it? | 0:07:58 | 0:07:59 | |
Well, yes, I did, because, you see, poor old Jack, | 0:07:59 | 0:08:01 | |
he had left, and I, in order to carry on | 0:08:01 | 0:08:04 | |
this...charade that I was an animal collector, you know, | 0:08:04 | 0:08:08 | |
-I had to actually... -LAUGHTER | 0:08:08 | 0:08:10 | |
I actually did do the business. | 0:08:10 | 0:08:12 | |
How do you catch a python? | 0:08:12 | 0:08:14 | |
With great difficulty! | 0:08:14 | 0:08:15 | |
And considerable alarm, I don't mind telling you! | 0:08:17 | 0:08:20 | |
OK, well, let's just take a little look | 0:08:20 | 0:08:23 | |
at the Zoo Quest episode with the python. | 0:08:23 | 0:08:26 | |
Helping me control this python is Mr Lanwarn | 0:08:26 | 0:08:31 | |
from the Reptile House in the London Zoo, | 0:08:31 | 0:08:33 | |
who, in fact, has it in his care now. How is he? | 0:08:33 | 0:08:37 | |
Well, he's doing very fine, actually. | 0:08:37 | 0:08:39 | |
He's...! | 0:08:39 | 0:08:41 | |
That's a very good example of how he constricts his food! | 0:08:41 | 0:08:44 | |
Shall I just show you, or will you lose your hand? | 0:08:44 | 0:08:46 | |
No, I don't think so, I'll be able to get out eventually. | 0:08:46 | 0:08:49 | |
While I leave Mr Lanwarn to untie himself from this snake, | 0:08:49 | 0:08:52 | |
er...we must say goodnight. | 0:08:52 | 0:08:55 | |
So, from us both, goodnight. | 0:08:55 | 0:08:57 | |
David, I think that must have been the last time you used Brylcreem. | 0:09:04 | 0:09:07 | |
You did look very smart there! | 0:09:07 | 0:09:09 | |
Let's talk, then, about making a name for yourself on screen. | 0:09:09 | 0:09:13 | |
You did that with Zoo Quest, it became hugely popular, | 0:09:13 | 0:09:17 | |
and then something rather unusual happened. | 0:09:17 | 0:09:19 | |
As we know, again, it was the fledgling days of television, | 0:09:19 | 0:09:21 | |
it was 1965, and they said to you, | 0:09:21 | 0:09:24 | |
who was becoming this televisual presence, | 0:09:24 | 0:09:26 | |
"Would you like to come and run BBC Two, | 0:09:26 | 0:09:29 | |
"to be the Controller of BBC Two?" | 0:09:29 | 0:09:32 | |
What was your plan? | 0:09:32 | 0:09:34 | |
Well, it was... | 0:09:34 | 0:09:36 | |
just about the best job you could possibly have | 0:09:36 | 0:09:39 | |
in broadcasting, really, if you were interested in programming. | 0:09:39 | 0:09:43 | |
And the brief was, "Whatever you do, make it different from BBC One." | 0:09:43 | 0:09:48 | |
They'd go a bit further, they said, "Provide an ALTERNATIVE to BBC One." | 0:09:50 | 0:09:54 | |
Now, actually, you can't define what an alternative... | 0:09:54 | 0:09:57 | |
What is the alternative to football? | 0:09:57 | 0:09:58 | |
It's certainly not Beethoven's string quartets. | 0:09:58 | 0:10:01 | |
I mean, people who play quartets | 0:10:01 | 0:10:02 | |
like football just as much as anybody else does. | 0:10:02 | 0:10:05 | |
So in the end, we decided, | 0:10:05 | 0:10:07 | |
as long as we got a new kind of programme, it would do. | 0:10:07 | 0:10:12 | |
So, we developed new things in every genre, really. | 0:10:12 | 0:10:18 | |
We had new kinds of drama, | 0:10:18 | 0:10:20 | |
we had classic serials from the great authors, | 0:10:20 | 0:10:24 | |
we had new sports, we had floodlit rugby league, which we started... | 0:10:24 | 0:10:28 | |
And we started snooker, I don't mind telling you! | 0:10:28 | 0:10:31 | |
So, then, you'd been Controller of BBC Two, | 0:10:31 | 0:10:34 | |
you'd made such a good job of that | 0:10:34 | 0:10:36 | |
that you were then promoted to Director of Programmes | 0:10:36 | 0:10:39 | |
and you were very diverse and innovative. | 0:10:39 | 0:10:41 | |
Interestingly, the big landmark series | 0:10:41 | 0:10:44 | |
was something that you became known for. | 0:10:44 | 0:10:47 | |
There was Civilisation, there was The Ascent Of Man. | 0:10:47 | 0:10:50 | |
There were lots of comedies too, David, | 0:10:50 | 0:10:52 | |
there was The Likely Lads, there was Monty Python's Flying Circus. | 0:10:52 | 0:10:56 | |
-Yes. -And the Pythons even did a sketch about you, supposedly, | 0:10:56 | 0:11:00 | |
tracking down the elusive walking tree of Dahomey. | 0:11:00 | 0:11:05 | |
Well, we're still keeping up with it, but it's setting a furious pace. | 0:11:05 | 0:11:09 | |
Early this morning, we thought we'd spotted it, | 0:11:09 | 0:11:11 | |
but it turned out to be an Angolan sauntering tree, | 0:11:11 | 0:11:14 | |
Amazellus robinrayi, | 0:11:14 | 0:11:16 | |
out walking with a Gambian sidling bush. | 0:11:16 | 0:11:18 | |
So on we go. It's going to be difficult. | 0:11:18 | 0:11:22 | |
The walking tree can achieve speeds of up to 50mph, | 0:11:22 | 0:11:24 | |
especially when it's in a hurry. | 0:11:24 | 0:11:26 | |
Super! | 0:11:29 | 0:11:30 | |
Well, Rupert has spotted something. | 0:11:30 | 0:11:32 | |
This could be it, a walking tree on the move. | 0:11:32 | 0:11:36 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:11:36 | 0:11:40 | |
Well, joining us now to explain himself, | 0:11:40 | 0:11:44 | |
please welcome the wonderful Michael Palin. | 0:11:44 | 0:11:47 | |
APPLAUSE DROWNS SPEECH | 0:11:52 | 0:11:55 | |
David! Good to see you! | 0:11:58 | 0:12:00 | |
Oh, dear... | 0:12:02 | 0:12:03 | |
So, Michael, was that an homage, | 0:12:03 | 0:12:06 | |
or was it just a straight mickey-take? | 0:12:06 | 0:12:07 | |
"Dam-age", I think, wasn't it, really? | 0:12:07 | 0:12:10 | |
Of course it was homage, yes, he's a great man. | 0:12:10 | 0:12:13 | |
Unfortunately, something went terribly wrong with the sketch, | 0:12:13 | 0:12:16 | |
which you can't actually see, but the idea was | 0:12:16 | 0:12:18 | |
that anybody who was a presenter in the jungle | 0:12:18 | 0:12:20 | |
got very hot and very sweaty, | 0:12:20 | 0:12:21 | |
so we decided that we would have sort of a plumbed outfit, | 0:12:21 | 0:12:25 | |
which would pour water down | 0:12:25 | 0:12:27 | |
through your shirt and jacket as you were talking. | 0:12:27 | 0:12:30 | |
Unfortunately, in the first take, it went wrong | 0:12:30 | 0:12:32 | |
and the plumbing got blocked at the top and went down the trousers. | 0:12:32 | 0:12:37 | |
So, actually, you know, David was eternally incontinent, | 0:12:37 | 0:12:41 | |
it just poured, poured down. | 0:12:41 | 0:12:42 | |
"Turn it off, turn it off!" | 0:12:42 | 0:12:45 | |
David, do you think, did he capture something of the spirit of you, | 0:12:45 | 0:12:49 | |
do you think, in the impersonation? | 0:12:49 | 0:12:50 | |
I thought it was absolutely indistinguishable from me! | 0:12:50 | 0:12:54 | |
Well, I got to be your doppelganger. | 0:12:54 | 0:12:56 | |
It would be a great job. | 0:12:56 | 0:12:58 | |
I mean, Monty Python at the time... | 0:12:58 | 0:13:00 | |
Of course, cult status for many decades now, | 0:13:00 | 0:13:02 | |
but at the time, it split audiences. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:04 | |
A lot of people didn't like it, didn't get it, | 0:13:04 | 0:13:06 | |
and certainly, among a lot of the sort of management of the BBC, | 0:13:06 | 0:13:09 | |
-it was not popular. -I must say, you were very good, you were the one... | 0:13:09 | 0:13:12 | |
A lot of other BBC executives avoided us completely | 0:13:12 | 0:13:16 | |
and you came up and said, "Well, | 0:13:16 | 0:13:17 | |
"you know, the fact you are not on every night in the provinces, | 0:13:17 | 0:13:20 | |
"the fact you get taken off when Horse Of The Year Show overruns, | 0:13:20 | 0:13:23 | |
-"means you're going to become a cult show." -Yes! | 0:13:23 | 0:13:26 | |
"And cult shows are never forgotten." | 0:13:26 | 0:13:27 | |
I thought, "What a load of old rubbish!" But he was right! | 0:13:27 | 0:13:30 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:13:30 | 0:13:32 | |
And the nice thing about Python was that we were... | 0:13:32 | 0:13:34 | |
The BBC let us just get on with it, nobody...supervised the programme, | 0:13:34 | 0:13:39 | |
or watched what we were doing, | 0:13:39 | 0:13:41 | |
we were able to hone it over sort of 13 shows. | 0:13:41 | 0:13:43 | |
There was a lot of very bad stuff that we did | 0:13:43 | 0:13:45 | |
and a lot of very good stuff, but it was amazing the BBC let us | 0:13:45 | 0:13:48 | |
