I caught a marathon of British Isles – A Natural History while channel-hopping, and I guess I must just have been in the mood for an unfussy, really well made documentary, because I watched the entire thing in one sitting. I love that sort of thing – tectonic plates, fossils, dinosaurs, glaciers and cavemen. It takes me back to the huge science encyclopaedia I had as a kid.
British Isles – A Natural History is an eight-part series presented by Alan Titchmarsh. The BBC originally screened it in 2004, but it was picked up by Yesterday and shown, uh, yesterday. The programme spans from 3 billion years ago to the present day, showing how Britain was once on the equator during the Pangea days, and the resultant desert made the earth rich in iron, which manifests today in the exceptionally lush grass in the West Country. Continue reading
