Off-air recordings for week 6-12 February 2010

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

Sunday 7th

BBC2 - This World: Mexico's Drug War - "Violence is running out of control in Mexico as rival drug cartels battle over the smuggling routes to America. Mexico's president has declared war on the gangsters but the only result appears to be an escalation of the killings.
Katya Adler journeys deep into the heart of a shocking conflict, uncovering the human stories behind the seemingly random and disturbing violence. She asks whether the continuing freedom of the world's most powerful drug runner, Joaquin 'Chapo' Guzman, is evidence that the Government's war is toothless."


Monday 8th

ITV1 - To Kill A Mockingbird - "Oscar-winning adaptation of Harper Lee's novel about a trial in a prejudiced Southern town in the 1930s, told through the eyes of two children whose liberal lawyer father is defending a black farm worker accused of rape. Robert Duvall makes his film debut as a mysterious neighbour."

BBC2 - Generation Jihad - "Peter Taylor investigates the terrorist threat from young Muslim extremists radicalised on the internet.
Following the attempt to bomb an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day, this landmark series looks at the angry young men of Generation Jihad who have turned their backs on the country where they were born.
In the first episode, Peter hears from those convicted under Britain's newest anti-terror laws and investigates how some of the most notorious terrorists came to be radicalised. He finds a generation that has shed the moderate Islam their parents brought to this country, and instead have adopted a faith that they believe compels them to stand apart from Britain and its values."

Tuesday 9th

BBC4 - Getting Our Way - new 3 part series - "Getting our way is part of The Secret Life of the Government season on BBC Four. Also in this season is The Great Offices, looking into the work of Whitehall's three mightiest empires, the Treasury, the Foreign Office, and the Home Office."

More 4 - True Stories: Mafia Hunters - "This chilling film, showing in the True Stories strand, is a chilling insight into the 'Ndrangheta, the 'Cosa Nostra' of the Calabria region of Italy, told through the cat-and-mouse game in one small city between the local boss Toto Crea, the forces of law-and-order out to nail him and the corrupt officials who protect him.
The 'Ndrangheta are just as fearsome and just as feared as their Sicilian brothers but being family based, rarely admitting non-blood members, are all the harder to infiltrate or divide. But in 2000, the people of the small city of Rizziconi had had enough and through a fierce anonymous letter writing campaign, managed to get the city council dissolved by the Italian president.
In addition, the government appointed prosecutor Roberto Pennisi and Inspector Nico Morroni to look into the activities of the Crea family, an inquiry that was to take seven years before the truth was reached."

More 4 - True Stories: The Trials of Amanda Knox - "In a trial that gripped the world, American student Amanda Knox and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were eventually found guilty of the brutal murder of Knox's flatmate, British student Meredith Kercher.
Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison; she has maintained her innocence from the outset. This film, exclusive to the True Stories strand, gained intimate access to the Knox family and their friends for almost two years, beginning just after her arrest in November 2007.
It also includes extracts from letters Amanda wrote while awaiting trial and offers a unique insight into her life, getting behind the sensational headlines to answer the crucial question - who is the real Amanda Knox and was she really capable of murder?

Wednesday 10th

BBC2 - Natural World: Places of Essex - "Multi-award-winning writer Robert Macfarlane sets out on a journey to explore the unexpected landscapes and natural history of Essex, revealing that there is far more to the county than the stereotypes of white stilettos and boy racers.
Macfarlane spends a year travelling the county's strange and elemental landscapes of heavy industry, desolate beaches and wild woods. He encounters massive knot flocks over the Thames, peregrine falcons at Tilbury Power Station, water voles within sniffing distance of the municipal dump, deer rutting in earshot of the M25, barn owls, badgers and bluebells in Billericay as well as a large colony of common seals."

BBC2 - Horizon: To Infinity and Beyond - "By our third year, most of us will have learned to count. Once we know how, it seems as if there would be nothing to stop us counting forever. But, while infinity might seem like an perfectly innocent idea, keep counting and you enter a paradoxical world where nothing is as it seems.
Mathematicians have discovered there are infinitely many infinities, each one infinitely bigger than the last. And if the universe goes on forever, the consequences are even more bizarre. In an infinite universe, there are infinitely many copies of the Earth and infinitely many copies of you. Older than time, bigger than the universe and stranger than fiction. This is the story of infinity."

Thursday 11th

ITV1 - Facing The Enemy: Tonight - "Fiona Foster investigates whether meeting their victims cuts reoffending among criminals. She gets access to some of the police forces using this method, and meets those from both sides of the law who have been through this process. "

Channel 4 - Leaving Home At 8 - "Cutting Edge follows four eight-year-old girls as they adjust to a new life away from their parents and their home. Each of their parents has decided that their child will be better off boarding in a private school, in this instance Highfield, one of the best boarding schools in the UK.
But how do they cope being separated from their families at such a young age? And how in particular do the mothers deal with the difficult decision of sending their offspring away to be educated?"

BBC4 - Great Offices of State - new 3 part series - "Series in which reporter Michael Cockerell uncovers the secret world of Whitehall, showing what the trio of great offices - Home, Foreign and Treasury - are really like. In his look at the Home Office, Cockerell blends fresh access filming with unseen and rare archive and interviews with present and past home secretaries and their senior officials. Cameras follow the present incumbent Alan Johnson as he is briefed by the Home Office spin doctor about what to say to story-hungry journalists."

BBC Radio 4 - new 8 part series - Capturing America: Mark Lawson's History of Modern American Literature - "Talking to leading authors from Philip Roth and Toni Morrison to Stephen King and John Grisham, Mark Lawson tells the story of how American writing became the literary superpower of the 20th century.
Drawing on conversations with writers, including the last major interviews given by John Updike, Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut Jr, Capturing America charts how, from the Second World War to the conflict in Iraq, and from Roosevelt to Obama, novelists, playwrights and poets have tackled the big themes of modern American life: power, money, violence, sex, race, religion, depression and diversity.
Mark reveals his candidate for the title of most unfairly neglected modern American writer and will address the criticisms that contemporary American literature has suffered – too male, too big, too triumphalist. This series shows why the country's writing – like its politics – has provoked admiration, but also sometimes anger and resentment from other cultures. "

Friday 12th

Channel 4- Young, Angry and White -"In July 2009, almost a million voters chose the BNP in the EU elections. But it's not just traditional BNP voters swelling the ranks, with a recent survey finding one in 20 young people would vote BNP.
Against this backdrop, Peter Beard follows 19-year-old Kieren, who is considering joining the party.
Kieren is looking for a home in the BNP but is unsure that it represents his views. Having been a fervent nationalist from the age of 15, he is concerned that the BNP is losing its radical edge and selling out its racial policies.
His choice is made more difficult by the fact he comes from a moderate family who find many of his far-right views shocking. There is concern that the opinions and choices he is making at a young age could have serious consequences for his future.
This fascinating First Cut documentary offers an insight into a young person's attraction to a party whose policies and image continue to cause extreme controversy throughout the country."


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* 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.