Wednesday 21 August 2013

Off-air recordings for week 24-30 August 2013

Please email Rich Deakin rdeakin@glos.ac.uk if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*

*This applies to staff members and students at the University of Gloucestershire only. Any recordings made are to be used only for educational and non-commercial purposes under the terms of the ERA Licence
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Saturday 24th August

Factual > Politics > Documentaries

Thatcher - The Downing Street Years
BBC2, 8:10-9:10pm, 2/4 - Best of Enemies

In her second term in office after victory in 1983, Mrs Thatcher's position seemed impregnable. Her conduct of the Falkland's war was popular, she had trounced Arthur Scargill and the striking miners, and had survived the bombing by the IRA of the Grand Hotel in Brighton. But all was not well: Cabinet Secretary Robert Armstrong and ex Chancellor Nigel Lawson are amongst those who recall the emnity between the Prime Minister and her Defence Secretary Michael Heseltine. Thatcher thought of him as 'over-poweringly ambitious and self-centred', and his handling of the Westland affair in 1986 only served to increase ill-feeling between the two, which reached its height with his challenge to her leadership in 1990. 


Factual > News > Documentaries

This World: America's Stoned Kids
BBC2, 9:10-10:10pm

In November last year the American state of Colorado voted to legalise the recreational use of cannabis. It is the most radical experiment in drugs policy for generations and the world will be looking to see what happens, particularly to drug use amongst teenagers. In this hour long documentary for This World, clinical psychologist and addiction expert Professor John Marsden heads to Denver, the state capital, to assess the likely impact of legalisation on a country already suffering an epidemic of teenage marijuana use.
At a local high school, John hears from A grade students who explain that getting stoned is now more socially acceptable than getting drunk. At an addiction clinic that treats children as young as 12, John hears how marijuana is already the number one reason for kids to enter residential programmes more than alcohol, cocaine, ecstasy and other drugs combined. With rates of teenage cannabis use in the USA the highest that they have been in years, it is widely acknowledged the war on drugs has failed. However the question is, will full legalisation manage to take the selling of the drug out of the hands of the street dealers and into the hands of the legitimate business people and be the answer to stopping America's kids from getting stoned?


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Monday 26th August


Factual > Science & Nature > Nature & Environment

Ultimate Swarms
BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm

Zoologist and explorer George McGavin goes in search of some of the world's most impressive swarms. By getting right to the heart of these natural spectacles, he finds out why swarms are the ultimate solution to surviving against all odds and discovers how unlocking the secrets to how animals swarm could be crucial to understanding our own increasingly crowded lives. 

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Tuesday 27th August

Factual > Crime > Documentaries

Born to Kill? The Killer Prophet
Channel 5, 8:00-9:00pm, 3/6

In October 1970, the bodies of Dr Victor Ohta, his wife Virginia, their two sons and the medic's secretary were found dumped in the swimming pool of their California home. Many believed that a murderous hippie cult was on the rampage, but the killer turned out to be reclusive 24-year-old John Linley Frazier, who believed that he was on a mission from God. In this programme, eyewitnesses and criminal experts analyse Frazier's motives and personality.


Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media > Arts > Documentaries > Factual > History

Ancient Greece: The Greatest Show On Earth
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/3 - Democrats

Classicist Dr Michael Scott journeys to Athens to explore how drama first began. He discovers that from the very start it was about more than just entertainment - it was a reaction to real events, it was a driving force in history and it was deeply connected to Athenian democracy. In fact, the story of theatre is the story of Athens. 

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Wednesday 28th August

Factual > History > Documentaries

Martin Luther King and the March on Washington
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm

Documentary commemorating the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's March on Washington, a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. This programme tells the story of the how the march for jobs and freedom began, speaking to the people who organised and participated in it. Using rarely seen archive footage the film reveals the background stories surrounding the build up to the march as well as the fierce opposition it faced from the JFK administration, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI and widespread claims that it would incite racial violence, chaos and disturbance. The film follows the unfolding drama as the march reaches its ultimate triumphs, gaining acceptance from the state, successfully raising funds and in the end, organised and executed peacefully - and creating a landmark moment in the struggle for civil rights and racial equality in the united states.

Including interviews with some of the key actors: members of the inner circles of the core organizational groups such as Jack O'Dell, Clarence B. Jones, Julian Bond and Andrew Young; Hollywood supporters and civil rights campaigners including Harry Belafonte, Diahann Carroll and Sidney Poitier; Performing artists at the March such as Joan Baez and Peter Yarrow; as well as JFK administration official, Harris Wofford; the CBS Broadcaster who reported from the March, Roger Mudd; Clayborne Carson, the founding director of Stanford's Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute and a participant in the March; as well as those who witnessed the march on TV and were influenced by it, such as Oprah Winfrey, and most of all, the remembrances of the ordinary citizens who joined some 250,000 Americans at the capital on that momentous.


Factual > History > Politics > Documentaries

MLK: The Assassination Tapes
BBC4, 10:00-10:50pm

April 4, 1968, and Martin Luther King is gunned down on the balcony of a hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. The catalyst that would lead to his assassination began three months before his death, when the city's sanitation workers went on strike. Realising that this might be a seminal moment in the civil rights movement, scholars at the University of Memphis started to collect every piece of media they could find - television, radio and print.
Unbelievably, most of this remarkable footage hasn't been seen since 1968. Now, for the first time, it has been chronologically reassembled, bringing to life as never before the tumultuous events surrounding one of the most shocking assassinations in America. 



Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media

Dreaming the Impossible: Unbuilt Britain
BBC4, 10:50-11:50pm, 3/3 - A Revolution in the City

Using her skills to uncover long-forgotten and abandoned plans, architectural investigator Dr Olivia Horsfall Turner explores the fascinating and dramatic stories behind some of the grandest designs that were never built.
Destruction, whether intentional or circumstantial, often creates a clean slate and demands a fresh outlook in which we come to think the unthinkable. This programme looks at bold, and in some cases shocking, plans to make revolutionary changes to Britain's biggest cities.
In the mid 17th century, the capital was reeling from the devastation caused by the Great Fire of London. But amid the destruction, a huge opportunity arose to completely remodel and modernise London and make it into a very different city than the one we know today.
London was effectively a blank sheet of paper and within a week of the city being razed to the ground, architect Sir Christopher Wren presented King Charles II with a vision to create a completely new city. Wren wanted the winding streets and old courtyards that had existed almost unchanged since medieval times to be replaced by monumental Parisian-style avenues in a formal grid pattern with large piazzas. This was a unique opportunity to improve on the past, but while Wren's design for St Paul's Cathedral did become a reality London was reconstructed on essentially the same street plan as before the fire.
Three centuries later, Glasgow was the second city of the empire and the industrial powerhouse of the nation, but was struggling to cope with overcrowding and slum housing. Many believed the only solution was to start again. The city's leading planner, Robert Bruce, proposed demolishing the entire city centre - the celebrated buildings of Mackintosh and Greek Thompson would all have been bulldozed - to create a 1940s vision of the future. The new Glasgow would have been built as a system of regular tower blocks, ringed by a motorway, built in districts according to function. Bruce's justification for these drastic proposals was the creation of a new 'healthy and beautiful city'. Although his plan was not realised in its entirety, many of his ideas were carried out, and the M8 motorway which cuts right through the city centre is probably the most visible legacy of the 'Bruce Report'.
In both plans, destruction was the driving force behind creating a new city on a fresh slate. Separated in time by 300 years, these two radical thinkers, Christopher Wren and Robert Bruce, devised colossal, transformative schemes for their respective cities in a bid to create their very personal vision of the 'perfect city'. 



