Just take a second to let the fact that David Attenborough is 91 today and is still bringing us Blue Planet II and hopes for a Planet Earth III before his 100th birthday!
Obviously David Attenborough is going to live forever because he’s secretly an immortal jellyfish, so 91 isn’t even old for him.
Being the only person to receive BAFTAs for programmes in each of black and white, colour, HD, and 3D, it’s safe to say all of his footage has been incredible, but there is one scene in particular which had the nation on the edge of its seat.
People all over the world were sweating and screaming when this new-born iguana fought for it’s life in Planet Earth II.
Representing their natural role as the actual devil, the racer snakes ganged up to hunt the baby marine iguana who was the embodiment of ‘survival of the fittest’.
We forget how easy we’ve got it, natural selection isn’t a thing in modern human society and this iguana reminded the millions of viewers how incredibly shit baby humans are…they can’t even hold their fucking heads up and this little lizard lad just escaped about 100 snakes.
He hatched out, rubbed the sleep from his eyes and was full of positivity for his journey to the sea. What could have been a pleasant stroll turned into the most tense battle of speed, intelligence and persistence.
Having just seen the serpents devour one of his compadres, the iguana was thrust into a race and we were all cheering him on. We thought he was doing so well when another pack of the cunning snakes came at him from the opposite direction.
I let out a moan of grievance as we saw our favourite iguana being wrapped in a web of writhing coils slowly compressing his little body…
…BUT THEN, out of nowhere he finds an opportunity to escape and, with Hans Zimmer engineering us a beautiful crescendo in the music, he scrambles and pelts to safety up a rock face.
The adrenalin rush is like nothing I have ever experienced and Twitter exploded in merriment at his survival.
The iguana actually inspired people.
I look forward to another 91 years of Attenborough’s soothing voice teaching me about the world.
Happy Birthday you legend.
