Sometimes, I wish I was British.

Sure, there's the cute accent. There's the funny hats. There's the feeling of intellectual superiority when it comes to humor. There's even the fact that I could ignore painful dental visits without becoming socially ostracized. But mostly, I occasionally want to be British because of things like this:

Last Chance to See, BBC2, from Sunday 6 September, 8pm

Mark has joined forces with Stephen Fry to present a new series about threatened species, as inspired by the best-selling book which Mark wrote some 20 years ago with Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See.

The six-part series - which is entertaining despite being about animals on the brink - will include some of the old stars from the book. And it will introduce us to many new ones that have inevitably joined the ever-expanding cast of endangered species.

Updating the animals' stories and explaining their ecological predicaments, Mark and Stephen have faced a catalogue of adventures.

Filming began in the Amazon, continued through Kenya, Uganda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar, New Zealand, Baja California in Mexico, Malaysia and Indonesia (see Mark's blogs).

6 SEPTEMBER - Last Chance to See: Amazonian Manatee
13 SEPTEMBER - Last Chance to See: Northern White Rhino
20 SEPTEMBER- Last Chance to See: Aye Aye
27 SEPTEMBER- Last Chance to See: Komodo Dragon
11 OCTOBER - Last Chance to See: Kakapo
18 OCTOBER -Last Chance to See: Blue Whale

My favorite book of all time is now a TV series, and I live in the wrong country to see it.

PS if you live in Britain, have a great TV to DVD recorder (or an in with BBC) and want woo me for whatever reason, I just might consider a gift of this series in its entirety similar to manner in which a wild female chimp regards meat. Just some food for thought.

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