Steve Irwin RIP
My first encounter with him was on a preview for one of his first shows broadcast in England. He was winding up a crocodile. "Who's this loony?" I wondered. Then he turned to the camera and uttered the immortal words: "If you think that's dangerous, you wanna see what I've got in my shed!"
I've said that as often as possible ever since, even when it's only slightly relevant to the conversation I'm having.
After all that time spent tempting crocs with his own son, he's eventually killed by Stingray. Death by dodgy 1960s supermarionation TV show.
He was up there with Richard Madeley, Ainsley Harriott and Rolf Harris. Very sad.
I'll be back sooner than I was last time to catch you up with my summer.
posted by Me @ 10:06 pm
13 Comments:
At 4:12 am,
swisslet said…
I was quite sad when I heard this (albeit a touch surprised that it merited being the lead story on the BBC for several hours when there are several wars going on). It's hard to resist the tempatation to suggest that if you roll the dice with dangerous animals often enough and for long enough, then this kind of freak accident is almost certain to happen, isn't it? But then, as apparently only 17 people EVER have died as a result of an attack by a stingray, then it seems a bit harsh to ascribe this to darwinism.
I thought he was great. He played the fool, but he clearly
a) knew an awful lot about these animals
and b) cared an awful lot about their conservation.
That was always enough for me. I'll miss him. Let's hope that crazy namibian snake photographing guy takes it easy for a few days. I'm not sure I could stand losing them both.
ST
(is it bad I've been earworming that Gerry Anderson theme tune all day, or could I say it was in tribute to his memory?)
At 4:13 am,
swisslet said…
(incidentally, how do they know it's only 17? Has someone been counting?)
At 4:14 am,
swisslet said…
also incidentally, I've swum with a stingray. It only marginally freaked me out, but was a lot better than the shark I had been dreading running into all morning as I swam along a reef in the florida keys, and was actually kinda cool.
At 5:03 am,
Unknown said…
I feel pretty sad about stevie boy as well - a bonza aussie straight up honest to goodness sharp talking bloke, husband and father who made me laugh and cared about the world enough to take the mickey out of it! Never met the bloke, been past his zoo, made me tune into animal planet and once I tuned away from the simpsons to watch his show .. seemed to live his life uncut - the thing about life is that sometimes people die - it's the worst bit - what a life he seemed to lead though eh? Good on him and good on everyone else who lives their life in such a way as to make a difference to the way another brother feels about their day... by the way ... you should see what I got in My Shed!
At 5:06 am,
Unknown said…
also .. when are you going to write about your holiday back home mikey boy?
pulling your thumb out might be an idea?
love ya bro (in a terribly macho way)
x
At 1:35 am,
Anonymous said…
His obvious ultimate ambition was to die on camera - to hear that this poor guy had achieved his death wish made me feel physically sick. Feeling sick didn't make a positive difference to my day biggabredren. The only saving grace is that his kids weren't, presumably, with him. His family must be so pleased. Mike's Ma
At 4:01 am,
Unknown said…
ma .. I don't understand what you're saying..how do you know he wanted to die on camera or had a death wish? That's not what I read ... also I felt sick to my stomach when I heard the news..what he did in his life is what made a positive diference to my day not his death..
At 6:30 pm,
Jonny said…
That's a wierd one Mike's ma. Australia is in mourning and there's talk of a state funeral if his family want it.
As I write this I'm watching one of those porgrammes they hurriedly throw together when something like this happens.
Oh, and ST, over here they are saying that only 3 other people in the world have died via a Stingray attack. I don't know where they get these facts from either!
Good to have you blogging again Mike..just a shame it's through such sad circumstances.
At 7:39 pm,
Me said…
Well, it's all about opinions, isn't it? Personally, I wouldn't do the kinds of things he did. Indeed, as regular readers may remember, I was quite scared by a monkey not so long ago. My opinion is that I liked him, and the world needs people who are prepared to take risks otherwise we'd never find anything out about animals, space, mountains, the jungle etc. Whenever I watched his shows (which wasn't regularly or anything) there was always a valid reason for his croc wrestling - he was often moving them on from a place where they might endanger the public, for example.
When I was in Kakadu in North Australia in January, we met a bloke who'd worked on the ranches all his life. He told us that "most Australians" hated Irwin because he was too Hollywood. He was utterly convinced that the crocs Irwin helped to move away from dangerous places were sedated. By "most Australians" perhaps he meant "most non-city-dwelling Australians".
Irwin's dad's moving reasons for not wanting a state funeral are on the BBC website video news thing. No idea how to link to that, I'm afraid.
At 6:36 pm,
Jonny said…
Yep, it's all about opinion indeed. Did you hear what Germaine Greer had to say about it?
At 6:40 pm,
Jonny said…
Is this what you are after Mike?
Tomorrow is "Khaki Day" - pay a dollar (which goes to charity), wear khaki and say "Criiiikey" a lot
At 5:19 pm,
Me said…
What did Greer have to say then, Jonny?
I wanted to link to the video, but that was a nice page.
At 3:16 am,
Anonymous said…
I put 'Germaine Greer - Steve Irwin' in google and up it came. She wote an article in the Guardian. Good reporting. Ma x
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