A Remarkable Man

Any average television viewer would recognize the face of this man. He has survived extremes of temperatures, stood in hostile environments, followed almost all the animal species in the world and talked about almost everything that constitutes life in the ecosystem. Sir David Attenborough, the eminent naturalist and popular television personality exudes a boyish enthusiasm that quickly captures the attention of the viewers, as he takes them on a journey that reveals many fascinating and unknown aspects of the natural world.
He was awarded the Special Recognition Award on October 2006 at the National Television Awards held at the Royal Albert Hall in London, UK. The video shows clippings from some of his works and has a few personalities talking about his commitment and interest in the field.

His works are spectacular not only in their videography but also in the way it showcases the life on earth in a new dimension that commands respects for it from the viewers. The main reason he captures the interest of the viewers is due to his realistic presentation. Unlike the stoic narrations found in most of the wildlife videos in which the narrator just lends his voice from behind the camera in an impassive way, Sir Attenborough explores the natural world with a boyish enthusiasm that any other person would feel when witnessing a marvel of the natural world, thus making himself endeared to the viewer.
Update: If the above video captures your interest, do see the second part of the Awards and this magnificent moment from one of his episodes, rated as one of his all time best moments.

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Why does the media waste time 'reporting' these clichés.
I seriously doubt that any level-headed Indian bothers about the media reporting this or not, as everyone knows for sure the veracity of these claims by our 'beloved' neighbors. I think the same story has been reported zillion times till today, only difference being that the different permutations and combinations in the coining of words each time.
So why waste resources and time? Instead, the page could have been given up for some advertisement. At least they will make some money out of it.

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Why Shankar should be kicked..

He had the project of a lifetime on his hands for which he took one full year. Yet Shankar managed to make a mess out of it.

I have seen Sivaji atleast 5 times so far, good enough to 'analyze' the movie scene by scene. I spotted many discontinuities and plain mistakes. I chose to show this one, as it is really funny. The picture on the left is the Green Card shown by Rajini to prove that he is MGR. It says "Residence since: 21/05/10". First lapse is the grammar, which has gone for a six. Rajini is supposedly a US resident from 2010, which makes no sense at all. Moreover, it says the card expires on 21/05/07 which makes it all the more crazier. And finally, US follows the month/date/year format and not the day/month/year as shown in the card (an error which is negligible considering the magnitude of the other two).

The second photo is that of the credit card shown by Rajini. The card has only three important fields: 'Name', 'valid since' and 'valid thru'. Shankar obviously thought that Rajini being the macho guy he is, can wield even outdated cards (2002 expiry date in this case) and get away with it.

Our TN police commissioner (or whoever he is) to whom Rajini shows these cards, does not possess the basic education to verify the print on these cards. Shankar probably thought that die-hard fans of Rajini would be as dumb as the man who plays the commissioner and will just close their eyes to everything else but Rajini in all the frames. These cards are just flashed across the screen during the movie and not even shown for a second. But seriously did Shankar think because of this nobody would spot it? Maybe he has not heard of an option called 'pause'.

Pathetic. Maybe he could try really 'directing' a few films instead of focusing on grandiose sets and song sequences. I have a spotted a dozen such lapses in the movie which I can attribute to no one else but Shankar and the editing team. If I could spot so many lapses, surely he should be. Either he is incompetent or he is callous enough to assume that Tamil Cinema audience do not focus on the subtleties in a movie.

AVM should seriously consider asking Shankar to return half of the pay he got for this project. And as we say in Tamil, "Shankar'a thonga vittu adikanum"!

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