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Thursday 29th August

Factual > Science & Nature > Nature & Environment

Poaching Wars with Tom Hardy
ITV1, 9:00-10:00pm, 2/2

All over Sub-Saharan Africa, the poaching crisis is spreading like a plague. Cameroon, Chad, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have all seen large-scale elephant slaughter and throughout the rest of Africa, both rhino and elephant are being killed in alarming numbers. The everyday effect of the poaching business on African wildlife is one of horror and cruelty that brutalises both the animals and the humans involved.
In programme two, Tom heads to Botswana, Mozambique and Tanzania, looking for answers.

In the 1930s there were believed to be nearly five million elephant ranging free in Africa. Today their total number is thought to be less than half a million. Rhino populations have also been decimated due to the simple greed for horn and ivory.

Botswana’s second biggest industry, tourism, is wildlife-related, so it has a lot to protect and more incentive than most.  Tom goes to meet Tshekedi Khama, the Minister of Environment Wildlife and Tourism and a big player in the world of poaching. Tom is directed to a very secretive warehouse on the outskirts of Gaborone, Botswana’s capital city. Inside he is stunned to see thousands of elephant tusks being stored.
The ivory trade was banned worldwide in 1989 but today the black market is estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars every year...



Factual > Science & Nature > Science & Technology > Documentaries

Horizon: Dinosaurs - The Hunt for Life
BBC2, 11:20pm-12:20am

The hunt for life within the long-dead bones of dinosaurs may sound like the stuff of Hollywood fantasy - but one woman has found traces of life within the fossilised bones of a T Rex.
Dr Mary Schweitzer has seen the remains of red blood cells and touched the soft tissue of an animal that died 68 million years ago. Most excitingly of all, she believes she may just have found signs of DNA. Her work is revolutionising our understanding of these iconic beasts.


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Friday 30th August

Factual > Science & Nature > Nature & Environment

The Burrowers: Animals Underground
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm

Chris Packham sheds light on the magical underground world of three iconic British animals - badgers, water voles and rabbits - investigating wild burrows and creating full scale replicas too.



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Tuesday 13 August 2013

Off-air recordings for week 17-23 August 2013

Please email Rich Deakin rdeakin@glos.ac.uk if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*

*This applies to staff members and students at the University of Gloucestershire only. Any recordings made are to be used only for educational and non-commercial purposes under the terms of the ERA Licence
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Saturday 17th August

Factual > Politics > Documentaries

Thatcher: The Downing Street Years
BBC2, 8:10-9:10pm

Award-winning four-part documentary series, examining Margaret Thatcher's 11 years as Prime Minister. The first programme looks at how she rejected the postwar consensus that had governed the country for more than 30 years, and came into conflict with trade unions, the old establishment and even members of her own cabinet. Yet even as the country moved into a crippling recession, the Prime Minister refused to make a U-turn in policy. 


Religions > Superstitions > Beliefs > Documentaries

A Very British Witchcraft
More4, 9:00-10:00pm

The extraordinary story of Britain's fastest-growing religious group - the modern pagan witchcraft of Wicca - and of its creator, an eccentric Englishman called Gerald Gardner.

Historian and leading expert in Pagan studies Professor Ronald Hutton explores Gardner's story and experiences first-hand Wicca's growing influence throughout Britain today.

Born of a nudist colony in 1930s Dorset, Wicca rapidly grew from a small New Forest coven to a worldwide religion in the space of just 70 years.
It's a journey that takes in tales of naked witches casting spells to ward off Hitler, tabloid hysteria about human sacrifices and Gerald Gardner himself appearing on Panorama.


Religions > Superstitions > Beliefs > Documentaries

Tony Robinson's Gods and Monsters
More4, 10:00-11:05pm

Featuring dramatic reconstructions, the opening programme examines our fascination with and terror of dead bodies.

People in the past believed that even in death a body retained some vital force, and that the dead could rise from the grave to cause havoc among the living. Why did they believe this? What powers did they believe the dead had? And what did they do about it?

Tony's journey takes him on a fascinating and sometimes humorous tour of some of the darkest recesses of the ancient mind, and brings him face to face with a plague-breathing zombie, a dead body that seems alive three weeks after it died, and the English monarchs who ate the bodies of their subjects.


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Monday 18th August

Documentaries > Science and Nature >  Diseases > Medicine

Ade Adepitan: Journey of a Lifetime
Channel 4, 8:00-9:00pm

'Making this film has changed my life. It was always very personal territory for me. When the polio virus attacked me as a baby in Nigeria, it took away any chance of me being able to walk.'
Ade Adepitan, Paralympic medal-winner and presenter of Channel 4's Bafta Award-winning Paralympics coverage, was inspired to return to the land of his birth to find out why it remains one of three places on Earth where children are still contracting polio.

What he found challenged, shocked, frightened and inspired him by turn, as he travelled from the commercial centre of Lagos in the south to the dangerous, violent north, where health workers risk their lives in an attempt to complete one of most ambitious health campaigns in history.
Ade inspires others along the way, as he joins in a game of para-soccer under a flyover in Lagos, holds a young victim in a remote township, and then, with a local activist, galvanises the biggest march of polio victims in years, in the town of Sokoto.
He joins hundreds of men and women, some of whom are usually hidden away in their homes, as they take over the main street on their primitive wheelchairs, and on skateboards and crutches, leaving Ade exhausted but jubilant.

'I can't get over how motivated these people are,' he says. 'Every step must be painful. But they've still got a smile on their face.'  Ade discovers the toxic mix of religion, superstition and suspicion of the outsider, the so called 'White Witch', that has made the task of eradication so difficult.
He feels powerless as he meets the parents who have made the tragic decisions that resulted in their children not being vaccinated and becoming 'crippled': a word he is happy to use in this context.
But this is not just a local battle. Polio is a virulent virus. Unless the combined forces of state and local leaders can be brought together for the final push, other countries that are now free can easily be re-infected and decades of work could be undone.


Factual > Science & Nature > Science & Technology > Documentaries

Horizon: Defeating the Hackers
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm

Exploring the murky and fast-paced world of the hackers out to steal money and identities and wreak havoc with people's online lives, and the scientists who are joining forces to help defeat them.
Horizon meets the two men who uncovered the world's first cyber weapon, the pioneers of what is called ultra paranoid computing, and the computer expert who worked out how to hack into cash machines. 


Documentaries

Benefits Britain 1949
4Seven, 11:05pm-12:05am, 1/3

The second episode follows three claimants as they give up their 2013 entitlement to council housing and agree to be reassessed and rehoused according to 1949 rules.
In 1949 it wasn't about how much you needed a house, but whether you were deemed suitable to deserve one.

Twenty-five-year-old single mum Nichola and her two young daughters are top of the housing priority list in 2013, but because she is unmarried she would never have qualified for a council house in 1949.

They are evicted from their council flat and have to fend for themselves. Nichola finds the judgemental 1949 attitude towards women who have children out of wedlock challenging, and thinks she might have made different life decisions if she had lived them.
Patson arrived in the UK in 2002, fleeing violence in Zimbabwe. As an asylum seeker with unlimited right to remain in the UK, he currently claims Jobseeker's Allowance, but feels that the 2013 system does little to help the unemployed back to work. There was work for all in 1949 and Patson is allocated a job at a farm.

