Tuesday 13 December 2011

Off-air recordings for weeks 17-30 December 2011

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.
__________________________________________________________
Monday 19th December

Documentaries

The Year The Earth Went Wild
Channel 4, 8:00-9:00pm

With a record-breaking cold winter, the tsunami in Japan, the extraordinary killer American tornado season, the floods in Australia and a hurricane in New York, 2011 has seen an onslaught of epic-scale climate and geological events across the world, all caught on camera in the most spectacular fashion.


Using eye-witness footage, interviews with survivors and rescuers and analysis from geological and weather specialists, this documentary charts the incredible natural events of a year where almost every month was affected by a natural disaster.


__________________________________________________________
Wednesday 21st December

Documentaries

Obsessive Compulsive Hoarder
Channel 4, 9:00-10:00pm

In a pretty English village in the Surrey stockbroker belt lives the infamous Mr Wallace, whose hoarding habits have spread across a million pounds-worth of property that used to belong to his parents. His detached bungalow, four-bedroom semi-detached house and separate double garage are all stuffed from floor to ceiling with newspapers and other household items. Cutting Edge is given unique access into his intriguing home, where no one else has ever ventured. Mr Wallace is arguably the UK's most extreme hoarder and his house has become a death trap. It is so packed that he has to crawl over mountains of papers and magazines simply to move from room to room; it takes 40 minutes to get to his front door from the chair he eats and sleeps in. The garden also acts as a dumping ground for tonnes of refuse so old that it is overgrown by foliage and trees. The council has tried to force Richard Wallace to clear his garden but he fought them to the Crown Court, representing himself and winning. A year on, things are coming to a head as the picturesque village is competing to win Britain in Bloom and Richard's home is once again the source of contention. But with the hoarding now affecting his ability to function, Richard is entrenched to the point where his health is suffering, his safety is increasingly at risk and he is living in a physical and mental prison.
This time, the village's sense of community is truly tested and Richard faces the most significant challenge yet to his isolating way of life.


_________________________________________________________
Thursday 22nd December

Art, Culture and the Media; Documentaries

The Art of Night
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm

Waldemar Januszczak explores a selection of paintings created at night, including pieces by Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Velazquez, Hopper and Magritte. He discovers why the nocturnal world has inspired artists throughout history to create challenging and dramatic images, and explores the difficulties that arise when painters work after dark.


_________________________________________________________
Friday 23rd December

Documentaries

The Many Lovers of Miss Jane Austen
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm

Waldemar Januszczak explores a selection of paintings created at night, including pieces by Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Velazquez, Hopper and Magritte. He discovers why the nocturnal world has inspired artists throughout history to create challenging and dramatic images, and explores the difficulties that arise when painters work after dark.



__________________________________________________________
Monday 26th December

Arts, Culture and The Media

Jane Austen: The Unseen Portrait
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm

In this one-off special Martha Kearney follows a British academic’s search to find out whether an unusual drawn portrait really does capture the face of the well-loved author.  Will the picture stand up to forensic analysis and scrutiny by art historians and Austen experts? And if it does, how might it change our perception of one of Britain’s most revered writers. Jane Austen: The Unseen Portrait follows the investigation behind one of the literary world’s most exciting art works.

Janice Hadlow, Controller, BBC Two: “Jane Austen: The Unseen Portrait? will sit at the heart of our Christmas schedule and will be a fascinating chance for the BBC Two audience to delve deeper into the life of one of Britain’s best-loved authors.”  Jane Austen is one of the most celebrated writers of all time but with only a rough sketch by her sister we have just an inkling of what she may have looked like. Austen academic and biographer Dr Paula Byrne thinks that this may be about to change. She believes that she’s discovered a portrait of the author that has been lost for nearly two centuries and may offer fascinating new insight into how Jane once lived and portrayed herself to the world.  Martha follows Paula’s search to gather as much evidence as possible in her quest to prove that she really may hold one of the rarest literary portraits of all-time. From eighteenth century costume experts to the editor of Jane Austen’s letters, Paula must interrogate as many experts as possible to build a case for why this really might be Jane. After months of research, she presents the portrait to three of the world’s most prominent Austen experts. Will she be able to convince them that it really is as authentic as it seems?


_________________________________________________________
Tuesday 27th December

Science; Lectures

The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
BBC4, 8:00-9:00pm, Meet Your Brain, 3 parts on successive days

Inside each and every one of us it the most marvellous structure in the known universe - the human brain. Our brain makes us who we are and yet the way it works has been a mystery for much of human civilization. We all know that we think but not how we think. Deep inside every brain is a vast hidden world of complexity that defies description. Yet science has made important discoveries in recent years that begin to uncover the workings of this remarkable organ.


_________________________________________________________
Thursday 29th December

Factual; Arts

Earth Flight
BBC1, 8:00-9:00pm, 1/6

BBC One is to capture some of the world's greatest wildlife phenomena and natural wonders through the eyes of birds in a new natural history series.  In Earth Flight, amazing sights from five continents will be revealed in a whole new light as the five-part series joins the journeys of snow geese, cranes, falcons, albatross, eagles and other birds.  Using cutting edge new filming techniques to show everything in exquisite detail, viewers have a uniquely privileged perspective flying 9,000 metres high over the sands of the Sahara or skimming metres over the Great Wall of China.   The birds are shown up-close in flight and interacting with other animals down below, from barnacle geese encountering herds of migrating reindeer, to pelicans plunging into hundreds of nurse sharks.  Spycams film right in the heart of the flock with microlights, hang-gliders and wirecams making up the aerial filming arsenal.  Slow-motion techniques reveal extraordinary detail such as a swallow plucking a fly from the air while new satellite technology enables a seamless transition from views of entire continents to moving aerial images of the animals that live there. Sequences include flamingoes flying over the soda lakes of Africa and becoming prey for hunting baboons, flocks of waders landing in an invasion of horseshore crabs and Hummingbirds darting through the Grand Canyon.

