He has been besieged by birds, had 120m crabs try to crawl up his trouser leg and stayed cool beside an erupting Icelandic volcano. As David Attenborough turns 100, we celebrate his most extraordinary adventures

Today, David Attenborough turns 100. He is, without question, Britain’s greatest national treasure; a man who has devoted his career to helping the public engage with the natural world. But his story is also the story of television. Attenborough joined the BBC just as television ownership hit its biggest period of growth, then went on to shape the medium, both on and off camera, over the next decades. He is as important a figure in television as you will ever find, and here are his wildest moments.

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From devolved parliaments in Scotland and Wales to councils and mayoralties in England, find out what happened in your area

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You never change the pilot halfway through a flight, says a clearly rattled David Lammy. Can’t he see that his party is in a tailspin?

A couple of days ago on a Swiss flight from Seoul to Zurich, a pilot experienced a medical emergency. Three doctors on board assisted, one of the other pilots assumed the controls, and the plane ended up landing without harm to life. Like me, you will be absolutely appalled that David Lammy wasn’t also on the passenger manifest, hammering furiously on the cockpit door and offering that timeworn advice: “You don’t change the pilot during a flight!”

I mean … don’t you? Ever? I’m quite a nervous flyer and can definitely envisage a fairly significant number of situations in which you would, in fact, very much change the pilot mid-flight.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

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The great Mexican director is in England to pick up a BFI fellowship – and buy a haunted house. He talks gods, ghosts, monsters and almost being destroyed by the Weinsteins

When Guillermo del Toro goes to the cinema, he buys three seats. “I’m an expansive fellow,” he says, occupying one end of the sofa in the library of a London hotel. “Between the popcorn and my elbows and my girth, I need more than one seat. But I also like the feeling of being in company and yet alone. Everyone says how great the cinema is as a collective experience, and I agree. At the same time, I enjoy it the most when it’s not packed. I like being semi-alone.”

Those vacant seats must come in handy, too, if there are any ghosts in the vicinity. Ghosts and Del Toro go way back. The multi-Oscar-winning director was 11 when he first sensed a spectral presence at his family home in Guadalajara, Mexico. He insists this was his late uncle, who, before his death, had promised the young horror buff that he would pop back and tip him off if there were anything on the other side. Del Toro later heard a persistent sighing in his dead uncle’s room – a detail that inspired Santi, the sighing ghost-boy in The Devil’s Backbone, his 2001 horror set during the Spanish civil war. Decades later, when Del Toro was in New Zealand scouting locations for The Hobbit (which he co-wrote), his hotel room was filled with the cacophonous uproar of a murder in full swing, audible in a kind of surround-sound. And though there was no ghost as such when he stayed in an early-19th-century hotel in Aberdeen while filming Frankenstein two years ago, he felt “an oppressive vibe” about which he duly live-tweeted to his two-million-plus followers. Currently, he is looking to buy a haunted house in the UK. Presumably via Frightmove.

Adolescence writer Jack Thorne’s romantic new drama Falling is quite the gear shift. Its stars open up about what it’s like to research a love so controversial that the church couldn’t allow it

The scene is the convent garden of a closed order of nuns, the place is somewhere in the UK with a maelstrom of social problems – which, let’s be real, could be any of it. Keeley Hawes’s Anna, a nun, isn’t self-righteously cloistered; she makes regular forays into the real world to do good works at food banks. But she’s not of this world. She moves with such unobtrusive poise it takes a beat to work out what it reminds you of: obedience. Bride of Christ, remember? She wears her faith lightly: when she’s in the walled garden, it’s to grow cabbages not praise God’s creation, but she still radiates peace, and her vegetable patch radiates it right back at her.

In the 90s, Hawes slayed one period drama after another: Wives and Daughters, Our Mutual Friend. For Falling – the surprising project from writer-creator Jack Thorne, who made such a strong statement about the modern condition and its harsh edges with Adolescence that MPs were debating it in parliament – she channels something I haven’t seen since those days. Her range of gorgeous guileless expressions.

After Zelenskyy, Robert Brovdi is Moscow’s top assassination target owing to his long-range attacks deep within Russia

Vladimir Putin has told Russians that victory against Ukraine is inevitable. But on Saturday no tanks or missiles will rumble over the cobbles of Moscow’s Red Square. For the first time in almost 20 years the annual celebration of the allies’ victory over Nazi Germany will take place without military hardware. The reason: the Kremlin is afraid of a Ukrainian attack.

The man who has arguably done more to spook the Putin regime this weekend than anyone else is Robert Brovdi, the head of a Ukrainian military drone unit, Madyar’s Birds, named after his call sign. In recent months it has carried out a series of long-range strikes against targets deep within Russia, including ports, oil refineries and missile factories.

Farage says Labour being ‘wiped out by Reform in many of their traditional areas’; Greens win first mayoralty in Hackney

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We’re getting statements from some of the political parties now as we wait for results.

For the Conservatives, party chairman Kevin Hollinrake said:

We have run an energetic and positive campaign, showcasing that we have a clear plan to get Britain working again and that we have the team to deliver it... We know that so soon after a historic general election defeat and contesting wards won during the Party’s polling highs, that this will be a difficult set of elections for us. But we will continue to rebuild and to show the public that we have changed, to demonstrate that only this new Conservative party is a credible alternative.

People are deeply disappointed with a Labour government that has been too timid to fix the country, but they are also appalled by the rise of Reform and Nigel Farage’s Trump-style politics. While those on the extremes of the right and the left want to burn everything down, Liberal Democrats want to fix what’s broken. Every Liberal Democrat local champion elected today will fight tirelessly for the communities they serve.

I’ve travelled across England and Wales and I’m hearing the same everywhere I go – confidence that we will win more councillors than ever before. The news from the doorstep is that we will be taking seats from not just Labour but the Tories and Lib Dems too, from all across the country. Voters are responding to the fact that Greens are the only party taking the cost-of-living crisis seriously, with real plans to cut bills, reduce rents and provide genuinely affordable homes, as well as tackling the climate and nature crisis.

Throughout this election, we have heard a clear appetite for change. People want a government that will stand up for Wales and focus relentlessly on the key issues affecting their lives. People have told us they have been inspired by Rhun ap Iorwerth’s leadership and driven by a desire for a positive alternative to Reform UK’s chaos and division.

Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, concedes his party was comprehensively beaten

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John Swinney, the Scottish National party leader, has declared victory in the Holyrood elections after the first handful of results confirmed Labour had been comprehensively beaten.

Speaking to the BBC after holding his own seat of Perthshire North, Swinney said he was “absolutely certain the SNP is going to be the leading party coming out of this election”.

Greens leader celebrates victory over Labour for Zoë Garbett, his party’s first ever elected mayor

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Zack Polanski has declared Britain’s two-party politics “dead and buried” as his Green party won its first ever mayoral election.

The Greens unseated Labour from mayoral power in the east London borough of Hackney after 24 years. The new mayor, Zoë Garbett, told reporters she was “elated” and promised it was just the beginning, after the party won with 35,720 votes to Labour’s 26,865.

Plaid Cymru set to take power in Wales and SNP to retain it in Scotland, but Reform made big gains in both nations

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The polls were terrible, the predictions dire and even one of his predecessors as Labour leader, Ed Miliband, had reportedly told Keir Starmer he should set a timetable for his resignation.

But for the prime minister, as polls closed in Wales, Scotland and many regions of England, there would be no consideration of such a course. “To all the Labour members and volunteers who have supported local campaigns across the country: thank you,” he posted on X late on Thursday. “Together we will build a stronger and fairer Britain.”