He's given an accommodation voucher for a migrant workers hostel, but institutional racism was rife in 1949 and he is turned away at the hostel door. Patson realises that the 1949 system did little to support immigrants, and he's forced to seek the generosity of fellow immigrants.
Matt and Heidi live in an untidy and chaotic three-bed council house. In 1949 unsuitable tenants would have been threatened with eviction, but such was the state's commitment to preserving and promoting the family unit, that Matt and Heidi are offered the chance of 'rehabilitation' and are taken to a rehabilitation house where they are taught how to cook, clean and behave.


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Tuesday 19th August

Crime > Criminal Psychology > Documentaries

The Devil's Disciple: Born to Kill?
Channel 5, 2/6 - 8:00-9:00pm

Documentary profile of Patrick Mackay, once dubbed the most dangerous man in Britain. In the mid 1970s, London and the south east was gripped by a series of bizarre murders. The last was the most horrific of all - a Catholic priest found floating in a bath of his own blood, bludgeoned to death with an axe. With insights into his childhood and from those who encountered him, experts attempt to unravel if Patrick Mackay was born to kill.


Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media > Arts > Documentaries

Perspectives - Lenny Henry: Finding Shakespeare
ITV1, 10:35-11:35pm

Lenny Henry explores his changing relationship with the works of Shakespeare. Growing up in the West Midlands, the comedian found the plays boring, irrelevant and inaccessible, but after appearing on a Radio 4 programme about the Bard he was offered the chance to take the title role in a production of Othello in 2009, and has since appeared in The Comedy of Errors at the National Theatre. Lenny joins forces with a rapper, an Oxford don, the mentor who prepared him to play Othello and actors Dominic West and Adrian Lester to try to show a class of London schoolchildren how Shakespeare can be relevant to them.


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Wednesday 20th August

Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media > Arts > Magazines & Reviews

The Man Who Collected the World
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm

William Burrell made a fortune out of shipping and spent it on art. Over his long life, he assembled one of the most remarkable private collections of paintings, sculptures, tapestries, ceramics and stained glass in the world and in 1944 he donated it all - over 9,000 objects - to the city of Glasgow. The Burrell Collection finally opened to the public in 1983 but the building that bears his name contains no tribute to Burrell and he never commissioned a portrait of himself.   Kirsty Wark tells the story of the self-effacing collector and tours the highlights of his collection in the company of its curators.


Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media

Dreaming the Impossible
BBC4, 10:00-11:00pm, 2/3 - Making Connections

Using her skills to uncover long-forgotten and abandoned plans, architectural investigator Dr Olivia Horsfall Turner explores the fascinating and dramatic stories behind some of the grandest designs that were never built. In this episode she looks at two of the most radical civil engineering projects proposed in the last century and explores how international politics and vested interests both drove, and derailed, plans to better connect Britain to the continent.
In the early 1900s Britain was anticipating the threat of war. As concern grew about Germany expanding its naval fleet and investing in its infrastructure, there were calls to find a way for Britain's navy to be able to react swiftly to protect our waters. The solution proposed was to create a ship canal big enough for warships to cross from the Firth of Clyde on the west of Scotland to the Firth of Forth on the east. This enormous civil engineering endeavour would have completely changed the central belt of Scotland - the favoured route was through Loch Lomond, now considered one of the most treasured wilderness areas in the country.


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Thursday 21st August

Documentaries

Poaching Wars with Tom Hardy
ITV1, 1/2 - 9:00-10:00pm

Motivated by his love of animals, BAFTA award-winning actor Tom Hardy (Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) travels to South Africa, Botswana and Tanzania aiming to uncover the truth about why poaching has reached crisis levels and to see for himself what can be done to stop the killing.

Having heard some appalling stories about the poaching industry, Tom is galvanised into action and in this two-part (2x60) documentary series, he is determined to see for himself why this is happening and what can be done to stop the killing.


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Friday 22nd August

Factual > Pets & Animals > Science & Nature > Nature & Environment > Documentaries

The Burrowers: Animals Underground
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 2/3

Chris Packham sheds light on the magical underground world of three iconic British animals, badgers, water voles and rabbits. In one of the biggest natural history experiments ever undertaken, he investigates wild burrows to recreate full-scale replicas for the animals to live in and be observed, including the largest man-made rabbit warren of its kind ever built. This creates a window on their lives never witnessed before, from birth in winter to their emergence from the burrow in summer.
How do they create their burrows? How do they breed and give birth? Observe fascinating new science and new behaviour as the team design and build a rabbit warren, a badger sett and a water vole burrow with its own riverbank.


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Wednesday 7 August 2013

Off-air recordings for week 10-16 August 2013

Please email Rich Deakin rdeakin@glos.ac.uk if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*

*This applies to staff members and students at the University of Gloucestershire only. Any recordings made are to be used only for educational and non-commercial purposes under the terms of the ERA Licence
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Sunday 11th August

Factual > Homes & Gardens > Science & Nature > Nature & Environment

The Wonder of Weeds
BBC4, 7:00-8:00pm

Blue Peter gardener Chris Collins celebrates the humble and sometimes hated plants we call weeds. He discovers that there is no such thing as a weed, botanically speaking, and that in fact what we call a weed has changed again and again over the last three hundred years. Chris uncovers the story of our changing relationship with weeds - in reality, the story of the battle between wilderness and civilisation. He finds out how weeds have been seen as beautiful and useful in the past, and sees how their secrets are being unlocked today in order to transform our crops.

Finally, Chris asks whether, in our quest to eliminate Japanese Knotweed or Rhododendron Ponticum, we are really engaged in an arms race we can never win. We remove weeds from our fields and gardens at our peril. 


Factual > Science & Nature > Nature & Environment > Documentaries

Polar Bears and Grizzlies: Bears on top of the World
BBC4, 10:30-11:20pm

Natural history film comparing the fortunes of polar bears with grizzlies by following two families in the wild. As the Arctic warms up, the creatures' habitats are beginning to overlap, causing the animals to compete for food and space, and in some cases interbreed.


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Monday 12th August

Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media > Architecture > Documentaries

Dreaming The Impossible: Unbuilt Britain
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/3 - Glasshouses

Architectural investigator Dr Olivia Horsfall Turner reveals the fascinating and dramatic stories behind some of the grandest designs never built. She begins in 1855, when visionary designer Joseph Paxton put forward ambitious plans for the Great Victorian Way, which promised to alleviate congestion in London by encircling the city centre with a 10-mile-long glass structure containing shops, houses, hotels and eight railway lines.


Factual > History > Documentaries

Benefits Britain 1949
4Seven, 11:05pm-12:05am, 1/3

Everyone's got an opinion about the welfare state, whether we're bemoaning 'scroungers' or pointing out how it's failed the vulnerable, but there's no consensus on how it can be fixed.

In this bold piece of living history, current benefits claimants volunteer to live for a week by the rules of 1949 to explore how our safety net should work.

This first episode looks at how the state should support disabled, long-term sick and elderly people.
Craig, who's 24, finds that being born with spina bifida doesn't entitle him to any benefits under the 1949 rules. But the post-war welfare state has another solution: it offers him training and work experience, and it has the power to force employers to take on workers with disabilities.
Craig has applied for hundreds of jobs in the past four years without success. Will his 1949 work experience at a call centre be a turning point?

Melvyn, who's 71, hands over his 2013 pension, only to find that in 1949 he receives just £38.48 (the precise sum he'd have got then, adjusted for inflation). From this, he has to cover his food, bills and transport for the week.
Initially he appears to be coping well, but is soon plunged into debt and is forced to pawn his grandfather's watch. What would the 1949 system have done with a pensioner who was failing to cope?