just carry on experimenting in our little basement. | 0:13:48 | 0:13:51 | |
And, David, you mentioned the sports programming | 0:13:51 | 0:13:53 | |
that you were responsible for as Director of Programmes, | 0:13:53 | 0:13:56 | |
there was Match Of The Day, | 0:13:56 | 0:13:57 | |
you introduced one-day cricket. | 0:13:57 | 0:13:59 | |
And you mentioned the snooker and, of course, | 0:13:59 | 0:14:01 | |
you decided to put snooker on at a time, | 0:14:01 | 0:14:02 | |
much like a lot of the technology that you've used subsequently, | 0:14:02 | 0:14:05 | |
because it was only then that people could see the different colours. | 0:14:05 | 0:14:08 | |
-Yes. -And did people think snooker would be good TV? | 0:14:08 | 0:14:11 | |
-No. -LAUGHTER | 0:14:11 | 0:14:13 | |
There was a classic line. | 0:14:13 | 0:14:14 | |
I had to explain, you see, although people with colour sets | 0:14:14 | 0:14:19 | |
could see it in colour, | 0:14:19 | 0:14:20 | |
the majority of the people couldn't see it in colour, | 0:14:20 | 0:14:23 | |
so the commentator had to help them understand. | 0:14:23 | 0:14:27 | |
And I impressed this | 0:14:27 | 0:14:28 | |
on the commentator who was doing the first show | 0:14:28 | 0:14:30 | |
and he sort of, after he'd got into the show | 0:14:30 | 0:14:33 | |
and the game was progressing, and he was doing the hushed tones, | 0:14:33 | 0:14:37 | |
you know, he eventually said, | 0:14:37 | 0:14:39 | |
"And now he's going for the blue, | 0:14:39 | 0:14:43 | |
"and for those of you with black-and-white sets, | 0:14:43 | 0:14:46 | |
"the blue is next to the green." | 0:14:46 | 0:14:48 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:14:48 | 0:14:51 | |
David, you are very well known for quizzing visitors to your home | 0:14:54 | 0:14:58 | |
on some of the... Well, they are very exotic, | 0:14:58 | 0:15:01 | |
very rare objects that you have collected over the years. | 0:15:01 | 0:15:03 | |
Indeed, Michael, you were put to the test back in 2002, I think it was. | 0:15:03 | 0:15:07 | |
-I was, I was. I was quaking in my boots! -Oh, come along now! | 0:15:07 | 0:15:10 | |
Let's take a look at this documentary, Life On Air. | 0:15:10 | 0:15:13 | |
-Yes, well... -Object number three is? -Oh, wow! | 0:15:13 | 0:15:16 | |
Well, it's extremely heavy. | 0:15:16 | 0:15:17 | |
I would've thought it was an egg of some kind | 0:15:17 | 0:15:19 | |
-but I can't imagine any animal... -Yes, yes. -It is an egg? | 0:15:19 | 0:15:22 | |
-Yes. -This has come from inside some... -It's an egg. -..creature? | 0:15:22 | 0:15:25 | |
-It's an egg. -Erm... | 0:15:25 | 0:15:27 | |
-Oh. Dinosaur egg? -Full marks. -Really? | 0:15:27 | 0:15:29 | |
Ten out of ten. | 0:15:29 | 0:15:30 | |
There are two things you can always say under these circumstances, | 0:15:30 | 0:15:33 | |
-either it's a ritual object... -Mm. -..or else money. | 0:15:33 | 0:15:37 | |
There's always two, you can always say one of the two, | 0:15:37 | 0:15:40 | |
-one or the other. -OK. | 0:15:40 | 0:15:41 | |
-And that is... -Is a ritual object. -..money. -Oh! | 0:15:41 | 0:15:43 | |
THEY LAUGH | 0:15:43 | 0:15:45 | |
There we are. | 0:15:47 | 0:15:48 | |
We're rather a good comic team, I think, David, actually. | 0:15:50 | 0:15:53 | |
-So it is your turn, then, Michael, we're giving you the turn. -Yes! | 0:15:53 | 0:15:56 | |
You're going to turn the tables. | 0:15:56 | 0:15:57 | |
I have something. It probably won't be that difficult | 0:15:57 | 0:16:00 | |
but I've got something which I procured on my travels | 0:16:00 | 0:16:03 | |
and I wonder if you know what it might be, where it's from, | 0:16:03 | 0:16:06 | |
-what it's for and... -Money or ritual object? | 0:16:06 | 0:16:09 | |
-..whether you'd like to use it? -MICHAEL LAUGHS | 0:16:09 | 0:16:11 | |
Use it? | 0:16:11 | 0:16:12 | |
First of all, David, it's the wrong way up. | 0:16:14 | 0:16:17 | |
-I was going to say a flower arrangement. No? -No. | 0:16:17 | 0:16:19 | |
-Turn it the right way up and then... Ah. -Ah. -Yes. | 0:16:19 | 0:16:22 | |
Well... | 0:16:22 | 0:16:24 | |
Well, it's either a neck rest or a bottom rest and I reckon | 0:16:24 | 0:16:27 | |
-that's a bottom rest... -Yeah. -..and I reckon it must be an African one. | 0:16:27 | 0:16:31 | |
-Yeah, people would carry them around, actually, like... -Exactly. | 0:16:31 | 0:16:35 | |
-He got that annoyingly quickly, didn't he? -Took him a while! | 0:16:35 | 0:16:38 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:16:38 | 0:16:39 | |
-That is from the Karamojong people... -Oh, really? | 0:16:39 | 0:16:41 | |
-Isn't it brilliant? -It is. | 0:16:41 | 0:16:42 | |
These very, very big guys, they're enormous people and they just | 0:16:42 | 0:16:45 | |
take these round and, whenever they want to sit, just sit on these. | 0:16:45 | 0:16:47 | |
I mean, it's really... It looks easy. But actually... | 0:16:47 | 0:16:51 | |
Oh... | 0:16:51 | 0:16:52 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:16:52 | 0:16:53 | |
Oh, actually, that's not bad, really. There you are. | 0:16:53 | 0:16:56 | |
-Beautiful, economic, clever... -Oh, it's a wonderful thing. -Perfect. | 0:17:01 | 0:17:04 | |
But it's the only thing they have apart from their spears, | 0:17:04 | 0:17:07 | |
as far as I remember, is that right? | 0:17:07 | 0:17:08 | |
One of them had a Rolex watch, actually. No, seriously. | 0:17:08 | 0:17:11 | |
Quite seriously. | 0:17:11 | 0:17:13 | |
-Michael Palin, thank you very much indeed. -It's a pleasure. | 0:17:13 | 0:17:15 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:17:15 | 0:17:18 | |
David, I think it would be fair to say that you have probably | 0:17:21 | 0:17:24 | |
travelled to more places than anybody else who has ever lived, | 0:17:24 | 0:17:28 | |
but there is one place you still haven't been to. | 0:17:28 | 0:17:32 | |
Good evening, Sir David. | 0:17:32 | 0:17:34 | |
And good evening, everyone, and welcome on board | 0:17:34 | 0:17:36 | |
the International Space Station, | 0:17:36 | 0:17:38 | |
where we're orbiting 400km above the Earth's surface. | 0:17:38 | 0:17:42 | |
Sir David, your adventures and your words have inspired us enormously | 0:17:42 | 0:17:46 | |
and changed the way that we look at our Earth. | 0:17:46 | 0:17:48 | |
Britain has a long history of scientific endeavour, | 0:17:48 | 0:17:52 | |
and just like the naturalists and explorers of our history, | 0:17:52 | 0:17:55 | |
it's important that we tell the story of the scientists, | 0:17:55 | 0:17:58 | |
conservationists and explorers of today to the next generation | 0:17:58 | 0:18:02 | |
to change our future for the better. | 0:18:02 | 0:18:04 | |
So from here in space above the equator, | 0:18:04 | 0:18:07 | |
I would like to wish you, Sir David, a very happy 90th birthday. | 0:18:07 | 0:18:11 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:18:11 | 0:18:13 | |
You had, then, as is clear, | 0:18:17 | 0:18:19 | |
spent a very successful time as a backroom boy. | 0:18:19 | 0:18:22 | |
You're running BBC Two, being Director of Programmes, | 0:18:22 | 0:18:25 | |
you had risen pretty high and you decided, extraordinarily, | 0:18:25 | 0:18:28 | |
and this seems to be a sort of pivotal point in your life, | 0:18:28 | 0:18:30 | |
it was 1972 and you resigned those big jobs. | 0:18:30 | 0:18:34 | |
You said, "I don't fancy this any more." | 0:18:34 | 0:18:36 | |
What was your thinking? | 0:18:36 | 0:18:37 | |
And it must have been personally a pretty momentous decision. | 0:18:37 | 0:18:41 | |
Erm, well, I don't know. | 0:18:41 | 0:18:43 | |
I mean, you know, I'd paid off the mortgage, and the children, | 0:18:43 | 0:18:46 | |
the children had left school and had been educated | 0:18:46 | 0:18:48 | |
and what was I going to do? | 0:18:48 | 0:18:51 | |
And what I thought I was... | 0:18:51 | 0:18:53 | |
What I know I enjoyed most was making programmes, | 0:18:53 | 0:18:56 | |
so why not go back to making programmes? | 0:18:56 | 0:18:58 | |
1979, Life On Earth makes it onto our screens, | 0:18:58 | 0:19:02 | |
it is a ground-breaking series, it's a 13-part series, | 0:19:02 | 0:19:06 | |
it was hugely popular, it made you a household name. | 0:19:06 | 0:19:09 | |
