David was just the person who knew about all the things that moved me as a child. I can't remember the first time I became aware of his existence. I didn't know who he was or where he'd sprung from; it didn't even really register that his strange way of talking was a nobby British accent. He was neither father nor brother nor friend. When I think about my idea of David Attenborough, it strikes me that he represents quite a unique sort of concept; not mundane flesh, not quite humanised abstract like a conventional schoolteacher and yet not exactly disembodied mentor either. I'm having a lot of trouble articulating exactly what I thought he was and I had no fucking idea how he knew all that stuff in the first place. Just that it all seemed to make sense, that I should definitely listen, and that it was really fucking important. Life on Earth was my scripture, an explanation cleansed of the shabby anthropocentric shite that was so patently and distressingly fictitious. What a relief it was to find out I was a primate, not a fucking catholic.
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While he was of course informed by a gifted and unprecedented network of naturalists in the field and emerging technologies, full credit must be given to the unique personal imperatives that made David Attenborough midwife to our understanding of the natural world and our relative place in it. Without knowing me from a poop on the ground, he has told me more vigorous truths about myself than everyone I've ever known mushed together. My creativity is a blood-sister to all that David-purveyed revelation. R and I are incredibly lucky to have experienced his benign, heuristic ubiquity.
R's always been a DA devotee (along with the rather more scurrilous and um, earthy, Gerald Durrell) and knew a lot more about his origins and personal life than I did when we met, pointing me toward his autobiographical accounts and unwittingly introducing me to Hot David- shirtless smoothie, Madagascar-bound khaki enthusiast, tranquil gorilla whisperer. But reading such stuff is also a rueful exercise these days, laden with reminders of everything we're losing; extraneous curiosity, broad access to a decent fundamental education, functional literacy, societal equity, the appreciation of merit, authentic and effectual idiosyncrasy.
R's always been a DA devotee (along with the rather more scurrilous and um, earthy, Gerald Durrell) and knew a lot more about his origins and personal life than I did when we met, pointing me toward his autobiographical accounts and unwittingly introducing me to Hot David- shirtless smoothie, Madagascar-bound khaki enthusiast, tranquil gorilla whisperer. But reading such stuff is also a rueful exercise these days, laden with reminders of everything we're losing; extraneous curiosity, broad access to a decent fundamental education, functional literacy, societal equity, the appreciation of merit, authentic and effectual idiosyncrasy.
| Let's not lie face down in the gross mud of social decay at this juncture; David Attenborough is 90. Smarter than all our elected representative dickwads tied in a too-tight bundle on purpose. Hotter than a thousand malignant Instagram narcissists tricked into a basement and doused in overdue accelerant. More influential than any stunting, stunted bubblehead or flabby phalanx of Twitter warriors. |  |
"In the past, we didn't understand the effect of our actions. Unknowingly, we sowed the wind and now, literally, we are reaping the whirlwind. But we no longer have that excuse: now we do recognise the consequences of our behaviour. Now surely, we must act to reform it — individually and collectively, nationally and internationally — or we doom future generations to catastrophe." DA, 2003. We know, thanks to him; to act on that knowledge is our individual responsibility and privilege.
David Frederick Attenborough, thank you.
David Frederick Attenborough, thank you.
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