Karen, who's 54, is on sickness benefit. Having worked all her life, she feels she should be entitled to greater support, rather than the government trying to take away more of her benefits.
2013 has judged her eligible for state aid, but will 1949 take as sympathetic a view of her conditions?


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Tuesday 13th August

Factual > Science & Nature > Science & Technology
 
Horizon: Monitor Me
BBC2, 11:20pm-12:20am

Dr Kevin Fong explores a medical revolution that promises to help us live longer, healthier lives. Inspired by the boom in health-related apps and gadgets, it's all about novel ways we can monitor ourselves around the clock. How we exercise, how we sleep, even how we sit.
Some doctors are now prescribing apps the way they once prescribed pills. Kevin meets the pioneers of this revolution. From the England Rugby 7s team, whose coach knows more about his players' health than a doctor would, to the most monitored man in the world who diagnosed a life threatening disease from his own data, without going to the doctor.


Factual > Crime > Documentaries

On the Run
ITV1, 9:00-10:00pm

This new documentary features a manhunt attempting to track down three wanted criminals so they can be brought to justice.

Presenters Mark Williams-Thomas and Natasha Kaplinsky show how their undercover team trace and with the help of the police, apprehend fugitives who are running from the law. On The Run includes high-octane scenes as the team and police units close in on the three wanted men.

 One is a sex offender, one a violent fugitive, another is a burglar and car thief. They have gone to ground after fleeing outstanding arrest warrants, jumping bail or breaking their licence conditions. Using a variety of undercover stings and subterfuge, this programme shows in vivid detail how these criminals are traced and how police go about catching them.

It also brings into sharp focus the difficulty in arresting a wanted British criminal in Portugal - even though he is the subject of an international arrest warrant.


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Wednesday 14th August


Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media > Arts > Documentaries > Factual > History
 
Lost Treasures: How Houghton Got its Art Back
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm

Dan Cruickshank reveals the story behind Robert Walpole's art collection, which was sold to Russia in the 1770s, but has returned to hang in its original home of Houghton Hall in Norfolk for the summer. Generally considered to be Britain's first prime minister, Walpole brought together some of the finest 18th-century works in the Western world.


Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media > Arts
Magazines & Reviews

The Culture Show at Edinburgh: Leonardo da Vinci - The Anatomist
BBC2, 10:00-10:30pm

Art critic Alastair Sooke views The Mechanics of Man, a new exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci's anatomical drawings at the Queen's Gallery in the Palace of Holyroodhouse. Alastair compares the sketches to the state-of-the art modern medical imagery also on display, to examine just how close the Renaissance master's work was to the real thing.


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Thursday 15th August

Documentaries

How to Get a  Council House
Channel 4, 9:00-10:00pm, 3/3


This episode focuses on Tower Hamlets' Homeless service, the A & E of the council's housing department. Every year, 3300 people come here claiming to be in urgent need of a new home.
The range of stories is unexpected and heart-breaking, from a woman claiming she accidentally burnt her house down with a pound shop lighter, to a mother who claims her son is sleeping in a cupboard and a father who brings in his disabled son to announce he is evicting him.
Surprisingly, if you are homeless in Britain today you may not be entitled to any help at all. Local councils have a legal duty to find housing for some people, but only if they fall into a priority group.
With a severe shortage of council housing, they are forced to place those who do qualify for housing into expensive temporary accommodation and private rented flats.
It is up to a team of over-stretched housing officers to work out who is and isn't telling the truth about their situation, who should be given help and who should be turned away.


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Tuesday 30 July 2013

Off-air recordings for week 3-9 August 2013

Please email Rich Deakin rdeakin@glos.ac.uk if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*

*This applies to staff members and students at the University of Gloucestershire only. Any recordings made are to be used only for educational and non-commercial purposes under the terms of the ERA Licence
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Monday 5th August

News

Panorama: The Brothers who Bombed Boston
BBC1, 8:30-9:00pm

On the 15th of April, in the worst terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11, two homemade bombs exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring more than 200 participants and spectators. With interviews with those who knew them, Panorama reporter Hilary Andersson explores how the two suspected bombers - brothers raised and educated in the US - became radicalised, and asks if America's war on terror has come home.

With the surviving brother due to stand trial later this year, she goes on patrol with New York Police Department's anti-terrorist squad which uses the latest technology to protect New Yorkers from future terrorist attacks. But she finds a backlash amongst many Muslims in America against law enforcement programmes they believe are designed specifically to profile, map and spy on Muslims. Panorama asks: are the authorities spying on the right people?


Factual > Health & Wellbeing > Documentaries

Long Live Britain
BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm & 10:35-11:20pm

Julia Bradbury, Phil Tufnell and Dr Phil Hammond set out to tackle one of the nation's most pressing health issues. Britain's 'secret killers' - type two diabetes, liver and heart disease - affect more than eight million people in the UK. At the nation's largest-ever combined health screening at the Rugby Football League's Magic Weekend in Manchester, 50 NHS nurses, three leading charities and a team of doctors screen hundreds of people to find out if they are at risk of developing one of these three preventable conditions, with shocking results.

Dr Phil Hammond also screens a group of famous faces to find out who might develop one of these potentially lethal conditions. And when former EastEnder Ricky Grover, actress and singer Jodie Prenger and actress and comedienne Crissy Rock make some alarming discoveries, they agree to work with Dr Phil to turn their health around. Long Live Britain follows them as they learn how these conditions are affecting their bodies - and what they can do to get their health back on track.


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Tuesday 6th August

factual > History > Documentaries

King Alfred and the Saxons
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/3 - Alfred of Wessex

Historian and broadcaster Michael Wood tells the story of King Alfred the Great, arguing that he and his descendants were England's most influential and important rulers. In the first edition, the presenter details a desperate guerrilla war in Somerset, and establishes how Alfred laid the foundations for a single kingdom of `all the English'. Filmed in locations including Reading and Rome, with contributions by leading scholars.


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Wednesday 7th August

Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media > History > Documentaries

The Culture Show: Venice - A Tale of Two Cities
BBC2, 10:00-10:30pm

Alastair Sooke heads to Venice with historian Bendor Grosvenor to explore the art the city has to offer, with each putting forward the case for their favourite styles and periods. Alastair is passionate about the contemporary art being exhibited at the Biennale, while Bendor prefers the work of the Renaissance masters who changed the very nature of painting, and landscape artists who dominated the 18th century.


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Thursday 8th August

Factual > Health & Wellbeing > Documentaries

The Men Who Made Us Thin
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/4

In the first of this four-part series, Jacques examines the scientific reasons why so many diets fail long-term and why - in spite of this failure - we go back to them again and again.

Travelling to the US and speaking to industry insiders, he discovers some of the secrets of the industry.  The knowledge that dieting is problematic was realised by scientists back in the 1940s and 1950s. Jacques asks whether this research influenced the modern diet industry, which often relies on returning customers who blame themselves for failure when the diet doesn't deliver a long-term solution.

Jacques speaks to a former director of Weight Watchers, who admits that customer failure was a significant factor in the company's profits: people have to keep coming back. In addition, Peretti meets other industry leaders, including Slimfast billionaire Danny Abrahams and Pierre Dukan, of the Dukan diet, to question them about the strategy behind the fortunes they’ve made.


Factual > Drugs > Health & Wellbeing > Documentaries

Legally High
Channel 4, 10:00-11:10pm

Recent years have seen a step-change in Britain's drug culture. Out go the 'old' illegal drugs - cocaine, heroin, speed - swept to one side by a younger generation who can get their hits not only more cheaply but also legally.