What was the inspiration for that series? | 0:19:09 | 0:19:11 | |
Why did you passionately want to make it? | 0:19:11 | 0:19:13 | |
Well, when I was running BBC Two, we started a new kind of | 0:19:13 | 0:19:18 | |
documentary which was 13-part one-hour programmes | 0:19:18 | 0:19:22 | |
which set out to more or less say, my implication to viewers, | 0:19:22 | 0:19:27 | |
"Look, if you want to know about this that you've often heard about, | 0:19:27 | 0:19:32 | |
"stay with us for 13 hours, week by week, and at the end of it, | 0:19:32 | 0:19:36 | |
"we'll have given you a reasonably responsible outline | 0:19:36 | 0:19:39 | |
"of what it's about." | 0:19:39 | 0:19:40 | |
But I knew, you see, that the, THE subject | 0:19:40 | 0:19:43 | |
that you could really make a mind-blowing series about | 0:19:43 | 0:19:46 | |
would be the history of life on Earth, | 0:19:46 | 0:19:49 | |
from the very simplest to the primates like ourselves. | 0:19:49 | 0:19:53 | |
And that could easily fall into 13 parts, and I thought, | 0:19:53 | 0:19:56 | |
"By golly, that's a thing I'd like to do." | 0:19:56 | 0:19:59 | |
My worry was that while I was Director of Programmes, | 0:19:59 | 0:20:03 | |
that some other perisher was going to go to the BBC | 0:20:03 | 0:20:06 | |
and say, "What about this wonderful idea of doing the history of life?" | 0:20:06 | 0:20:09 | |
And I couldn't in all conscience then say no. | 0:20:09 | 0:20:13 | |
But fortunately nobody did and so as soon as I resigned, | 0:20:13 | 0:20:18 | |
I suggested to the BBC that maybe this would be something | 0:20:18 | 0:20:22 | |
they might consider. | 0:20:22 | 0:20:23 | |
It was a huge hit with viewers, it was full of extraordinary moments. | 0:20:23 | 0:20:27 | |
But, of course, the most celebrated moment from Life On Earth is... | 0:20:27 | 0:20:31 | |
I don't even have to say what it is. | 0:20:31 | 0:20:33 | |
It's this magical sequence here. Let's watch it. | 0:20:33 | 0:20:35 | |
There is more... | 0:20:37 | 0:20:39 | |
meaning and mutual understanding in exchanging | 0:20:39 | 0:20:43 | |
a glance with a gorilla... | 0:20:43 | 0:20:45 | |
..than any other animal I know. | 0:20:47 | 0:20:50 | |
And this is how they spend most of their time, | 0:20:50 | 0:20:53 | |
lounging on the ground, grooming one another. | 0:20:53 | 0:20:56 | |
Sometimes they even allow others to join in. | 0:20:57 | 0:21:01 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:21:24 | 0:21:25 | |
Extraordinary. Well, joining us now to tell us more about that moment | 0:21:32 | 0:21:35 | |
is someone who was just a fresh- faced research assistant in Rwanda | 0:21:35 | 0:21:39 | |
at the time. He is now chairman of the Gorilla Organization, | 0:21:39 | 0:21:43 | |
please welcome Ian Redmond. | 0:21:43 | 0:21:45 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:21:45 | 0:21:47 | |
Happy memories, I can tell, watching that clip. | 0:21:53 | 0:21:55 | |
David, what was the original purpose of filming this sequence | 0:21:55 | 0:21:59 | |
among the gorillas? | 0:21:59 | 0:22:00 | |
Well, I wanted... One of the key things in the history of humanity | 0:22:00 | 0:22:05 | |
and the evolution of humanity was the moment | 0:22:05 | 0:22:07 | |
when our ancient primate cousins developed the ability | 0:22:07 | 0:22:12 | |
to put thumb and forefinger together so they could hold, | 0:22:12 | 0:22:16 | |
initially, of course, branches so they can swing around. | 0:22:16 | 0:22:19 | |
But if you can do that, you can hold a tool. | 0:22:19 | 0:22:22 | |
And if you can hold a tool, you can make weapons, | 0:22:22 | 0:22:25 | |
you can make all kinds of objects that you wanted to. | 0:22:25 | 0:22:29 | |
So it's the opposable thumb, as it's called, is the crucial thing. | 0:22:29 | 0:22:34 | |
And I wanted to illustrate that with apes. | 0:22:34 | 0:22:38 | |
And, Ian, were you surprised when you saw the behaviour | 0:22:38 | 0:22:43 | |
of these gorillas around David? | 0:22:43 | 0:22:46 | |
Well, at the time the gorillas were used to one observer. | 0:22:46 | 0:22:49 | |
-So it was very unusual to have a group of people coming in. -Right. | 0:22:49 | 0:22:52 | |
But gorillas seem to have this concept of a friend of a friend | 0:22:52 | 0:22:56 | |
and if they know someone | 0:22:56 | 0:22:58 | |
and there's somebody else they don't know with them, | 0:22:58 | 0:23:00 | |
because they're with that someone, it... "Mm, OK." | 0:23:00 | 0:23:03 | |
And before you visit gorillas, | 0:23:03 | 0:23:05 | |
you're given a sort of briefing in gorilla etiquette | 0:23:05 | 0:23:09 | |
and David absorbed it almost like second nature. | 0:23:09 | 0:23:13 | |
I was preparing myself to talk about the opposable thumb | 0:23:13 | 0:23:17 | |
when I felt a hand on my head | 0:23:17 | 0:23:19 | |
and I turned around and there was this huge gorilla. | 0:23:19 | 0:23:22 | |
And she actually started by putting her big forefinger | 0:23:22 | 0:23:27 | |
in my mouth. Like that. | 0:23:27 | 0:23:29 | |
And I thought, | 0:23:29 | 0:23:30 | |
"This is not the moment to talk about the opposable thumb." | 0:23:30 | 0:23:34 | |
And it went rather out of my mind, really, | 0:23:36 | 0:23:39 | |
and I was just sort of lying there in... | 0:23:39 | 0:23:42 | |
I suppose it was... Really, it was a kind of paradise, really, | 0:23:42 | 0:23:47 | |
because you were being accepted by an animal | 0:23:47 | 0:23:51 | |
which was immensely powerful and which was clearly friendly | 0:23:51 | 0:23:56 | |
and accepting you on your own terms, as it were, | 0:23:56 | 0:24:00 | |
and there are very few animals that you can do that with. | 0:24:00 | 0:24:03 | |
You can't do that with lions, you can't do that with... | 0:24:03 | 0:24:06 | |
-It's a mutual trust. -It's a mutual trust. | 0:24:06 | 0:24:08 | |
You're trusting them and they're trusting you. | 0:24:08 | 0:24:10 | |
And, David, what is so extraordinary, | 0:24:10 | 0:24:12 | |
that this has become a sort of emblematic moment in your career, | 0:24:12 | 0:24:15 | |
it almost was not filmed at all. | 0:24:15 | 0:24:18 | |
Well, John Sparks, who was the director, | 0:24:18 | 0:24:21 | |
was worried about this because it might appear to the audience | 0:24:21 | 0:24:25 | |
that we were, as it were, part of Blue Peter or something | 0:24:25 | 0:24:29 | |
and that these were tame gorillas, | 0:24:29 | 0:24:32 | |
and so he didn't want them to appear tame. | 0:24:32 | 0:24:35 | |
But Martin Saunders, who was the cameraman, said to him after a bit, | 0:24:35 | 0:24:39 | |
he said, "We really ought to be filming this, you know," | 0:24:39 | 0:24:42 | |
and so he pressed the button and got that footage. | 0:24:42 | 0:24:46 | |
And so, Ian, this was sort of 38 years ago, I think, | 0:24:46 | 0:24:49 | |
that this was filmed. | 0:24:49 | 0:24:51 | |
The situation then was perilous for these gorillas. What about today? | 0:24:51 | 0:24:54 | |
Well, then the gorillas were at their lowest ebb. | 0:24:54 | 0:24:57 | |
We thought there were about 250 mountain gorillas in the Virungas. | 0:24:57 | 0:25:00 | |
A few years before that footage, a poll among schoolchildren | 0:25:00 | 0:25:04 | |
had gorillas in there with spiders and sharks as the scariest animals. | 0:25:04 | 0:25:08 | |
And so having a well-known TV presenter being accepted | 0:25:08 | 0:25:11 | |
in a trusted way by a family of gorillas | 0:25:11 | 0:25:14 | |
transformed people's attitudes. | 0:25:14 | 0:25:16 | |
The result of that was a coalition of organisations got together | 0:25:16 | 0:25:21 | |
and things changed. And decades later, | 0:25:21 | 0:25:24 | |
we can say that there is a census going on right now, | 0:25:24 | 0:25:26 | |
we're expecting there to be nearly 1,000, so from 250 to 1,000, | 0:25:26 | 0:25:31 | |
not all in the Virungas but in the two populations, | 0:25:31 | 0:25:33 | |
so it's been...it's one of those rare things - | 0:25:33 | 0:25:35 | |
a conservation success story, | 0:25:35 | 0:25:37 | |
-which this man played a significant role in. -Fantastic. | 0:25:37 | 0:25:40 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:25:40 | 0:25:42 | |
Just before you go, do tell me, the little baby gorillas, | 0:25:48 | 0:25:51 | |
did they thrive, were they fine? | 0:25:51 | 0:25:53 | |
