Friday, October 21, 2005 - Ode to Bill Oddie

When I was back in the UK in May there was a program on at 6PM a few times a week called 'Springwatch', it was one of those programs that highlight the good things about the UK in the form of it's wildlife and botany. The show monitored various animals throught the UK such as hedgehogs, badgers, bats, frogs, butterflies and various flowers of the country and the effect that Spring has on the native animal population of the UK. I made an effort to watch the show at my sisters when I was not out, or in the good old British pub.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/wildbritain/springwatch/

The host of the show was Bill Oddie, having been away from the UK for some time the only memories I have of Bill are from the silly 'Goodies' comedy TV show which I would watch as a kid.

 Having been drawn to program he now presents I decided to look into Bill in a bit more depth, it turns out he was born in Rochdale but was raised in Birmingham ( my home town) and there is a lot more to Bill Oddie than I remember from The Goodies;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Oddie

He's a multi-talented and pretty darn smart, writer, musician,ornitholigist and conservationist.

Bill is no George Clooney or Tom Cruise in appearance since he is short, chubby with bedraggled grey hair and a scruffy beard, but he is one of those quirky, unglamorous stars that only England could produce, he just seems like a really good bloke.

 I would love to see the show they did about his upbringing on BBC, details of which can be found here http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/familyhistory/wdytya_celeb_gallery_01.shtml.

to say that it reads somewhat Dickensian would be an understatement, it illustrates how far he has come from his working class roots.

 Bills latest show is not suprisingly called 'Autumnwatch', which also tracks animals life through Autumn in the UK. http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/wildbritain/autumnwatch/

 I downloaded the 'Mini Oddie' from this site which features an animated Bill Oddie popping up to inform you of various snippets of natural history with little videos, though it can be somewhat startling and annoying having Bill jump out of the bushes on your monitor.