The new drugs are legal to buy because they're sold as research chemicals and labelled 'not for human consumption'.

This hard-hitting observational documentary - directed by triple BAFTA-award winner Dan Reed - takes a trip into a murky world where underground chemists invent new drugs faster than the government can legislate against them.


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Friday 9th August

Factual > News > Current Affairs > Documentaries

How to get a Council House
4Seven, 9:00-10:00pm

How do councils cope with a lack of properties and a surplus of people in need of homes with affordable rent?  With 1.8 million people on England's social housing list, this series looks at how Tower Hamlets and Manchester councils are dealing with the problems caused by a lack of affordable homes.


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Thursday 25 July 2013

Off-air recordings for week 27 July - 2 August 2013

 Please email Rich Deakin rdeakin@glos.ac.uk if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*

*This applies to staff members and students at the University of Gloucestershire only. Any recordings made are to be used only for educational and non-commercial purposes under the terms of the ERA Licence
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Sunday 28th July

Factual > History > Documentaries

The Mystery of Rome's X Tombs
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm

Historian Dr Michael Scott unlocks the secrets of a mysterious tomb recently discovered in one of Rome's famous catacombs. Found by accident following a roof collapse, the tombs contained over 2,000 skeletons piled on top of each other. This was quite unlike any other underground tomb seen in Rome. They are located in an area of the catacombs marked as 'X' in the Vatican's underground mapping system - hence the name The X Tombs.

Michael Scott joins Profs Dominique Castex and Philippe Blanchard, head of a team of French archaeologists with experience of investigating mass grave sites. Carbon dating the bodies suggest they died from the late 1st century AD to the early 3rd century AD, which would mean these people lived and died during Rome's golden age.

The remains of an early Medieval fresco were found on the wall sealing the tomb suggesting this could be the last resting place of a group of unknown Christian martyrs. But the bones don't show the signs of physical trauma you would expect after a violent death.

The bodies were a mixture of men and women, most of them late-teenagers and young adults. They were placed in the tombs with great care, packed in head to foot. Further clues suggest they were laid to rest after a series of mass death events. This raises the idea they may have died from disease.

The streets of Ancient Rome were like an open sewer and the famous roman baths were also a breeding ground for infection. DNA expert and palaeogeneticist Johannes Krause is called in to try to identify what disease may have killed them.

Meanwhile, the French team uncover further clues to the identity of the people. They find cultural connections with Northern Africa. Was this a wealthy immigrant community? Or a select group of Ancient Rome's elite?


Documentaries > Biography

Alan Whicker: Journeys to the End
ITV1, 10:15-11:10pm

In tribute to the veteran broadcaster who died recently this documentary looks back at the ground-breaking, 50 year career of Alan Whicker. This is the story of a TV pioneer who brought the world into our living rooms – whether he was in Venice or Palm Beach, Hong Kong or the Australian Outback, on the QE2 or Orient Express, or simply interviewing some of the planet’s most fascinating characters - from plastic surgeons to the rich and famous.

We will hear from those who worked with Alan Whicker, from those who encountered him on and off screen, and from other broadcasters who were touched and inspired by his work on revolutionary series like Tonight and Whicker’s World.


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Monday 29th July

Documentaries > News > Current Affairs

NHS Undercover
Channel 4, 8:00-9:00pm


News

Panorama - Tainted Love: Secrets of the Dating Game
BBC1, 8:30-9:00pm

Panorama exposes the tricks of the UK's online dating industry, worth millions of pounds a year. Reporter Fiona Walker investigates how some unscrupulous dating websites are preying on those looking for love and searching for their perfect partner. She reveals a world where millions of photos and private details are taken from social media sites without people's consent and reused to set up fake profiles of imaginary potential partners to tempt the lovelorn. Celebrities, politicians and even children are among those whose personal information has been targeted. Whistleblowers reveal how they create fake profiles and adopt multiple personas to reel in those looking for love - all to boost profits.


Factual > Science & Nature > Nature & Environment > Documentaries

The Secret Life of Rockpools
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm

Paleontologist Professor Richard Fortey embarks on a quest to discover the extraordinary lives of rock pool creatures. To help explore this unusual environment he is joined by some of the UK's leading marine biologists in a dedicated laboratory at the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth. Here and on the beach in various locations around the UK, startling behaviour is revealed and new insights are given into how these animals cope with intertidal life. Many popular rock pool species have survived hundreds of millions of years of Earth's history, but humans may be their biggest challenge yet.


Factual > History > Documentaries

The Baby Born in a Concentration Camp
BBC1, 10:35-11:10pm

Anka Bergman gave birth to her baby daughter Eva in a Nazi concentration camp.

During her pregnancy, Anka witnessed the horrors of Auschwitz and endured six months of forced labour. If the Nazis found a woman was pregnant, she could be sent straight to the gas chambers. Amazingly, Anka's pregnancy went unnoticed for months.

Anka eventually gave birth - on the day she arrived at an extermination camp. Anka weighed just five stone and was on the brink of starvation; baby Eva weighed just three pounds.

Remarkably, both mother and daughter survived, and are living in Cambridge. Now they tell their story.


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Tuesday 30th July

Documentaries

Why Don't You Speak English?
Channel 4, 9:00-10:00pm, 2/2

The four immigrants are halfway through their period of learning English. After a week spent living with their British hosts, the immigrants now turn the tables as they welcome the Brits into their own homes.

The Brits are about to get a crash course in immigration - why people come here, how hard it is for them to communicate, and how isolated they can become.


Factual > Religion & Ethics > Documentaries

Kumbh Mela: The Greatest Show on Earth
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm

February 2013, Allahabad, India. Over the next 55 days, nearly a hundred million people will come here, to the Great Kumbh Mela. This incredible and awe-inspiring celebration of the world's oldest religion happens every 12 years at the place where Hindus believe two sacred rivers meet. For many Hindus this is their most important pilgrimage, and it happens at one of the most holy sites in India. Hindus come to cleanse themselves in the sacred waters of the river Ganges, to pray and emerge purified and renewed.

This follows British pilgrims as they embark on a once-in-a-lifetime spiritual journey. A journey that will take them into the heart of Hinduism - its philosophy, its beliefs and its traditions. A journey that will culminate in the largest ever gathering of humans in one place.



Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media > Arts > Documentaries

Imagine... Zaha Hadid: Who Dares Wins
BBC1, 10:35-11:50pm

Alan Yentob profiles the most successful female architect there has ever been. Born in Baghdad in 1950 and based in London, Zaha Hadid is now one of a handful of global superstar designers who have changed the way people think about the world through buildings. Yet this hasn't always been the case; Hadid once had a reputation as unbuildable, a 'paper architect' whose projects began as vivid paintings of gravity-defying shapes exploding into the void. How did this extraordinary woman - by turns charming, stubborn, visionary yet exacting - come to build the impossible? imagine... visits her buildings across the globe - from Austria to Azerbaijan - to find out, as Alan Yentob explores what makes Zaha Hadid tick.


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Wednesday 31st July

Factual > Crime > Documentaries

Myra Hindley: The Untold Story
Channel 5, 8:00-9:00pm, 3/3

The final part of the series is called ‘The Lost Body’. This episode will focus on the dramatic revelations during the original police investigation, as the truth emerged that the Evans murder was not a one-off, and Brady and Hindley were serial killers. We reveal how during this inquiry, and the fresh investigation in 1987, all the cases bar one were resolved: Keith Bennett's body was never recovered. We explore how, as Brady and Hindley circled each other like scorpions over the years, their manipulations contributed to the agony for Keith's family. And we see also how Myra's relentless campaign to shift public opinion and win release muddied the truth.


Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media > Arts > Documentaries > Factual > History

Bought with Love: The Secret History of British Art Collections
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm, 3/3 - The Age of the Individual

Helen Rosslyn explores how collecting reached its maturity in the 19th century when unprecedented wealth from Britain's booming economy encouraged enlightened, philanthropic industrialists to spend their fortunes on art, and in many cases then donate their collections to the nation.

With different taste from the British aristocracy who had dominated collecting to this point, a new breed of art buyer enriched Britain's cultural story by acquiring adventurous and often avant-garde work. Helen looks at the influence of pharmaceutical magnate Thomas Holloway, the Rothschild banking dynasty and the Welsh Davies sisters.


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Thursday 1st August

Documentaries > News > Environment > Current Affairs

Tonight: Throwaway Britain
ITV1, 9:00-10:00pm

With some recycling rates across the nation as low as 14 per cent, and more than a third of household waste ending up in landfill sites, Jonathan Maitland investigates what happens to the millions of tons of rubbish the public throws away annually, and examines ways in which people can reduce the amount they generate.


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Friday 2nd August

Documentaries > Science and Nature > Environment

What's Killing Our Honey Bees? A Horizon Special
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm

Bees may provide the soundtrack to the British summer, but they also play a hugely significant - and often underestimated - role in the life of the countryside. Bees are worth £430 million to Britain’s agriculture, and one third of what we eat is reliant on bee pollination. Yet their numbers have been falling dramatically.

This year, the EU banned the use of neonicotinoid pesticides in an attempt to reduce bee death, but the UK and US governments argued against the ban. In this film, journalist and bee enthusiast Bill Turnbull will guide us through the bewildering and conflicting science in a bid to understand what is killing our bees. Exploring the science at the heart of the bee controversy, he’ll investigate why bee numbers are falling, and ask whether pesticides really are to blame - and what other factors might be contributing to the decline.

The film focuses on two remarkable experiments that scientists are carrying out to find answers. Each involves a hive of bees where the bees have been fitted with cutting-edge tracking equipment to monitor what happens to them once they fly out of the hive. The bees carry tiny radar transponders which can then be tracked, and the idea of these experiments is to find out how the behaviour of bees is affected by two of the proposed culprits - pesticides and the varroa mite, which carries a lethal virus. In a series of hands-on experiments, Horizon reveals the surprising intelligence and detailed communication of our native bees. Bill Turnbull brings his sense of journalistic enquiry to weigh the evidence and try and


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Tuesday 16 July 2013

Off-air recording for week 20-26 July 2013

Please email Rich Deakin rdeakin@glos.ac.uk if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*

*This applies to staff members and students at the University of Gloucestershire only. Any recordings made are to be used only for educational and non-commercial purposes under the terms of the ERA Licence
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Saturday 20th July

Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media > History

David Starkey's Music and Monarchy
BBC2, 8:10-9:10pm, 1/4 - Crown of Choir

Dr David Starkey reveals how the story of British music was shaped by its monarchy. In this first episode he begins with kings who were also composers - Henry V and Henry VIII - and the golden age of English music they presided over. He discovers how the military and religious ambitions of England's monarchy made its music the envy of Europe - and then brought it to the brink of destruction - and why British music still owes a huge debt to Queen Elizabeth I.

Featuring specially recorded music performances from King's College Cambridge, Canterbury Cathedral and Eton College, and early music ensemble Alamire; and the music of Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, John Dunstable and John Dowland.

Dr Starkey reveals why Henry V took a choir with him to the Battle of Agincourt, and hears the music the king wrote to keep God on-side in his crusade against the French - rarely performed in the centuries since, and now sung by the choir at Canterbury Cathedral. He visits Eton College, founded by Henry VI, where today's choristers sing from a hand-illuminated choir-book which would have been used by their 16th-century predecessors; King's College, Cambridge, built by successive generations of monarchs and still world-famous for its choir; and the Chapel Royal at Hampton Court Palace, where Henry VIII and Elizabeth I heard works created especially for their worship by some of the greatest composers in British history.


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Monday 22nd July

Factual > Documentaries

Privacy Under Pressure
BBC Radio 4, 9:00-9:30am, 2/3

Continuing his series on the state of privacy in Britain today, Steve Hewlett looks at the impact on visual privacy of technological developments like improved CCTV cameras, advancing face recognition software, drones and Google Glass.


Religion > Beliefs

Ramadan Diaries
Channel 4, 7:55-8:00pm

For one month, from dawn to dusk, they forgo food, water, smoking and swearing, in an attempt to focus on what's important, think about those who have less than them and better appreciate what they have.

Channel 4 follows and hears from a wide range of British Muslims throughout Ramadan, on how they cope with daily life and the physical and spiritual effects of fasting, as they go through it.


Documentaries

Taliban Child Fighters
Channel 4, 8:00-8:30pm

More than 200 children convicted of fighting for the Taliban are currently being held in special prisons across Afghanistan. Their crimes include the laying of improvised explosive devices, ambush and the preparation of suicide missions. Dispatches has had unique access to meet the captured child fighters, to document their experiences and tell their stories.

Fifteen-year-old Hanan comes from a line of guerrilla soldiers; his father fought for the Taliban, his grandfather for the Mujahadeen. He took up arms after his father was killed in a NATO air strike and, as a young teenager, Hanan went on to command his own cell of child combatants.

He is serving a two-year sentence after surrendering during a shoot-out with government forces. Like many of these children Hanan has had little formal education, and has only been schooled in a madrasa. Despite attempts made within the prison to provide learning and change his mindset, Hanan is unrepentant.

As well as visiting two of these prisons, award winning film-maker Najibullah Quraishi travels to an orphanage in Helmand province. Here he meets 10-year-old Neaz who was seized by the Taliban to perform a special mission, after his entire family was killed in a NATO bombing raid.

Neaz describes how the Taliban members who abducted him tried to persuade him to become a suicide bomber, but he escaped during the night, walked toward the nearest town and handed himself in to police.

Children of the Taliban offers a unique perspective on the ongoing conflict and raises important questions about the legacy of western intervention in Afghanistan.

After 12 years of bitter fighting and with the insurgents proving a resilient enemy, when NATO pulls out are we leaving behind another traumatised generation destined to continue the conflict?


Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media > Arts > Life Stories > Documentaries

The Richard Burton Diaries
BBC4, 10:30-11:00pm

Richard Burton's talent, presence and unforgettable voice made him a superstar of stage and screen. The Welsh actor was equally famous for his hellraising, womanising private life and his two marriages to Elizabeth Taylor. Now private diaries he wrote at the height of his fame have been published in their entirety for the first time and present a unique opportunity to reassess the man behind the myth.



Factual > Life Stories > Documentaries

Elizabeth Taylor: England's Other Elizabeth
BBC4, 11:00-11:55pm

Profile drawn from Elizabeth Taylor's visit to Britain in 2000, during which she received her damehood from the Queen. Hollywood's last great star talks for the first time in years about her career, her life, and the challenges of the future.

From her early days as a child star in Lassie Come Home and National Velvet to becoming the century's biggest star of all - in Cleopatra - her life, her loves and her work have all been lived to an intensity no other star can match.

Joined by Shirley MacLaine, Rod Steiger, and Angela Lansbury, Taylor remembers the glory days of working with Richard Burton, Montgomery Clift, Rock Hudson, James Dean and Paul Newman; how filming never stopped regardless of what life threw at her; the pain and pleasure of two Oscars - one for a film she can hardly bear to remember; and, not least, the feelings she has for Britain where she was born and how it was her English accent that launched on the way to stardom at the very beginning.