Pablo grew up to be a splendid silverback, | 0:25:53 | 0:25:57 | |
became one of the most successful silverbacks of the study. | 0:25:57 | 0:26:00 | |
And Poppy, who was a little younger than Pablo, is still with us | 0:26:00 | 0:26:05 | |
and still producing babies | 0:26:05 | 0:26:06 | |
and she's one of the elders in the gorilla population. | 0:26:06 | 0:26:10 | |
But, yes, we follow their lives, it's like a never-ending soap opera | 0:26:10 | 0:26:13 | |
and every year we learn new things about gorilla society. | 0:26:13 | 0:26:17 | |
Ian Redmond, thank you so much for joining us tonight. Fascinating. | 0:26:17 | 0:26:20 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:26:20 | 0:26:22 | |
So in the interests of BBC non-bias, | 0:26:29 | 0:26:31 | |
we thought it entirely necessary that we should hear | 0:26:31 | 0:26:34 | |
the gorillas' side of the encounter. | 0:26:34 | 0:26:36 | |
So our friends at Aardman Animation have lent a little hand. | 0:26:36 | 0:26:40 | |
He was talking very quietly. | 0:26:41 | 0:26:43 | |
And he's very tall. Yeah, I noticed he's very tall, | 0:26:43 | 0:26:46 | |
because when he's sitting down, he's really sprawly. | 0:26:46 | 0:26:50 | |
Erm... But, yeah, I mean, he, you know, he could get close | 0:26:50 | 0:26:54 | |
if he came into my space. | 0:26:54 | 0:26:57 | |
I mean, I wouldn't let him walk all over me. | 0:26:57 | 0:27:00 | |
But I think David Attenborough's probably got an empathy with nature | 0:27:00 | 0:27:05 | |
and not just animals, you know, but any living things, you know. | 0:27:05 | 0:27:10 | |
It's like you're sitting down with a mate | 0:27:10 | 0:27:12 | |
and he's telling you all these stories. | 0:27:12 | 0:27:15 | |
What is he? | 0:27:15 | 0:27:16 | |
He's not an archaeologist, is he? What, what's his...? | 0:27:16 | 0:27:19 | |
He's not a naturist, he doesn't go around naked, does he? | 0:27:19 | 0:27:22 | |
-Does he? -APPLAUSE | 0:27:23 | 0:27:27 | |
You're not a naturist, are you? | 0:27:31 | 0:27:33 | |
Why'd you ask? | 0:27:33 | 0:27:35 | |
Well, they mentioned it. | 0:27:35 | 0:27:36 | |
Now, David, obviously you are someone who is watched, | 0:27:36 | 0:27:39 | |
who's admired all over the world | 0:27:39 | 0:27:42 | |
but I would say nowhere more than here in Britain. | 0:27:42 | 0:27:45 | |
Sir David, on behalf of the whole country, | 0:27:45 | 0:27:48 | |
I want to wish you a very happy 90th birthday. | 0:27:48 | 0:27:52 | |
Like so many, I grew up watching you and learning from you | 0:27:52 | 0:27:55 | |
as your enthusiasm opened my eyes to the natural world around me. | 0:27:55 | 0:28:00 | |
Your lifelong service has created the most extraordinary | 0:28:00 | 0:28:03 | |
educational legacy. | 0:28:03 | 0:28:05 | |
And even today, you're pioneering the latest technologies. | 0:28:05 | 0:28:09 | |
Britain is incredibly proud | 0:28:09 | 0:28:11 | |
to have THE greatest naturalist on the planet. | 0:28:11 | 0:28:15 | |
For just as you treasure the world, so the world rightly treasures you. | 0:28:15 | 0:28:19 | |
Thank you for all that you've given to us | 0:28:19 | 0:28:22 | |
and all that you're continuing to do. | 0:28:22 | 0:28:24 | |
And I wish you a very special evening. | 0:28:24 | 0:28:27 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:28:27 | 0:28:29 | |
David, it is surely true what the Prime Minister says there, you know, | 0:28:32 | 0:28:35 | |
technology has done so much to bring the natural world | 0:28:35 | 0:28:39 | |
into people's living rooms and into their consciousness. | 0:28:39 | 0:28:42 | |
When you started, I mean, | 0:28:42 | 0:28:44 | |
it's brilliant looking at that, isn't it? | 0:28:44 | 0:28:45 | |
I mean, the technology was so much more difficult, I'm guessing, | 0:28:45 | 0:28:49 | |
to work with because it was so simplistic? | 0:28:49 | 0:28:51 | |
Yes, but now we have absolutely everything. | 0:28:51 | 0:28:55 | |
In fact, I truly think there is almost no circumstance | 0:28:55 | 0:28:59 | |
that we can't film. | 0:28:59 | 0:29:01 | |
The new thing that we're doing, of course, | 0:29:01 | 0:29:03 | |
about bioluminescence is the latest step forward. | 0:29:03 | 0:29:07 | |
Martin Dawn, who is the cameraman, | 0:29:07 | 0:29:10 | |
is passionate about experimenting electronically with new cameras | 0:29:10 | 0:29:13 | |
and new ways of doing things | 0:29:13 | 0:29:15 | |
in order to get these shots of very, very bioluminescent animals. | 0:29:15 | 0:29:19 | |
And as you were saying, five years ago, | 0:29:19 | 0:29:21 | |
-that would have been impossible, to film that. -Impossible. | 0:29:21 | 0:29:23 | |
Let's just remind ourselves of the fascinating sequences that | 0:29:23 | 0:29:26 | |
have been captured using some of the world's most incredible technology. | 0:29:26 | 0:29:30 | |
We really know very little of what goes on in the heart | 0:29:30 | 0:29:34 | |
of a bivouac like this. | 0:29:34 | 0:29:36 | |
But this optical probe may help us find out. | 0:29:36 | 0:29:39 | |
Here is the nursery, full of young, developing grubs. | 0:29:41 | 0:29:45 | |
The lions are now so at ease, | 0:29:49 | 0:29:52 | |
our spy in the den can often approach to within a whisker. | 0:29:52 | 0:29:56 | |
Once they're thoroughly warmed up, | 0:29:58 | 0:30:00 | |
marine iguanas can maintain their body temperature | 0:30:00 | 0:30:03 | |
just about as constantly as I can and, what's more, | 0:30:03 | 0:30:07 | |
at about the same level or indeed slightly higher. | 0:30:07 | 0:30:10 | |
With a 360-degree view, and an extremely powerful lens, | 0:30:11 | 0:30:16 | |
the camera can zoom in from a kilometre away. | 0:30:16 | 0:30:20 | |
Another revelatory film technique | 0:30:23 | 0:30:26 | |
involves slowing down the action | 0:30:26 | 0:30:29 | |
simply by increasing the number of images taken per second. | 0:30:29 | 0:30:33 | |
As the sophistication of time-lapse photography has increased, | 0:30:39 | 0:30:43 | |
so we've been able to show that plants can be as competitive | 0:30:43 | 0:30:48 | |
and as aggressive as many an animal. | 0:30:48 | 0:30:51 | |
Wow! | 0:31:00 | 0:31:02 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:31:05 | 0:31:08 | |
So of course that was time-lapse that we saw there, | 0:31:11 | 0:31:13 | |
which I think you are a great fan of. | 0:31:13 | 0:31:15 | |
It reveals so much that the naked eye can't see, | 0:31:15 | 0:31:18 | |
and one of the cameramen responsible for many of those | 0:31:18 | 0:31:21 | |
really magical films is called Tim Shepherd. | 0:31:21 | 0:31:24 | |
You've described him as a genius, no less. | 0:31:24 | 0:31:27 | |
We've actually... We've got a new sequence here which Tim has made | 0:31:27 | 0:31:30 | |
especially for you this evening. | 0:31:30 | 0:31:32 | |
-For me? -For you. | 0:31:32 | 0:31:34 | |
Beautiful. | 0:32:04 | 0:32:06 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:32:06 | 0:32:07 | |
Thank you very much, Tim. Yeah. | 0:32:14 | 0:32:16 | |
Whilst we're on the subject of technology, talking, | 0:32:16 | 0:32:20 | |
doing pieces to camera underwater | 0:32:20 | 0:32:21 | |
is surely one of the trickiest things to pull off. | 0:32:21 | 0:32:24 | |
Maybe the bubble helmet was going to be the answer? | 0:32:24 | 0:32:26 | |
Yes, it's a hideous memory to me. I'm sorry to see it again. It's... | 0:32:26 | 0:32:30 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:32:30 | 0:32:32 | |
It's a long time ago now. | 0:32:32 | 0:32:33 | |
Having been talking to camera on land for a long time, | 0:32:33 | 0:32:37 | |
there was a new series about...underwater | 0:32:37 | 0:32:41 | |
which was being produced by a friend of mine | 0:32:41 | 0:32:44 | |
called Alastair Fothergill, who was the director. | 0:32:44 | 0:32:46 | |
And he explained that if I was going to be a narrator, | 0:32:46 | 0:32:50 | |
it was going to be quite difficult. | 0:32:50 | 0:32:52 | |
I could do it sitting on a ship, of course, on a boat, | 0:32:52 | 0:32:55 | |
but how was I going to talk about coral or sharks | 0:32:55 | 0:32:58 | |
or whatever underwater? | 0:32:58 | 0:33:00 | |
And Alastair said, "I've got a great idea. | 0:33:00 | 0:33:02 | |
"We've got a new technological thing. | 0:33:02 | 0:33:05 | |
