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 too much, so Helena wanders up there to get a load of bookplates signed these days.
Apart from that, I order all my books from them when I'm in London and a subsequent chat with Madeleine usually lasts ten times as long as the book shopping.
Anyway, I digress, yes, Sir David, amazing body of works and the books are wonderful.
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.
Happy Birthday David! I'm so happy you are still alive and well.
I understand it's pretty common in the UK, but as an American it's funny to see.
Somebody at the palace or the civil service was reviewing the nominations, saw "David Attenborough" and thought "that's a typo, they must have meant Dickie Attenborough".
It's also fascinating to see he is still active with regards to BBC documentations. I watched some newer BBC documentaries with other people voicing it, and while they are not terribly, all (!) of those newer guys are significantly more boring than even an old David. David understands things better than the newer guys do.
I wish humans would come together to re-wild more of the earth. Restoring wild nature and cutting emissions is the only way to really restore natural ecosystems. We're nowhere close to doing that.
