Sir David Attenborough- a broadcasting legend

 Sir David Attenborough- a broadcasting legend.

Clever chap that David Attenborough. In fact the man is a genius, a wonderfully informative man, worldly, exceptionallly well read, erudite and a thoroughly nice man. You must have seen him or heard him. He's been on our TV for the best part of 60 years now so you couldn't have missed him or maybe you have and wished you had seen him. There are very few of us who haven't seen at least one or two, maybe dozens of his supremely brilliant and masterful nature programmes over the years.

 How can any of us have failed to wonder at the sheer breadth of knowledge of the man? If he had been on our supper quiz table I'd have been the happiest man in the world. I'd have shaken the hands of the people who organised the supper quiz and just revelled in the moment. We'd have won that supper quiz in the blink of an eye. It would have been won convincingly by half time and we'd have done a lap of an honour around the tables, boasting about our expertise and showing off our trophy.

Last night though, my wife and I sat down to watch the latest instalment of the David Attenborough series. It has to be said it was a masterpiece. I'd even go as far as saying that it has to be one of the best TV programmes of all time, maybe the best for quite some time. You'd have to a long way to find a programme so compelling, so stunningly photographed and so visually entrancing. In fact I'm not sure that anything beats it, matches it or surpasses it. I was glued to the screen, transfixed and at times almost totally absorbed by the sheer quality of the programme.

Planet Earth 2 takes us on a wonderful tour of the world, the dreamily diverse continents, landscapes, vast geographical distances and heaven sent perspectives. It also explores those lovely animals who inhabit those lands, who prowl, swoop, hunt, forage for food and then, for reasons that seem quite inexplicable to the human eye, try to rip each other to pieces.

Back in the late 1970s, Attenborough and his merry band of women and men took their cameras to what seemed the most inhospitable of all jungles. Here he found some of the most adorable gorillas ever to walk the planet. Suddenly he was among his new found friends, rolling around with them quite amiably and then discovering that gorillas, apart from dogs, could also be man's best friend. For the best part of a couple of minutes, the camera showed Attenborough smiling and playing and generally forming what looked like the most moving of all relationships.

In Planet Earth 2 Attenborough once again captured the moods, mannerisms, and the sheer volatility of our planet. It suddenly occurred to me that maybe we're not the only people who kill, injure and generally create all kinds of mayhem. It was explosive, violently aggressive and, to be honest just a bit frightening and disconcerting. Those animals can certainly pack a punch. You began to wonder why any of us should resort to such barbaric methods just for a bit of decent grub. Why do we challenge each other to fight when we can't get our own way. Do we have to go to war and fight each other to the point of death just because we're hungry?

Planet Earth gave us everything. It gave us blood, guts, horror, violence, conflict and distressing savagery. And that was only last night's edition. Can you imagine what it's like when desperation sets in and the animals get restless and agitated? It was all very unsavoury, hard to believe at times and hardly possible. When starvation kicks in and the going gets tough it is, quite literally, the survival of the fittest.

In last week's episode we had those memorable grizzly bears scratching themselves quite blissfully against trees and then scratching even more hilariously when they thought there was a BBC camera on them. There was that great clashing of the male and female eagle who quite clearly seemed  intent on murdering each other. And what about those cute black crows behind the eagles behaving so provocatively and spitefully that it was like watching children winding each other up most deliberately.

In one of the final sequences last week there was TV gold at its most classical and sparkling. Suddenly a group of wonderfully disciplined flamingos started marching, strutting and swaggering forward rather like a well drilled army. It was hilarious, stupendously funny and has to be seen over and over again. Long thin legs quickly scurried along at a fair old speed and in perfect formation. I, for one, would watch it on I Player repeatedly just to make sure that I hadn't imagined it.


Last night did not disappoint. I thought I'd seen everything. But I hadn't. There were wild horses lashing out with their legs, kicking furiously and then thrashing each other brutally when they thought their enemies hadn't suffered enough punishment. There were the zebras clomping menacingly through arid desert lands, eyes piercing and forever watchful. There were the lazy, languid elephants who always seem to do things at their pace, large feet and bodies plodding along at a most leisurely trot. It almost looked as if they didn't care where they were going or their intended destination. As long as they got to where they were going.

Then there were the cute squirrels who seemed to do nothing but hide nervously behind rocks and then try to camouflage themselves when they felt threatened. It was nature at its most intriguing, revealing, secretive and yet very purposeful. Yes there was a definite sense that once animals make up their minds to do something they'll stop at nothing to do it. I kept hoping that Planet Earth 2 would continue for days, weeks and months unremittingly. On second thoughts maybe not. You do have to go to sleep after all but it was a shame that it couldn't have gone on for much longer than it did.

Finally there was another high- light last night. The BBC cameramen were determined to get their special and precious moment. They cleared the decks, lay in wait and pounced decisively when they'd found what they were looking.Cut, Action and Camera. The Beeb had got their prey. It was all very painstaking but worth its weight in gold. You had to see it to believe it, It was quite the most amazing spectacle.

Huge swarms of locusts came from all directions and I mean all directions. Suddenly it was rather like watching a vast black curtain unfolding in front of your eyes. It was like a thick blanket flapping across the skyline, Here they came, thousands and thousands of locusts seemed to be flying over endless acres of deserts, following each other devotedly and quite harmoniously. There was no needle or aggro, bitterness or bad feeling. Just locusts and more locusts. They seemed to be addicted to the thrill of the flight. In the end one victorious BBC camereaman started  waving his hands at the locusts trying, it seemed to round them up like naughty nursery schoolchildren.


By the end of Planet Earth 2 my wife and I were almost thrilled at what we'd just seen, euphoric perhaps and possibly privileged to have seen what we'd seen. This was the most definitive nature programme, We turned to each other and gazed at each other with astonishment. Planet 2 Earth has to be one of the most original and thought provoking TV programmes of all time. In fact I think it deserves to win all of the awards at every TV awards ceremony. No programme ticked all of the right boxes, no programme made you think deeply about the things that the human race does to both itself and each other.  But then you thought about those grizzly bears and flamingos and you had to laugh -over and over again. It was TV doing at its most spellbinding. And that can be no bad thing.