"It's called the bubble helmet. See? And what we do is you put that | 0:33:05 | 0:33:09 | |
"on your shoulders and screw it down and then you'll be able to talk, | 0:33:09 | 0:33:14 | |
"because there's a microphone in there." | 0:33:14 | 0:33:16 | |
And I said, "It doesn't seem a very good idea to me at all." | 0:33:16 | 0:33:20 | |
And I said, "What's all this business with screwing it down?" | 0:33:20 | 0:33:23 | |
He said, "Well, you've got to screw it down | 0:33:23 | 0:33:24 | |
"because otherwise it will leak." | 0:33:24 | 0:33:26 | |
So I said, "That's all very well but how are we going to get it off?" | 0:33:26 | 0:33:29 | |
"Oh, we'll be able to get it off in, you know, five minutes or so." | 0:33:29 | 0:33:32 | |
I said, "Five minutes is a very long time. | 0:33:32 | 0:33:34 | |
"Suppose it goes wrong?" He said, "It won't go wrong. | 0:33:34 | 0:33:37 | |
"But I'll tell you what, if you're nervous about it, we'll test it." | 0:33:37 | 0:33:39 | |
This was in... We were going to film electric eels in the Amazon | 0:33:39 | 0:33:43 | |
and I was going to talk about them. | 0:33:43 | 0:33:44 | |
"We'll do it in the hotel swimming pool," he said. | 0:33:44 | 0:33:48 | |
So he put this on my shoulders. | 0:33:48 | 0:33:51 | |
Well, getting your head inside that is not easy, actually. | 0:33:51 | 0:33:54 | |
-See? -Ooh. | 0:33:54 | 0:33:55 | |
-Your nose gets caught. -Yes, yes. | 0:33:55 | 0:33:57 | |
And when you screw that down on there, you really do feel trapped. | 0:33:57 | 0:34:02 | |
So I waded into the pool and then very gingerly sort of | 0:34:02 | 0:34:07 | |
submerged myself and water started coming in, | 0:34:07 | 0:34:11 | |
you see, and I thought, "It takes about five minutes to get this off." | 0:34:11 | 0:34:14 | |
So I came out in a hurry and Alastair said, "What's the matter?" | 0:34:14 | 0:34:17 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:34:17 | 0:34:19 | |
-You know how directors are. -Oh, yes. -Yeah. | 0:34:19 | 0:34:22 | |
"What's your problem?" I said... | 0:34:22 | 0:34:24 | |
-AS IF UNDERWATER: -"It's filling up with water!" | 0:34:24 | 0:34:27 | |
So he said, "Well, you must be doing something wrong." | 0:34:27 | 0:34:31 | |
I said, "I'm not...! | 0:34:31 | 0:34:32 | |
"I just walked into the pool and it's filled with water." | 0:34:32 | 0:34:35 | |
He said, "I'll show you." | 0:34:35 | 0:34:37 | |
So he took it, so he put it on. | 0:34:37 | 0:34:39 | |
I had some pleasure in screwing it down... | 0:34:39 | 0:34:42 | |
I said, "Go on in there." | 0:34:42 | 0:34:44 | |
He went in there, he came out quicker than me! | 0:34:44 | 0:34:47 | |
He took it off and said, "There must be a fault!" | 0:34:47 | 0:34:49 | |
I said, "Well, thank you very much." | 0:34:49 | 0:34:51 | |
So we then quietly decided that actually we wouldn't use it. | 0:34:51 | 0:34:56 | |
Of course, when you're filming in the great outdoors, | 0:34:56 | 0:34:59 | |
even with sometimes the most hi-tech equipment, as we've just heard, | 0:34:59 | 0:35:04 | |
things don't always go to plan. | 0:35:04 | 0:35:06 | |
Because this snow is not white... | 0:35:06 | 0:35:09 | |
HE LAUGHS | 0:35:13 | 0:35:16 | |
Red and black venom lack. | 0:35:16 | 0:35:20 | |
Red and yellow... And I get out of the way. | 0:35:20 | 0:35:24 | |
The volcanoes of today are mere feeble flickers... | 0:35:26 | 0:35:30 | |
HE LAUGHS | 0:35:31 | 0:35:34 | |
The influence of this continent is global. | 0:35:35 | 0:35:38 | |
What happens here matters. | 0:35:38 | 0:35:40 | |
This is the first time I've ever known you do that. | 0:35:43 | 0:35:46 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:35:46 | 0:35:47 | |
They reunite once they come back here onto their own patch... | 0:35:47 | 0:35:53 | |
patch of shingle. | 0:35:53 | 0:35:55 | |
It's so effective that even a rich woodland like this | 0:35:55 | 0:35:58 | |
can seem totally devoid of birds. | 0:35:58 | 0:36:00 | |
AEROPLANE FLIES OVERHEAD | 0:36:00 | 0:36:02 | |
But that, that's a completely different sound. | 0:36:02 | 0:36:06 | |
That's an aeroplane. | 0:36:06 | 0:36:07 | |
He is... | 0:36:09 | 0:36:11 | |
so charged up, | 0:36:11 | 0:36:13 | |
this being the breeding season, | 0:36:13 | 0:36:14 | |
that he will display to almost anything, including me! | 0:36:14 | 0:36:19 | |
HE LAUGHS | 0:36:19 | 0:36:21 | |
Now, now. | 0:36:21 | 0:36:22 | |
This surely... | 0:36:22 | 0:36:23 | |
BIRD SQUAWKS | 0:36:23 | 0:36:26 | |
This surely is what... | 0:36:27 | 0:36:29 | |
BIRDS CAW | 0:36:29 | 0:36:32 | |
..when he came to allocate a scientific name to this bird, | 0:36:32 | 0:36:36 | |
called it... | 0:36:36 | 0:36:37 | |
BIRD CAWS | 0:36:37 | 0:36:38 | |
"Woo-hoo!" Ha-ha. | 0:36:38 | 0:36:40 | |
Paradisaea apoda. | 0:36:40 | 0:36:42 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:36:43 | 0:36:44 | |
David, let's take a little look now at a really... | 0:36:52 | 0:36:54 | |
a very touching moment. | 0:36:54 | 0:36:56 | |
It was filmed just a few years ago for the series Africa. | 0:36:56 | 0:36:59 | |
-You met this little baby rhino called Nicky... -Baby rhino. | 0:36:59 | 0:37:01 | |
..you'll remember, of course. | 0:37:01 | 0:37:03 | |
And what was remarkable about this little rhino | 0:37:03 | 0:37:06 | |
is that he was blind. | 0:37:06 | 0:37:08 | |
But just as we think we are finishing, | 0:37:10 | 0:37:12 | |
someone won't let us go. | 0:37:12 | 0:37:14 | |
Hello, little fellow. | 0:37:17 | 0:37:18 | |
He starts to squeak and we are able to have a little chat. | 0:37:20 | 0:37:25 | |
-RHINO SQUEAKS -Oh! | 0:37:25 | 0:37:28 | |
HE IMITATES THE RHINO | 0:37:28 | 0:37:30 | |
Thinking about it, he has got a black world, hasn't he? | 0:37:40 | 0:37:43 | |
And he's got smell and he's got sound, | 0:37:43 | 0:37:47 | |
so he's more likely to be responding to sound | 0:37:47 | 0:37:50 | |
if he hasn't got the vision. | 0:37:50 | 0:37:52 | |
And he's just inquisitive, I suppose. | 0:37:52 | 0:37:55 | |
Are you coming back? | 0:37:55 | 0:37:56 | |
THEY SQUEAK | 0:37:57 | 0:37:59 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:38:08 | 0:38:10 | |
Just remarkable. Well, joining us in the studio now | 0:38:14 | 0:38:16 | |
from the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya, | 0:38:16 | 0:38:19 | |
where those moments were filmed, is Sarah Watson. | 0:38:19 | 0:38:21 | |
Sarah, welcome. | 0:38:21 | 0:38:22 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:38:22 | 0:38:25 | |
Tell us a little bit about | 0:38:26 | 0:38:28 | |
this remarkable little creature's background, about Nicky. | 0:38:28 | 0:38:31 | |
Well, he is blind and we realised that he was... | 0:38:31 | 0:38:34 | |
Black rhino, quite early on, when they are about one or two weeks old, | 0:38:34 | 0:38:38 | |
are meant to follow their mothers out and about in the bush | 0:38:38 | 0:38:41 | |
but he wasn't doing that. | 0:38:41 | 0:38:42 | |
So it was at that point we thought, actually, we've got to bring him in. | 0:38:42 | 0:38:45 | |
So the guys brought him in, and I've got a big boma at the back | 0:38:45 | 0:38:48 | |
of my house where these rhino live and he became part of the family. | 0:38:48 | 0:38:52 | |
We got him when he was three-and-a-half months old | 0:38:52 | 0:38:54 | |
and, yeah, he's still with us. He is now three-and-a-half. | 0:38:54 | 0:38:57 | |
David, so much of the programming that you make is so meticulously | 0:38:57 | 0:39:01 | |
planned - it has to be by virtue of the scale and the complexity of it. | 0:39:01 | 0:39:05 | |
And yet it is so often those moments, | 0:39:05 | 0:39:08 | |
the moments that just seem to unfold and that you are so capable | 0:39:08 | 0:39:12 | |
of taking us on this little journey through this moment of magic. | 0:39:12 | 0:39:17 | |
Watching that, the whole thing feels remarkably emotional to me | 0:39:17 | 0:39:20 | |
and I'm just watching it on TV. | 0:39:20 | 0:39:22 | |
When you were there doing it, are your emotions involved | 0:39:22 | 0:39:26 | |
when you're filming something like that? | 0:39:26 | 0:39:28 | |
Oh, well, that is such an endearing little creature | 0:39:28 | 0:39:31 | |
and the fact that he couldn't see brought out a sympathy in one, | 0:39:31 | 0:39:37 | |
