Teacher and tortoise

The final episode of Life in Cold Blood, which was watched by more than six million people last night and ended with David Attenborough communing with Lonesome George, the last in his particular subspecies of giant Gallapagos tortoises, was unbearably poignant. There’s no cliché been left unwritten about the great Mr Attenborough and the importance of his wildlife programmes. (Colour television itself would have taken another ten years to get off the ground if it wasn’t for them). So I’ll leave you with an old joke.

We used to call our teacher ‘tortoise’. Why? Because he taught us. And so did David Attenborough.