Life Goes On

Watched the third episode of Attenborough's Life On Earth (I'm lucky enough to have it on DVD) early this afternoon. As always there were any number of jaw-dropping moments, but the bit with the dragonfly's wings slowly crinkling into existence as they filled with its blood really put the lower bone on the floor.

I remember back in the seventies when the series came out, the novelist Angela Carter pointing out that it was odd that anybody should get excited by the idea of the occult and mysterious when the simple visible reality of life was so utterly staggering in itself. This seemed to me both a wise and useful thing to say, so that's why I'm repeating it.

I love the bit at the end of the programme when Attenborough tells us that the next episode is going to feature the extraordinary arrival of colour in the world (flowers are on their way) and he makes it sound just about as exciting as anything can possibly be - which, of course, it is.

It'd be a useful wheeze to make it compulsory for everyone to watch one hour's worth of nature documentary a day. The world would be a better, saner place for it, I suspect.