At the Royal Albert Hall this past May, a king sent him a handwritten card carried across Britain by a relay of animals in a short film. Strangers in Trafalgar Square dressed as lions and bumblebees to sing happy birthday to a cardboard cutout of his face. Sir David Attenborough turned one hundred years old, and by every account he wanted almost none of it.

"I had rather thought I would celebrate quietly," he said, before admitting the world had other plans.