and then he suddenly started talking to me. | 0:39:37 | 0:39:39 | |
He had a long chat, yeah. | 0:39:39 | 0:39:42 | |
I'm not absolutely sure of what I said or what he said in reply. | 0:39:42 | 0:39:45 | |
But you actually took the words out of my mouth, | 0:39:45 | 0:39:48 | |
because can you speak rhino? | 0:39:48 | 0:39:51 | |
So, you were just chatting. | 0:39:51 | 0:39:52 | |
-Yes, I was just responding to his noise. -Shooting the breeze. | 0:39:52 | 0:39:55 | |
But a charming creature, really lovely. | 0:39:55 | 0:39:57 | |
I wonder what you think is the most important factor in protecting | 0:39:57 | 0:40:02 | |
endangered species like Nicky the rhino, | 0:40:02 | 0:40:04 | |
and actually, endangered species more generally. | 0:40:04 | 0:40:07 | |
What should our approach be? | 0:40:07 | 0:40:09 | |
Well, the rhinos, as you say, is a special problem | 0:40:10 | 0:40:15 | |
because of poaching, and poaching is a huge problem worldwide. | 0:40:15 | 0:40:19 | |
So we have to develop a sympathy for the natural world everywhere. | 0:40:19 | 0:40:24 | |
And actually, I think that's one of the things that television can do, | 0:40:24 | 0:40:28 | |
that natural-history programmes can do. | 0:40:28 | 0:40:30 | |
I mean, it's a bizarre thing, isn't it? | 0:40:30 | 0:40:32 | |
There are more people living on Earth today than | 0:40:32 | 0:40:35 | |
there have ever been in the history of the universe. | 0:40:35 | 0:40:38 | |
I mean, there are three times more many people on this planet now | 0:40:38 | 0:40:42 | |
than when I started making those programmes back in the '50s. | 0:40:42 | 0:40:45 | |
And they all need places to live and so on, of course they do, | 0:40:45 | 0:40:48 | |
but if we go on increasing at that sort of rate, | 0:40:48 | 0:40:51 | |
there won't be any wilderness left. | 0:40:51 | 0:40:54 | |
And there are other creatures on the Earth | 0:40:54 | 0:40:57 | |
that also call this planet home, | 0:40:57 | 0:40:59 | |
and we have the responsibility for them. | 0:40:59 | 0:41:02 | |
So what we have to do is to give them the space, to give them | 0:41:02 | 0:41:05 | |
the natural reserves where they can flourish, which is their right. | 0:41:05 | 0:41:10 | |
Sarah, you work hard at giving them the space and you were saying now | 0:41:10 | 0:41:13 | |
that Nicky is a big, relatively healthy boy now. | 0:41:13 | 0:41:16 | |
-How is he getting on? -No, he's thriving. | 0:41:16 | 0:41:18 | |
-He's an extraordinary animal. -There he is. | 0:41:18 | 0:41:20 | |
I mean, I know I am biased, but a lot of it is because | 0:41:20 | 0:41:23 | |
he is blind, but his other senses are very heightened. | 0:41:23 | 0:41:26 | |
I mean, he knows my smell and he knows my voice and so he sees me. | 0:41:26 | 0:41:30 | |
He basically rolls over a bit like a Labrador - | 0:41:30 | 0:41:32 | |
he knows he's going to get de-ticked. He thinks it's heaven. | 0:41:32 | 0:41:35 | |
But he represents one 5,000th of the remaining population | 0:41:35 | 0:41:40 | |
of black rhino in the world, so his job is going to be an ambassador. | 0:41:40 | 0:41:43 | |
And through people like David who, you know... | 0:41:43 | 0:41:47 | |
The fact that everyone I know has seen that clip and I'm like, | 0:41:47 | 0:41:50 | |
"Yeah, that's my rhino!" | 0:41:50 | 0:41:51 | |
But if we can just get a little bit of the message out, it's a start. | 0:41:53 | 0:41:57 | |
Sarah, thank you very much indeed | 0:41:57 | 0:41:58 | |
-for joining us this evening. -Pleasure. | 0:41:58 | 0:42:00 | |
Just before we move on, let's hear from another rather special | 0:42:08 | 0:42:12 | |
conservationist who has been inspired by your work. | 0:42:12 | 0:42:16 | |
David has been the single most important | 0:42:16 | 0:42:19 | |
impact on my conservation thinking, and I used to love, | 0:42:19 | 0:42:23 | |
and I still do, but when I was a young boy I used to love turning on | 0:42:23 | 0:42:26 | |
the television and watching David's programmes | 0:42:26 | 0:42:29 | |
and really feeling like I was either back out in Africa or I was | 0:42:29 | 0:42:34 | |
learning about something magical and almost out of this planet. | 0:42:34 | 0:42:39 | |
And there's something very calming | 0:42:39 | 0:42:41 | |
and sort of warm about his programmes. | 0:42:41 | 0:42:46 | |
There's something very reassuring about seeing | 0:42:46 | 0:42:48 | |
David Attenborough on BBC One doing his documentaries. | 0:42:48 | 0:42:51 | |
It is part of the national psyche now and he is a national treasure. | 0:42:51 | 0:42:55 | |
And it's very fitting that he is having his 90th birthday | 0:42:55 | 0:42:58 | |
only a few weeks after the Queen. | 0:42:58 | 0:43:00 | |
I think they are two incredible national treasures who have | 0:43:00 | 0:43:03 | |
done so much over the years. | 0:43:03 | 0:43:05 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:43:05 | 0:43:08 | |
So, His Royal Highness there talking so genuinely about turning on | 0:43:13 | 0:43:16 | |
the telly when he was a little boy and seeing you there, | 0:43:16 | 0:43:19 | |
and that is something that is familiar to all of us | 0:43:19 | 0:43:22 | |
here in this audience. | 0:43:22 | 0:43:23 | |
I'm interested, though, for you, when you were a little boy, | 0:43:23 | 0:43:26 | |
what turned you on to natural history? | 0:43:26 | 0:43:28 | |
Where did it begin for you? | 0:43:28 | 0:43:31 | |
By and large there were two things. | 0:43:31 | 0:43:32 | |
First of all, there was the Leicestershire countryside, | 0:43:32 | 0:43:35 | |
which is where I grew up. | 0:43:35 | 0:43:37 | |
And apart from that, there were wonderful books. | 0:43:37 | 0:43:41 | |
One of the ones which I don't think anybody, or very few people, | 0:43:41 | 0:43:44 | |
know about now, a man called Ernest Thompson Seton, who wrote... | 0:43:44 | 0:43:48 | |
He was a ranger in the Canadian prairie and he wrote | 0:43:48 | 0:43:53 | |
about the animals that he knew - | 0:43:53 | 0:43:54 | |
the wolves and the buffalo and so on. | 0:43:54 | 0:43:57 | |
And he drew - he was a good artist as well - | 0:43:57 | 0:43:59 | |
he drew the little footprints down the margins, the side margins. | 0:43:59 | 0:44:03 | |
I adored those books. Wept over them, too. | 0:44:03 | 0:44:06 | |
And what about...? | 0:44:06 | 0:44:07 | |
There you are, look at you in your little Fair Isle socks. | 0:44:07 | 0:44:10 | |
What about the influence...? You're not still wearing them! | 0:44:10 | 0:44:14 | |
What about the influence of your parents? | 0:44:14 | 0:44:17 | |
Were they interested in the natural world? | 0:44:17 | 0:44:20 | |
My father was a scholar, an academic, | 0:44:20 | 0:44:22 | |
-and an expert on Anglo-Saxons. -Right. | 0:44:22 | 0:44:26 | |
But he was also... He understood about education and | 0:44:26 | 0:44:30 | |
he said to each of his three sons, you know, | 0:44:30 | 0:44:34 | |
"What is it you want to do?", and when I said that I wanted to do | 0:44:34 | 0:44:38 | |
something to do with animals, he didn't say... Or fossils. | 0:44:38 | 0:44:42 | |
He didn't say, "Well, the name of that is this, that or the other." | 0:44:42 | 0:44:46 | |
In any case, he didn't know. | 0:44:46 | 0:44:48 | |
But what he did say was, | 0:44:48 | 0:44:49 | |
"Look, there's ways of finding out about that. | 0:44:49 | 0:44:51 | |
"You can go to the museum, they will tell you about that. | 0:44:51 | 0:44:54 | |
"And there's some good books and you can read about that." | 0:44:54 | 0:44:57 | |
And so he encouraged us to find out for ourselves. | 0:44:57 | 0:44:59 | |
1945, you won a place at Clare College, Cambridge | 0:44:59 | 0:45:03 | |
to read geology and zoology. | 0:45:03 | 0:45:06 | |
-Now, you got it on a scholarship. -Yes. | 0:45:06 | 0:45:08 | |
That's a blinking big deal, when you get a scholarship. | 0:45:08 | 0:45:11 | |
What do you remember of the moment of finding out? | 0:45:11 | 0:45:14 | |
My father said, "Look, if you want to go to Cambridge, | 0:45:14 | 0:45:16 | |
-"you have to get a scholarship, because I can't afford it." -Right. | 0:45:16 | 0:45:21 | |
And so I worked pretty hard to try | 0:45:21 | 0:45:24 | |
and get a scholarship which the colleges gave. | 0:45:24 | 0:45:28 | |
