22.11.06

PLANET SNOOKER

The BBC's Culture Show is inviting people to vote for their leading living icon: people who have enriched the cultural landscape of Britain.

Among those nominated are Paul McCartney, Alan Bennett and David Bowie.

Another nominee is Sir David Attenborough, who has, through his various natural history programmes, brought the natural world into our living rooms.

However, not many people realise the debt snooker owes to Attenborough. As the first controller of BBC2 in the 1960s he wanted programmes that would showcase a new invention, colour television.

Snooker, with its many colours, fitted the bill and Attenborough commissioned Pot Black in 1969, which introduced the viewing public to the game and its players and paved the way for regular televised snooker and the professional circuit as we know it today.

In his autobiography, Life on Air, Attenborough says he "is as proud of Pot Black as I am of Civilisation" - a reference to the groundbreaking history programme presented by Kenneth Clark.

Reason enough, surely, to vote for him by following the link below.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/livingicons/vote/

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