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David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

bbc.com

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Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#141

Post by torben-friis »

Toutouxc wrote: post #135
hnlmorg wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

London isn’t exactly a small “local place” and there is only one Richmond Hill in London. So I’m not sure what the issue you’re having is.

Less than 0.2% of the world's population lives in the wider metropolitan area of London. I live in Europe, I've been to London a few times, I have no idea what "Richmond Hill" is or whether Sir Attenborough actually lives in London.

I get where he's coming from, Attenbrorough is vocal about being a londoner to the point he has a whole documentary about the city, and he's very present in UK media.

I get why it doesn't seem so obvious from the outside, but for British people it's as obvious as Apple headquarters being in California.

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#142

Post by nephihaha »

dingaling wrote: post #112
nephihaha wrote: post #4

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

And apart from his film crews who actually shot the footage...

He travelled with them on numerous occasions. In some of his earlier programmes, you can see him on location in the most farflung corners of the world. I am sure he has been to the Galápagos and Antarctica, on multiple occasions. In more recent times, Attenborough has just tended to do the voiceovers.

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#143

Post by hnlmorg »

Toutouxc wrote: post #135
hnlmorg wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

London isn’t exactly a small “local place” and there is only one Richmond Hill in London. So I’m not sure what the issue you’re having is.

Less than 0.2% of the world's population lives in the wider metropolitan area of London. I live in Europe, I've been to London a few times, I have no idea what "Richmond Hill" is or whether Sir Attenborough actually lives in London.

You didn’t need to know any that because the GP literally referenced London in their comment.

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#144

Post by dnnddidiej »

abhinavk wrote: post #118
deepsun wrote: post #85

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

He wasn't always a narrator.

Narrator: He wasn't always a narrator.

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#145

Post by jayflux »

CSMastermind wrote: post #63

He was just mentioned on today's Lateral podcast with Tom Scott. Apparently, he's the reason tennis balls are yellow. I guess they were traditionally white but when they started broadcasting matches on TV it was too hard to see the ball. David who was at the BBC at the time suggested they use yellow balls instead so they would come through on camera. Ever since then tennis balls have been yellow.

> David who was at the BBC at the time suggested they use yellow balls instead

Apparently he didn’t explicitly say they should be yellow, he just said the white didn’t work, the ITF chose yellow after research and studies.

Ironically, Wimbledon was the last venue to switch to the colour, despite David influencing the decision to change it.

> In 1972 the ITF introduced yellow tennis balls into the rules of tennis, as research had shown these balls to be more visible to television viewers. Meanwhile Wimbledon continued to use the traditional white ball, but eventually adopted yellow balls in 1986.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis_ball#

https://pressurebox.com/blogs/news/why-are-tennis-balls-yell...

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#146

Post by mrsvanwinkle »

itissid wrote: post #48
vjerancrnjak wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

David Attenborough saw more clearly than most what was being lost. But even he stopped short of fully applying that logic to animals themselves. Rewilding at scale, deep emissions cuts, and a serious move away from animal agriculture are the same project.

He did mention in one of the planet earth 2/3 series how so much of the land is used for farmed animals. And, for the sake of completeness of argument, for restoring what was lost, the challenge is how to raise the standard of living fast enough for people so they give a damn about anything apart from ourselves was THE challenge to combat climate change and global ecological disaster. He specifically mentioned e.g. e…

Extremely insightful re: capacity to care for others.. though the trend of "NIMBY" and "petite-bougie" ideology (a more modern term being "temporarily embarrassed billionaires") and pretty much the guiltless profit maximization of the oligarchy point to that hypothesis being another form of trickle down economics (only the "prosperous" part. the educating women part should be a given, but if you read the comments in a recent frontpage post about humanitarian aide, the findings of those with decades in direct involvement pointing to "gender empowerment" and road infrastructure as most impactful long-term were met with the same "pronoun" schtick.

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#147

Post by skeeter2020 »

lanza wrote: post #53
vr46 wrote: post #33

Top man, lives up on Richmond Hill and absolutely loves it - when asked about his travels and adventures and where he would choose to live, he replied, "I already live there" Fairly well-known locally is that my favourite bookshop, The Open Book in Richmond, stocks signed copies of all his books. They used to be signed directly on the page, but since he got to the mid-to-late nineties in age, tons of hardbacks are to…

I always find it really weird when somebody on the anonymous internet talks about local places as if we're all neighbors or something. Googling "Richmond Hill" gave me multiple pages of results that had nothing to do with the one that Attenborough lives at.

You had context, it piqued your interest and you did a tiny amount of work to figure it out. You could have quit without all three but you didn't; I wish the internet had a lot more of these types of experiences. It's only in the last ~25 years when the Internet became an anonymous place where we aren't all neighbours, and I mourn the loss.

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#148

Post by pyb »

lanza wrote: post #53
vr46 wrote: post #33

Top man, lives up on Richmond Hill and absolutely loves it - when asked about his travels and adventures and where he would choose to live, he replied, "I already live there" Fairly well-known locally is that my favourite bookshop, The Open Book in Richmond, stocks signed copies of all his books. They used to be signed directly on the page, but since he got to the mid-to-late nineties in age, tons of hardbacks are to…

I always find it really weird when somebody on the anonymous internet talks about local places as if we're all neighbors or something. Googling "Richmond Hill" gave me multiple pages of results that had nothing to do with the one that Attenborough lives at.

I don't think full context should be provided at all times in casual internet conversations.

However, in your defense, "Richmond" is one of the most overloaded geographical names, second only to "Kingston".

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#149

Post by UncleSlacky »

teiferer wrote: post #114
JimDabell wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are known as tautological place names: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tautological_place_nam...

Thanks for sharing! My contribution to this discussion is the place in BTTF which makes fun of this concept, the home of Marty McFly: Hill Valley Not a tautological name but an oxymoronic one!

You're not thinking fourth-dimensionally!

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#150

Post by heresie-dabord »

Aboutplants wrote: post #132

A true hero in my life. I had VHS copies of Trials Of Life that I wore out through watching over and over as a child. It opened my eyes to the world and wonder of nature. In college I started hunting down every single appearance he had listed in any filmography I could find and have a hard drive in my attic with all but a couple of his earliest Black and White appearances from the earliest part of his career. I haven…

From the article:

> Actor Sir Ian McKellen added that Sir David "sums up what was best about the BBC" with "serious programmes made for a popular audience".

A life of serious, informative, gently enlightening work. In itself, an endangered species.

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