And I remember... | 0:45:28 | 0:45:30 | |
It was during the war and my father was a... | 0:45:30 | 0:45:33 | |
I was digging an allotment, my father came running down | 0:45:33 | 0:45:36 | |
from the house where we lived waving a telegram and saying, | 0:45:36 | 0:45:39 | |
"You've got it, my son! You've got it!" | 0:45:39 | 0:45:42 | |
-Remarkable. -Then I was off to Cambridge. | 0:45:42 | 0:45:44 | |
When you were working on the natural-history programmes, | 0:45:44 | 0:45:47 | |
it also became, did it not, something of a routine for you | 0:45:47 | 0:45:51 | |
to bring your work home, not to put too fine a point on it? | 0:45:51 | 0:45:54 | |
The house was full of animals, wasn't it? | 0:45:54 | 0:45:56 | |
We had a whole host of different things, | 0:45:56 | 0:45:58 | |
all of which wouldn't be allowed by law now. | 0:45:58 | 0:46:00 | |
But I had lemurs, lungfish, | 0:46:00 | 0:46:04 | |
parrots, hummingbirds - all sorts of things. | 0:46:04 | 0:46:07 | |
One of my favourites was a little pair of bushbabies. | 0:46:07 | 0:46:10 | |
-You know bushbabies? -Yes. | 0:46:10 | 0:46:11 | |
They're like tiny little monkeys about that big, primitive monkeys. | 0:46:11 | 0:46:15 | |
And what the male does in order to establish his home | 0:46:15 | 0:46:17 | |
and make him feel good | 0:46:17 | 0:46:19 | |
and think that we might produce some kids | 0:46:19 | 0:46:23 | |
would be to pee on his hands. | 0:46:23 | 0:46:25 | |
He would pee on his hands like that, you see, | 0:46:25 | 0:46:27 | |
rub them together and then go all over the furniture | 0:46:27 | 0:46:31 | |
and all up the walls as well as his hollow log and everything else... | 0:46:31 | 0:46:35 | |
-Nice. -..which gave a nice, homely atmosphere. | 0:46:35 | 0:46:38 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:46:38 | 0:46:39 | |
But then friends would come to dinner and I'd open the door | 0:46:39 | 0:46:44 | |
and I'd see the wife of the friend's dilate her nostrils | 0:46:44 | 0:46:49 | |
and, you know... | 0:46:49 | 0:46:51 | |
"That is not mulligatawny soup." | 0:46:51 | 0:46:53 | |
You know? And so a bit of a problem there. | 0:46:55 | 0:46:57 | |
But in fact, I had, I think, about 14 births of these little babies. | 0:46:57 | 0:47:02 | |
-Did you? -Oh, we did. | 0:47:02 | 0:47:03 | |
And I'll tell you, a baby bushbaby... | 0:47:03 | 0:47:06 | |
Oh! | 0:47:06 | 0:47:07 | |
It's time now to welcome another guest. | 0:47:08 | 0:47:10 | |
Joining us to share with us his own treasures of the natural world | 0:47:10 | 0:47:14 | |
is a fellow passionate naturalist, conservationist | 0:47:14 | 0:47:17 | |
and collector extraordinaire, it has to be said, David. | 0:47:17 | 0:47:21 | |
Please welcome Chris Packham. | 0:47:21 | 0:47:23 | |
Welcome, thanks for coming. Nice to see you. | 0:47:28 | 0:47:31 | |
Chris, I said you were a collector extraordinaire. | 0:47:36 | 0:47:39 | |
You've brought some treasures. | 0:47:39 | 0:47:40 | |
-Show us one of the pieces. -Look at this. | 0:47:40 | 0:47:42 | |
There is always a romance in these sorts of things. | 0:47:42 | 0:47:44 | |
This is a fossil shark tooth, a megalodon tooth, which belonged | 0:47:44 | 0:47:49 | |
to an extinct species now, many times the size of a great white. | 0:47:49 | 0:47:54 | |
But when I handle that, I can't help but try and transport myself | 0:47:54 | 0:47:59 | |
back in time to imagine the world that this animal was living in. | 0:47:59 | 0:48:03 | |
And at the same time, look at... It's just perfect, isn't it? | 0:48:03 | 0:48:06 | |
You run a finger along that serrated edge. | 0:48:06 | 0:48:08 | |
-You've got to have that in your drawer, haven't you? -You have. | 0:48:08 | 0:48:11 | |
-I was going to say, are you impressed? -You call that a... | 0:48:13 | 0:48:16 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:48:16 | 0:48:18 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:48:19 | 0:48:21 | |
-I want it back. -OK. | 0:48:26 | 0:48:29 | |
We won't mix them up - yours is cream, mine is black. | 0:48:29 | 0:48:31 | |
-What a beauty, what a beautiful thing that is. -Amazing. | 0:48:31 | 0:48:35 | |
But there is this competitive thing about collecting, | 0:48:35 | 0:48:38 | |
-which we won't go into. -No. We don't need to! | 0:48:38 | 0:48:41 | |
But I have got the biggest. | 0:48:41 | 0:48:43 | |
I was going to say, boys will be boys. | 0:48:44 | 0:48:46 | |
-Do you know what this is? -Let's have a look. | 0:48:48 | 0:48:51 | |
Yeah, yeah, I do. I do know what it is, yeah. | 0:48:52 | 0:48:55 | |
It has been inside a dinosaur. | 0:48:55 | 0:48:57 | |
-It is a gastrolith, isn't it? -It is. | 0:48:57 | 0:48:59 | |
So this is a stone which it swallowed. | 0:48:59 | 0:49:02 | |
-I presume we don't know which species, but... -I do. -You do? | 0:49:02 | 0:49:05 | |
It came from the carcass, did it? | 0:49:05 | 0:49:08 | |
Don't know which species?! | 0:49:08 | 0:49:10 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:49:10 | 0:49:12 | |
How very dare you, Chris Packham! | 0:49:12 | 0:49:14 | |
Well, yes, but we can't tell from the stone which species. | 0:49:14 | 0:49:17 | |
-That's better. -But you'll know if you found it | 0:49:17 | 0:49:19 | |
-in association with the rest of the fossil. -I did, I did. | 0:49:19 | 0:49:22 | |
Go on, then. Don't tell me it's a T-rex gastrolith! | 0:49:22 | 0:49:25 | |
-It's a Seismosaurus. -A Seismosaurus. | 0:49:25 | 0:49:27 | |
A Seismosaurus, which at the time was the biggest known dinosaur. | 0:49:27 | 0:49:30 | |
It isn't any more, of course, but at the time it was, | 0:49:30 | 0:49:33 | |
and I went to the excavation. | 0:49:33 | 0:49:35 | |
And you have this near-complete skeleton | 0:49:35 | 0:49:38 | |
with the backbone and the ribs, and there between the ribs | 0:49:38 | 0:49:43 | |
in the position of the stomach was like half a sackload of pebbles. | 0:49:43 | 0:49:48 | |
But if you look at it, you can see | 0:49:48 | 0:49:50 | |
that it's got an extremely high polish, hasn't it? | 0:49:50 | 0:49:53 | |
It's beautifully polished and this was polished inside | 0:49:53 | 0:49:55 | |
the gut of a giant dinosaur. | 0:49:55 | 0:49:58 | |
I mean, there isn't anything better than that, is there? | 0:49:58 | 0:50:02 | |
-There really isn't anything... -Hey, hey! | 0:50:02 | 0:50:04 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:50:04 | 0:50:05 | |
David, do tell me about this splendid thing here. | 0:50:05 | 0:50:09 | |
Yes, I mean, I've got the biggest tooth there. | 0:50:09 | 0:50:12 | |
HE CLEARS HIS THROAT | 0:50:12 | 0:50:13 | |
And you haven't got a bigger bird's egg than that, have you? | 0:50:13 | 0:50:16 | |
No, I haven't. And that one... | 0:50:16 | 0:50:18 | |
I have seen many of these - that one is pretty good. | 0:50:18 | 0:50:20 | |
It was broken but it's put together very well. | 0:50:20 | 0:50:23 | |
In fact, let's just see the moments on film - it was captured - | 0:50:23 | 0:50:26 | |
when you found this and put this egg together. | 0:50:26 | 0:50:30 | |
The best method of starting seemed to be the same as you use | 0:50:30 | 0:50:33 | |
when you begin on a jigsaw puzzle - | 0:50:33 | 0:50:35 | |
to lay out everything face-up on the ground. | 0:50:35 | 0:50:39 | |
To fasten them temporarily, I used adhesive tape. | 0:50:39 | 0:50:42 | |
The egg began to appear even bigger than I had imagined. | 0:50:44 | 0:50:48 | |
At the end of an hour, I had two halves. | 0:50:50 | 0:50:53 | |
And to my joy, they fitted together perfectly. | 0:50:56 | 0:50:59 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:51:00 | 0:51:01 | |
All I have to do is say thank you for bringing | 0:51:06 | 0:51:09 | |
your wonderful treasures. Chris Packham. | 0:51:09 | 0:51:11 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:51:11 | 0:51:13 | |
Well, probably one of the highest tributes for anyone | 0:51:17 | 0:51:20 | |
working in the natural world is to have | 0:51:20 | 0:51:22 | |
a newly discovered species named after them. | 0:51:22 | 0:51:24 | |
In fact, David, I know you have | 0:51:24 | 0:51:26 | |
quite a number already named after you. | 0:51:26 | 0:51:29 | |
It's your birthday, so one of the world's foremost | 0:51:29 | 0:51:32 | |