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Tuesday 23rd July

Religion > Beliefs

Ramadan Diaries
Channel 4, 7:55-8:00pm


Language > Documentaries

Why Don't You Speak English?
Channel 4, 9:00-10:00pm

First-generation immigrants are taught English by an ordinary British family, for one week, and in the family's own home.  There are almost one million immigrants living in the UK who don't speak very good English. This two-part series follows four first-generation immigrants as they try to learn the language for the first time.


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Wednesday 24th July

Religion > Beliefs

Ramadan Diaries
Channel 4, 7:55-8:00pm


Criminology > Serial Killers > Psychology

Myra Hindley: The Untold Story
Channel 5, 8:00-9:00pm, 2/3 - The Ones the got Away

The stories of Brady and Hindley's five known murder victims and the accounts of the children who got away - most notably David Smith, who was groomed as Brady's next acolyte. The film reveals the meticulous planning that preceded the murders, the bizarre details of the crimes and Brady's fascination with Hitler, Saddleworth Moor and the Marquis de Sade.



Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media > Arts > History > Documentaries

Bought With Love: The Secret History of British Art Collections
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm, 2/3

Art historian Helen Rosslyn traces the stories of the people whose enthusiasm for art, sense of adventure and wealth built Britain's national collection and shaped the history of art of the nation.


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Thursday 25th July

Religion > Beliefs

Ramadan Diaries
Channel 4, 7:55-8:00pm


Law > Documentaries

The Briefs
ITV1, 9:00-10:00pm, 2/2

On this evidence (and The Briefs is all about evidence) the clients of Manchester-based Tuckers are a rum bunch. Once again, ITV’s cameras have had impressive access to the busiest legal aid law firm in Britain, whose lawyers defend clients accused of all manner of offences. Some 70 per cent of their business is repeat, which means the firm has the air of a dysfunctional family.

One staffer reminisces about how innocent a man accused of armed robbery looked when he first came to them as a little lad; he’s now on his 36th matter with Tuckers. No matter how many police documentaries you’ve seen, the angle here is different.

There’s something about the relaxed consultation between brief and accused, often discussing serious and violent crimes, which is a real shocker. “If you brandish an axe in a public place,” one legal adviser coolly tells her client, “that would contravene conditions of your ASBO.”


Criminology > Documentaries

Catching a Killer: Crocodile Tears
Channel 4, 10:00-11:00pm

documentary looks beyond fake tears to reveal stories of deception and betrayal, when people who have feigned innocence or made public appeals for information - often on camera - committed the crime themselves.

The programme re-examines the Philpott case, in which Mick and his wife Mairead, who took part in a press conference after their house fire killed six children, were finally convicted of their manslaughter in April 2013, along with their best friend Paul Mosley.

The film contains interviews with Paul Mosley's brother Bryan, Darshna Soni, who covered the story for Channel 4 News, Mick Philpott's former partner of several years and 'star' witness to his trial Heather Keogh.


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Friday 26th July

Religion > Beliefs

Ramadan Diaries
Channel 4, 7:55-8:00pm


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Tuesday 9 July 2013

Off-air recordings for week 13-19 July 2013

Please email Rich Deakin rdeakin@glos.ac.uk if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*

*This applies to staff members and students at the University of Gloucestershire only. Any recordings made are to be used only for educational and non-commercial purposes under the terms of the ERA Licence
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Saturday 13th July

Factual > Pets & Animals > Science & Nature > Documentaries

Giant Squid: Filming the Impossible - Natural World Special
BBC2, 7:40-8:25pm

The giant squid, a creature of legend and myth which even in the 21st century, has never been seen alive. But now, an international team of scientists think they have finally found their lair, one thousand metres down, off the coast of Japan.

This is the culmination of decades of research. The team deploys underwater robots and state of the art submersible vessels for a world first - to find and film the impossible.


Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media > Documentaries

Alive: Rankin Faces Death - A Culture Show Special
BBC2, 10:10-11:10pm

“What is the problem people have with death?” demands Wilko Johnson, the Dr Feelgood guitarist with terminal pancreatic cancer. “It’s our natural state! I’ve had 13 billion years of practice!”

It’s one of many nuggets of wisdom imparted to photographer Rankin as he tries to come to terms with death by creating a series of portraits of people who are staring it in the face. The documentary follows the process of meeting and shooting his subjects, many of whom are terminally ill and reflect movingly on what mortality means.

At one stage, writer Diana Athill tells him to stop worrying: “Things begin, grow, live, end. It’s the most natural thing in the world. Why be frightened of it?” Most of the people here aren’t famous like Johnson and Athill, but the film makes you wish they were.

Behind the scenes with fashion photographer Rankin as he prepares for an exhibition at Liverpool's Walker Gallery that explores the link between photography and mortality. Alive: In the Face of Death marks a radical departure from the portraits he is known for, as he focused his lens on people who had been told they only have a short time left to live, or have been forced to confront their mortality through personal or professional experience.


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Monday 14th July

Factual > Documentaries

Privacy Under Pressure
BBC Radio 4, 9:00-9:30am

In a major new series about how technology is reshaping our notions of privacy, Steve Hewlett asks what we reveal through our online behaviour and use of smart phones. He traces who analyses this behaviour, how it is used and on what terms. Are we aware of how much data we are giving away?

The programme explores how online behaviour can be tracked, monitored and exploited, from cookies to Facebook likes. It investigates whether privacy policies are of any real use or relevance. And it asks if we should all become more aware of the impact of our digital footprints.

Interviewees include representatives from social media companies, advertisers, app developers, academics and privacy campaigners.


Documentaries > Religion

Ramadan Diairies
Channel 4, 7:55-8:00pm

Every year, Britain's 2.8 million Muslims take part in Ramadan.

For one month, from dawn to dusk, they forgo food, water, smoking and swearing, in an attempt to focus on what's important, think about those who have less than them and better appreciate what they have.

Channel 4 follows and hears from a wide range of British Muslims throughout Ramadan, on how they cope with daily life and the physical and spiritual effects of fasting, as they go through it.


Documentaries

Dispatches: South Africa's Dirty Cops
Channel 4, 8:00-8:30pm

Reporter Inigo Gilmore investigates CCTV and mobile phone footage, which, critics say, show officers beating and torturing suspects. He also interviews a 14-year-old boy who alleges he was tortured at the hands of the police.

With a wave of anti-government civil protests routinely and brutally suppressed by the police, Gilmore explores the problematic relationship between those employed to serve and protect and their political masters.

He speaks to the wife of Andries Tatane, an activist whose killing by police was caught on camera, and reveals compelling new evidence of the police's role during and after the Marikana massacre when 34 miners were shot and killed by police in 2012.

Dispatches explores fears that under the African National Congress party - synonymous with Nelson Mandela and the struggle for freedom - the rainbow nation's police force have come to increasingly mirror the actions of its apartheid predecessor.


News

Panorama: Broken by Battle
BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm

As our troops in Afghanistan prepare to come home, more and more British soldiers are haunted by the trauma of over a decade of war. This Panorama special investigates the true personal cost which, until now, has remained largely hidden. The Ministry of Defence only releases the number of suicides of serving soldiers and does not track what happens to its veterans.

Over the course of a year, reporter Toby Harnden set out to discover how many soldiers, both former and serving, took their own lives in 2012. He talks to families who have lost their sons and ex-soldiers suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder who are desperately seeking help.


