David Attenborough

The art of extinction

11 June 2022 9:00 am

Sam Kriss on the power of paleoart

We must all become Doctor Dolittles and listen to the wisdom of animals

23 April 2022 9:00 am

One day the writer and artist James Bridle rented a hatchback, taped a smartphone to the steering wheel and installed…

‘Espouse’ has become divorced from its meaning

27 February 2021 9:00 am

What do people think espouse means? It looks fairly plain, since spouses are to have and to hold, or indeed…

What Pliny the Elder and David Attenborough have in common

13 February 2021 9:00 am

When it comes to natural history, Sir David Attenborough rules the airwaves. Pliny the Elder (d. ad 79) who, as…

I've lost patience with podcasts and their presenters

24 April 2020 11:00 pm

‘To be recognised and accepted by a peregrine,’ wrote J.A. Baker in 1967, ‘you must wear the same clothes, travel…

David Attenborough is making the same mistake as Greta Thunberg

17 January 2020 5:30 pm

It wasn’t so long ago that Sir David Attenborough came across as a calm voice of reason. His much-admired documentaries…

BBC wildlife documentaries are just a chance to tell us all off

2 November 2019 9:00 am

Older readers may remember a time when landmark BBC wildlife documentary series were joyous celebrations of the miraculous fecundity of…

Nigel Farage had better hurry up and settle for a peerage

26 October 2019 9:00 am

Last week, an angry Telegraph reader asked me why I had got through a whole column on Brexit without mentioning…

Frankie Boyle's New World Order, on which the comic is paid to say the totally and predictably sayable. Image: BBC/ Endemol Shine UK/ Brian J Ritchie

Why has Frankie Boyle gone so soft?

27 April 2019 9:00 am

‘I spend a lot of time helping teenagers who’ve been sexually abused…’ — beat — ‘…find their way out of…

Netflix’s ‘Our Planet’

If you liked Triumph of the Will, you’ll love Our Planet

13 April 2019 9:00 am

If you liked Triumph of the Will, you’ll love this latest masterpiece of the genre: Our Planet. The Netflix nature…

The whole narrative of Dynasties was too suspiciously shapely. Image: BBC NHU

How does David Attenborough know what the monkeys are thinking?

17 November 2018 9:00 am

The opening episode of BBC1’s Dynasties — the new Attenborough-fronted series from the Natural History Unit — introduced us to…

It’s hard to preserve the primacy of head over heart while watching this doc about refugees

4 November 2017 9:00 am

Anybody who wants to maintain a strong and untroubled stance against mass migration to Europe should probably avoid BBC2’s Exodus:…

David Attenborough used to steal the animals he found in the jungle and take them home

21 May 2016 9:00 am

Let me start this week with an admittedly hard quiz question: in 1954, how did the sudden illness of Jack…

The Lahore attacks reflected hatred of Christians. Why must we deny it?

2 April 2016 9:00 am

You might expect that the murder of Christians would excite particular horror in countries of Christian heritage. Yet almost the…

Charles Moore’s Notes: Trying to reach a global agreement on anything is a waste of time

5 December 2015 9:00 am

Speaking on the Today programme on Monday, Sir David Attenborough, who wants a global agreement to control carbon emissions, pointed…

Another enemy within: Thatcher (and Wilson) vs the BBC

7 March 2015 9:00 am

In a ‘Dear Bill’ letter in Private Eye, an imaginary Denis Thatcher wrote off the BBC as a nest of…

Penelope Lively’s diary: My old-age MOT

22 February 2014 9:00 am

My surgery has been calling in all those over 75 for a special session with their doctor — a sort…