dragonfly experts wanted to give you a little gift. | 0:51:32 | 0:51:36 | |
Here is Klaas-Douwe Dijkstra. | 0:51:36 | 0:51:39 | |
On your 90th birthday, I want to wish you not only many more years | 0:51:39 | 0:51:43 | |
of good health and of broadcasting, but I wish everyone more of you. | 0:51:43 | 0:51:48 | |
And to thank you, I've named, together with colleagues, | 0:51:50 | 0:51:53 | |
a dragonfly in your honour - | 0:51:53 | 0:51:55 | |
Acisoma attenboroughi. | 0:51:55 | 0:51:57 | |
Your new dragonfly is from Madagascar | 0:51:57 | 0:52:00 | |
and I'm happy to report that your dragonfly is actually very common. | 0:52:00 | 0:52:06 | |
Every farmer can find it in her paddy, | 0:52:06 | 0:52:08 | |
every fisherman can see it in his pond, | 0:52:08 | 0:52:11 | |
every schoolchild can find it in the yard. | 0:52:11 | 0:52:14 | |
It simply is another one of those species that is unique | 0:52:14 | 0:52:17 | |
but no-one noticed that it was. | 0:52:17 | 0:52:20 | |
But now people can go out there and say, | 0:52:20 | 0:52:23 | |
"Hey, look, that is Sir David's dragonfly." | 0:52:23 | 0:52:26 | |
Thank you and happy birthday. | 0:52:26 | 0:52:28 | |
-APPLAUSE -Very nice. | 0:52:28 | 0:52:30 | |
And here it is. | 0:52:30 | 0:52:32 | |
There it is, David, a very special little birthday gift - | 0:52:35 | 0:52:38 | |
Acisoma attenboroughi. Rather beautiful. | 0:52:38 | 0:52:40 | |
-Don't you think? -I think it's stunningly beautiful. | 0:52:40 | 0:52:43 | |
Dragonflies are magical insects, aren't they? | 0:52:43 | 0:52:47 | |
You know, they date back for 300 million years. | 0:52:47 | 0:52:51 | |
-Just like that, yeah. -Extraordinary. -What a thrill. | 0:52:51 | 0:52:54 | |
As we said when we began talking this evening, | 0:52:54 | 0:52:57 | |
you are still filming all over the world. | 0:52:57 | 0:52:59 | |
Indeed, you are doing Planet Earth II, which is a big new series. | 0:52:59 | 0:53:02 | |
Well, Planet Earth II, when the idea was put up, | 0:53:02 | 0:53:06 | |
people said, "You've done it all." | 0:53:06 | 0:53:09 | |
But the fact is that when you really start researching, | 0:53:09 | 0:53:11 | |
you find things that you haven't done at all | 0:53:11 | 0:53:14 | |
-that are going to be thrilling, new and exciting. -Incredible. | 0:53:14 | 0:53:17 | |
So, so much more of that to look forward to. | 0:53:17 | 0:53:19 | |
We are almost out of time tonight but before we go, | 0:53:19 | 0:53:23 | |
here are a few more happy-birthday messages. | 0:53:23 | 0:53:26 | |
Sir David Attenborough, we love having you on the show, | 0:53:26 | 0:53:30 | |
and beyond that, I'd just like to say thank you. | 0:53:30 | 0:53:34 | |
Thank you for everything you have done on television over the years. | 0:53:34 | 0:53:37 | |
You have really changed this country and given us | 0:53:37 | 0:53:40 | |
such an extraordinary awareness of the world around us. | 0:53:40 | 0:53:44 | |
Have a very happy birthday. | 0:53:44 | 0:53:45 | |
Happy 90th birthday, David Attenborough. | 0:53:45 | 0:53:49 | |
I've grown up watching your films | 0:53:49 | 0:53:51 | |
and now my children have grown up watching your films | 0:53:51 | 0:53:54 | |
and I'm very proud to have been on this Earth at the same time as you. | 0:53:54 | 0:53:59 | |
Sir David, this is Sting behind this beard. | 0:53:59 | 0:54:01 | |
I'm somewhere in the tundra. | 0:54:01 | 0:54:03 | |
I've been a fan of yours since your search | 0:54:03 | 0:54:06 | |
for the Komodo dragon, I think, in 1956. | 0:54:06 | 0:54:08 | |
You have been an inspiration and a wonder to me. | 0:54:08 | 0:54:11 | |
Happy birthday and many happy returns. | 0:54:11 | 0:54:13 | |
Thank you so much for the many years of inspirational, | 0:54:13 | 0:54:17 | |
motivational and ground-breaking television, | 0:54:17 | 0:54:20 | |
for spurring me and millions of others | 0:54:20 | 0:54:23 | |
to want to be better custodians of the planet. | 0:54:23 | 0:54:26 | |
For me and the hundreds of thousands of other people who have been | 0:54:26 | 0:54:29 | |
inspired to go out, buy a pair of jungle boots | 0:54:29 | 0:54:32 | |
and some camouflage and maybe a blue shirt, thank you. | 0:54:32 | 0:54:35 | |
Thank you so much for all you have given us and a very, | 0:54:35 | 0:54:39 | |
very happy birthday. | 0:54:39 | 0:54:40 | |
ALL: Happy birthday, David! | 0:54:41 | 0:54:44 | |
From all of us here on the Springwatch team. | 0:54:44 | 0:54:47 | |
You must pause to reflect on this special day | 0:54:47 | 0:54:49 | |
on the incredible impact that you have had around the world. | 0:54:49 | 0:54:53 | |
You are an absolute legend and have changed the face | 0:54:53 | 0:54:56 | |
of conservation for the future. | 0:54:56 | 0:54:58 | |
I wish you a very happy birthday on this milestone day. | 0:54:58 | 0:55:02 | |
You are fantastic, you are such a hero. | 0:55:02 | 0:55:03 | |
You have been such an inspiration, not only to all of us | 0:55:03 | 0:55:07 | |
but more especially to me! | 0:55:07 | 0:55:09 | |
You'll go on for ever, and I hope you do, because you are priceless. | 0:55:09 | 0:55:15 | |
Happy birthday. | 0:55:15 | 0:55:17 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:55:17 | 0:55:18 | |
So, we know you keep making these extraordinary programmes | 0:55:27 | 0:55:31 | |
that we all love so much, and thank goodness for that. | 0:55:31 | 0:55:33 | |
You are not taking your foot off the gas. | 0:55:33 | 0:55:35 | |
But I wonder - it's hard work, filming, it's really hard work - | 0:55:35 | 0:55:40 | |
what is it that inspires you to get up every morning | 0:55:40 | 0:55:43 | |
and go and work so hard? | 0:55:43 | 0:55:44 | |
Making programmes is just huge fun. | 0:55:44 | 0:55:48 | |
I mean, not only go to exciting places, do exciting things, | 0:55:48 | 0:55:52 | |
you do it with pals. | 0:55:52 | 0:55:53 | |
You do it with people, you know, who are a joy to work with. | 0:55:53 | 0:55:56 | |
And making programmes is, as you know, very much a team thing | 0:55:56 | 0:56:01 | |
and I feel constantly embarrassed about the amount of credit | 0:56:01 | 0:56:05 | |
I get for the amount of work that many, | 0:56:05 | 0:56:08 | |
many other people are actually, in fact, doing. | 0:56:08 | 0:56:11 | |
So I've had a singularly, unbelievably fortunate time. | 0:56:11 | 0:56:14 | |
I'm afraid I might embarrass you a little more, | 0:56:14 | 0:56:16 | |
because I'm going to say on behalf of not just | 0:56:16 | 0:56:19 | |
everybody in the studio but on behalf of everybody watching at home | 0:56:19 | 0:56:22 | |
and the hundreds of millions of people around the world who love, | 0:56:22 | 0:56:26 | |
from the bottom of their hearts, what you do, | 0:56:26 | 0:56:29 | |
thank you for doing it and happy birthday. | 0:56:29 | 0:56:31 | |
Thank you very much indeed. | 0:56:31 | 0:56:33 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:56:33 | 0:56:34 | |
CHEERING | 0:56:41 | 0:56:43 | |
Thank you, thank you. | 0:56:47 | 0:56:49 | |
Well, as a final treat tonight, | 0:56:52 | 0:56:53 | |
taking time out from his hectic schedule touring his new album, | 0:56:53 | 0:56:57 | |
Take Me To The Alley, | 0:56:57 | 0:56:58 | |
and singing something that sums up the spirit of everything that | 0:56:58 | 0:57:02 | |
David has devoted his life to, | 0:57:02 | 0:57:04 | |
please welcome the brilliant Gregory Porter. | 0:57:04 | 0:57:08 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:57:08 | 0:57:10 | |
# I see trees of green | 0:57:16 | 0:57:21 | |
# And red roses too | 0:57:21 | 0:57:24 | |
# I'll watch them bloom | 0:57:25 | 0:57:29 | |
# For me and you | 0:57:29 | 0:57:32 | |
# And I think to myself | 0:57:32 | 0:57:35 | |
# What a wonderful world | 0:57:38 | 0:57:42 | |
# I see skies of blue | 0:57:48 | 0:57:53 | |
# And clouds of white | 0:57:53 | 0:57:56 | |
# The bright, blessed day | 0:57:58 | 0:58:01 | |
# The dark, sacred night | 0:58:01 | 0:58:04 | |
# And I think to myself | 0:58:05 | 0:58:08 | |
# What a wonderful world | 0:58:11 | 0:58:17 | |
# Oh | 0:58:17 | 0:58:20 | |
# And I think to myself | 0:58:22 | 0:58:27 | |
# What a wonderful world. # | 0:58:29 | 0:58:37 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:58:45 | 0:58:47 | |
Thank you very much! | 0:58:52 | 0:58:53 |