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Top man, lives up on Richmond Hill and absolutely loves it - when asked about his travels and adventures and where he would choose to live, he replied, "I alrea
by vr46 5mo ago
Top man, lives up on Richmond Hill and absolutely loves it - when asked about his travels and adventures and where he would choose to live, he replied, "I already live there"
Fairly well-known locally is that my favourite bookshop, The Open Book in Richmond, stocks signed copies of all his books. They used to be signed directly on the page, but since he got to the mid-to-late nineties in age, tons of hardbacks are too much, so Helena wanders up there to get a load of bookplates signed these days.
Apart from that, I order all my books from them when I'm in London and a subsequent chat with Madeleine usually lasts ten times as long as the book shopping.
Anyway, I digress, yes, Sir David, amazing body of works and the books are wonderful.
- lanza 5mo agoI always find it really weird when somebody on the anonymous internet talks about local places as if we're all neighbors or something. Googling "Richmond Hill" gave me multiple pages of results that had nothing to do with the one that Attenborough lives at.
- msikora 5mo agoRichmond Hill, London
- saalweachter 5mo agoNow I just hear the Cinema Sins "ding!".
- sho_hn 5mo agoNot to sound hipster about it, but if it's done in this way I find it charming. I also had to piece it together, which took me on a little virtual travel tour, and had me wonder about what Richmond Hill means to the locals. Rather fitting in context, too. The "everyone on the internet is American" stuff in e.g. politics or job market convos is a lot more grating.
- barrkel 5mo agoIf you're familiar with London, you know where Richmond is and that it's a wealthy area. A search confirms there's a Richmond Hill in Richmond.
- Phemist 5mo agoOr if you've seen Ted Lasso
- psvv 5mo agoIn hindsight it maybe should have also been obvious from the language alone. "Richmond Hill" feels a bit like saying "Rich Hill Hill" which is basically like saying "Wealthy Desirable Area."
- Tagbert 5mo agoBTW there is a linguistic tradition of “hill hill”. When new immigrants come to an area and ask the locals what that hill is called, the locals say “big hill” in their language. The newcomers call it “bighill” hill in their language. I forget the examples but this has happened enough in England that there are places whose names are five hills deep (Brythonic -> Latin -> Saxon -> Norse -> Norman).
- JimDabell 5mo agoThese are known as tautological place names: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tautological_place_names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tautological_place_nam...
- teiferer 5mo agoThanks for sharing! My contribution to this discussion is the place in BTTF which makes fun of this concept, the home of Marty McFly: Hill Valley Not a tautological name but an oxymoronic one!
- serf 5mo agowould you rather less anecdotes or more hard coordinates?
- ASalazarMX 5mo agoI'd bet "Richmond Hill, London" would have been geographically adequate. Don't we criticize USAians for their provincialism?
- DavidPiper 5mo agoI really enjoyed OP's story, and the way they told it. Knowing the location of Richmond Hill is really not the point.
- wolvoleo 5mo agoWell yes but it does open the question for me as to what the place is like and why he'd like it so much.
- jjulius 5mo agoFor me, I know "Richmond" is used numerous places near me locally, so my assumption would've been that "Richmond hill" is too generic a query. "David Attenborough Richmond hill" would've been the way. I'd hardly fault OP for my own choice in query.
- DANmode 5mo agoand when you googled the book shop name?
- skrebbel 5mo agoYes, but it’s refreshing that for once it isn’t a San Francisco neighbourhood!
- throwaway2037 5mo agoTry this search: The Open Book in Richmond UK
- stuaxo 5mo agoIt's in the Richmond that's in London, not the one in Yorkshire.
- hnlmorg 5mo agoLondon isn’t exactly a small “local place” and there is only one Richmond Hill in London. So I’m not sure what the issue you’re having is.
- Toutouxc 5mo agoLess than 0.2% of the world's population lives in the wider metropolitan area of London. I live in Europe, I've been to London a few times, I have no idea what "Richmond Hill" is or whether Sir Attenborough actually lives in London.
- torben-friis 5mo agoI get where he's coming from, Attenbrorough is vocal about being a londoner to the point he has a whole documentary about the city, and he's very present in UK media. I get why it doesn't seem so obvious from the outside, but for British people it's as obvious as Apple headquarters being in California.
- hnlmorg 5mo agoYou didn’t need to know any that because the GP literally referenced London in their comment.
- bluebarbet 5mo agoThe second sentence was unnecessary.
- hnlmorg 5mo agoReally? It’s mild compared to the average tone on HN.
- skeeter2020 5mo agoYou had context, it piqued your interest and you did a tiny amount of work to figure it out. You could have quit without all three but you didn't; I wish the internet had a lot more of these types of experiences. It's only in the last ~25 years when the Internet became an anonymous place where we aren't all neighbours, and I mourn the loss.
- pyb 5mo agoI don't think full context should be provided at all times in casual internet conversations. However, in your defense, "Richmond" is one of the most overloaded geographical names, second only to "Kingston".
- duncans 5mo agoGet better at Googling https://www.google.com/search?q=The+Open+Book+in+Richmond https://www.google.com/search?q=The+Open+Book+in+Richmond
- notahacker 5mo agoWhilst we're doing random anecdotes that vaguely link to him, my late grandfather remembered David from his Wyggeston days as a good rugby player, which is a funny way to imagine him. Apparently he had the voice even then, but not so much to say about the world.
- why-el 5mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond_Hill,_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond_Hill,_London
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- johnny_reilly 5mo agoJust around the corner from The Open Book is Richmond Green. And that's where David Attenborough's brother lived; Richard Attenborough. Jurassic Park at the bottom of Richmond Hill and Blue Planet at the top of the hill. Oh and if you were at Richmond Green today, you could have gone to the May fair.