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Tuesday 15th July

Documentaries > Religion

Ramadan Diairies
Channel 4, 7:55-8:00pm


Factual > History > Documentaries

Hidden Killers of the Victorian Age
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm


Never mind today’s “squeezed middle”, spare a thought for the new urban middle classes of the 19th century. Their desire to raise their standard of living often led them to embrace the latest untried innovations and trends. The engaging Dr Suzannah Lipscomb shows just how deadly these untested products could be once introduced to the home.

It’s a litany of toxic avengers, smiting the Victorians for their aspirations: arsenic in wallpaper, lead in toys’ paint, unsafe gas and electricity. Lipscomb subjects them to scientific testing, but most shocking of all is the exhibit of a liver from a tightly corseted woman, showing the indentations where it was squashed against her ribcage.

Suzannah Lipscomb reveals the dangers created in Victorian households when owners brought the latest gadgets and conveniences into their homes. In an era with no health and safety standards, they were often turning their homes into hazardous death traps.


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Wednesday 16th May

Documentaries > Religion

Ramadan Diaries
Channel 4, 7:55-8:00pm


Documentaries > Crime

Myra Hindley: The Untold Story
Channel 5, 8:00-9:00pm, 1/3

The first film ‘The Brady Factor’ will focus on Myra Hindley’s childhood and upbringing and events that led up to her initial meeting with Ian Brady, and the start of their relationship that would quickly become sadistic.

The film has access to Myra’s unpublished autobiography and focusses on her violent upbringing, her life in Gorton and early events that she claims influenced and shaped her personality . Myra’s early loves are explored and how she was immediately bowled over by Ian when she met him at work and how her obsession with him developed.


Factual > Arts, Vulture & the Media . Documentaries

Bought with Love: The Secret History of British Art
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/3


t would be hard to imagine a world where there were no public galleries full of paintings, where the names of Leonardo and Michelangelo were hardly known, where art was considered purely decorative and artists merely craftsman – but this was Britain 400 years ago.

Since then, art has flooded to our shores and our appreciation of art and artists has been transformed.

In a new three-part series for BBC Four, art historian Helen Rosslyn traces the stories of the men and women whose enthusiasm for art, sense of adventure, and powerful wealth built Britain’s national collection and shaped the history of art of our nation.

In the first episode, Pioneers, Helen reveals the immense influence of the pioneers – the earliest 17th century adventurers in art collecting. Starting with Thomas Howard, the ‘Collector’ Earl of Arundel, Helen tells how his passion for the Old Masters of the Italian Renaissance began an unparalleled revolution in the visual arts and the appreciation of painting in Britain. The founder of a tradition that saw continental travel and collecting go hand in hand, Arundel’s influence sparked an appreciation for fine art that spread to Charles I and his entourage, The Whitehall Group. Arundel was key in encouraging Rubens and Van Dyck to England, painters who would completely revolutionise painting in the country and fire an enthusiasm for the baroque art that defined the era of Charles I.


Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media > Magazines & Reviews

The Culture Show: Maxine Peak - Performance, Protest and Peterloo
BBC2, 10:00-10:30pm

Channel 4 Dispatches examines allegations that South Africa's police have become a brutal and corrupt force.  In a Culture Show special, Miranda Sawyer meets actress Maxine Peake as she prepared for her appearance at the Manchester International Festival, where she performed Shelley's The Masque of Anarchy - written as a response to the 1819 Peterloo massacre. Peake talks about why she feels the poem is more relevant than ever and reveals the people and places that are important to her.


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Thursday 17th May

Documentaries > Religion

Ramadan Diairies
Channel 4, 7:55-8:00pm


Factual > Law > Legal System > Crime > Documentaries

The Briefs
ITV1, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/2

“We are a vital check on the power of the state. And that does involve us taking on unpopular causes, representing all kinds of people from hardened criminals to mentally ill people, people who can’t understand the system, people who need expert legal advice and help. Otherwise they wouldn’t be able to have their say, they wouldn’t be able to get a fair trial.” – Franklin Sinclair, Tuckers Solicitors

The second series of The Briefs offers viewers an insight into British justice from the perspective of the defence.  This new two-part series again follows lawyers from a Manchester firm as they represent clients accused of crimes ranging from brandishing an axe at police officers to blackmailing and defrauding a pensioner out of their life savings.

With close-quarters access to Britain’s busiest legal aid-funded law practice, Tuckers Solicitors, this returning series shows privileged conversations between lawyer and client, and follows the cases from police station to court - and even to prison. The cameras join them at a challenging time with business dipping and with legal aid cuts looming, our lawyers take to the streets in protest.

In the first programme, the lawyers represent a man accused of violent disorder and of brandishing a knife at police in a burglary, another accused of an armed robbery with an axe at a hairdressing salon, a serial burglar accused of changing his line in crimes by causing criminal damage, and a man accused of attacking with a claw hammer another man he suspected of being a paedophile.

The cameras also follow the Tuckers team away from the office, with the wedding of legal adviser Katy Calderbank in focus as she prepares for her big day - an opportunity for staff to celebrate together.

In the second programme, they represent a man accused of stabbing another man who he says attacked him with a spade at a house party, a conman with an imaginative line in aliases who is accused of defrauding and blackmailing an elderly doctor out of his life savings, and Tuckers staff go on a march to protest against the Government’s legal aid reforms.


Factual > Housing > Documentaries

Meet the Landlords
BBC1, 10:35-11:35pm

One-off documentary exploring the sharp end of the property divide in difficult times. It reveals how many private landlords now ride the rental boom, like Jim Haliburton, who houses 800 tenants through his West Midlands property empire worth £26million. But the film also shows what life is like for the tenants - especially those struggling to cover the rent, as first-time landlord Anna finds when she tries to collect payment so she can pay her own mortgage. There is also the story of single mum Nikki, who despite her cancer diagnosis faces eviction and homelessness because her landlord has realised he can make more money by sub-dividing her home into flats. But he needs to get her out first.


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Friday 18th May

News > Science & Nature > Documentaries

Tonight: Plan Bee
ITV1, 3:00-3:30am

It is estimated that bee numbers have fallen by more than half over the past 30 years, and while experts argue about what is causing the losses, all agree that an urgent plan is needed to save them. Fiona Foster investigates the Government's decision not to support a European pesticide ban and meets those who are determined to reverse the decline of one of nature's most important insects.


Documentaries > Religion

Ramadan Diairies
Channel 4, 7:55-8:00pm


Factual > Science & Nature > Natural World > Documentaries

The Mating Game: A Natural World Special
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm

There’s a lovely scene early in this Natural World Special about how animals pair up. A male polar bear has tracked a female for weeks across the snow. She plays hard to get, quite literally giving him the run-around. But once she reckons he’s up to snuff, they begin to play, tumbling and sliding down the slopes together in a way that looks incredibly sweet and almost, yes, romantic. Later, he briefly loses intererest, so she turns
on the charm and starts adopting saucy poses, lying on her back, peering at him through her legs, and so on.

It’s hilarious, and just one example of bizarre courtship behaviour in a film that is full of irresistible moments. There are humpback whales dancing, bison fighting, flamingos mirroring and a crafty male lemur who understands the power of a touch of cologne.

David Attenborough narrates a look at the different methods animals use to attract a mate, revealing how inventive, loving and complex they can be. A female polar bear tries to revive a male's interest in her by turning cartwheels in front of him, while a bird of paradise tidies obsessively as he prepares a stage for his dance. While other lemurs are fighting for the right to breed, one sidles up to a female and wins favour by wafting his scent at her, and silverback gorilla seduction involves staring with a fixed grin.



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