Wednesday 7 December 2011

Off-air recordings for week 10-16 December 2011

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.

_________________________________________________________
Saturday 10th December

Factual; Documentaries; Politics

Iron Ladies of Liberia
BBC4, 11:55pm-12:50am

When Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became Africa's first ever elected female head of state, filmmakers Siatta Scott-Johnson and Daniel Junge were there to follow her. It was the start of an extraordinary year they spent with the Liberian president as she struggled to take control of a country devastated by years of civil war.

Together with her 'iron ladies' (the finance minister and police chief are also formidable females), she takes a firm hold on the government, trying to root out corruption and spend the tiny annual budget carefully. But it's not an easy task, and everything seems to be against her - even her presidential mansion burns down.


____________________________________________________________
Sunday 11th December

Documentaries

Japan Tsunami: Caught on Camera
Channel 4, 8:15-9:30pm

Japan's Tsunami: Caught on Camera captures the impact of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan in April 2011, using amateur footage filmed by those caught up in the disaster.


Featuring never-before-seen footage, the programme gives accounts from eyewitnesses, amateur photographers and video enthusiasts, whose initial desire to record the tsunami was quickly overtaken by the cataclysmic events that unfolded in front of them.

But they kept on filming, many while only narrowly escaping with their lives.

The eyewitness film captures some apocalyptic images of the wave's destructive power: Takayuki Saijo only just made it up a hill in time to see the town of Kamaishi destroyed beneath him; Kenichi Murakami had to run for his life, climbing a high-school fire escape while filming the carnage below; and Yu Muroga narrowly escaped death as his car (with its on-board camera) was swept away in the torrential current and then sank.

Beyond the immediate horror of the tsunami, the film, made seven months after the event, also grapples with the aftermath: the loss, uncertainty and long-term trauma faced by individuals and towns struggling to come to terms with whether they can or should rebuild their shattered communities.


Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; History; Documentaries

Rosslyn Chapel: A Treasure In Stone
BBC4, 7:30-8:30pm

The exquisite Rosslyn Chapel is a masterpiece in stone. It used to be one of Scotland's best kept secrets, but it became world-famous when it was featured in Dan Brown's the Da Vinci Code.


Art historian Helen Rosslyn, whose husband's ancestor built the chapel over 500 years ago, is the guide on a journey of discovery around this perfect gem of a building. Extraordinary carvings of green men, inverted angels and mysterious masonic marks beg the questions of where these images come from and who were the stonemasons that created them? Helen's search leads her across Scotland and to Normandy in search of the creators of this medieval masterpiece.



___________________________________________________________
Monday 12th December

Factual; News

This World: Return of the Lost Boys of Sudan
BBC1, 7:00-8:00pm

When South Sudan became independent this summer, it brought the return of many who had fled the long civil war. Among them were some of the 'Lost Boys' - the name given to more than 20,000 child refugees, some as young as seven, who walked more than a thousand miles to refugee camps in Ethiopia. More than half fell victim to war, disease and starvation along the way. Many of the survivors were recruited as child soldiers in the rebel army; others were exiled abroad.

Now some of the Lost Boys are coming home. For some it's a chance to trace lost relatives and come to terms with childhood trauma, for others an opportunity to help build the new nation and their own careers.


___________________________________________________________
Tuesday 13th December

Documentaries

My Big Fat Gypsy Christmas
Channel 4, 9:00-10:00pm

Christmas is a time for family, a time for peace and harmony - but it is also a time to celebrate. This film follows the celebrations and traditions of members of the Irish traveller community at Christmas, as well as two of the most jaw dropping weddings ever shown.  Filmed last year, the programme follows a mass-Yuletide First Communion ceremony. It also follows some of the unique traveller preparations that go on in the run up to Christmas, and spends Christmas Day itself with Paddy and Roseanne at their home on a traveller site in Salford.  This warm and joy-filled film offers a window into the close-knit and fiercely private community. It explores some of the age-old traveller traditions - and some of the newer ones too.


Factual; Arts, Media and Culture; Documenataries

Imagine... Books - The Last Chapter?
BBC1, 10:35-11:40pm, 6/8

With the rise of electronic books, is the final chapter about to be written in the long love story between books and their readers? Will the app take the place of the traditional book?


Alan Yentob discusses the subject with writers Alan Bennett, Douglas Coupland, Ewan Morrison and Gary Shteyngart, publisher Gail Rebuck, agent Ed Victor and librarian Rachael Morrison. They also smell books, making precise notes about the distinctive aroma of each.


__________________________________________________________
Wednesday 14th December

Factual; Science and Nature; Science and Technology

Donated to Science
BBC4, 1:55-2:50am

In 2006, a New Zealand television company interviewed several people who planned to donate their bodies to the Otago Medical School for students to dissect. They were asked about their lives and their loves, their hopes, their fears and, of course, their bodies. The school is one of the last in the world whose students still do significant human dissection, and both they and the donors gave permission to be followed through the whole process. By intercutting the donors' interviews with their own bodies being dissected and the students' reactions for the first time on film, there is the chance to share the amazing journey of the students, the donors and their families.


___________________________________________________________
Thursday 15th December

News; Documentaries

Up In Flames: Mr Reeves and the Riots
BBC1, 10:45-11:30pm

Documentary following one shop owner in the aftermath of the riots of August 2011. When the riots struck there was no-one more taken by surprise than Maurice Reeves, 80-year-old owner of Croydon's Reeves Furniture store, who had to watch his 144-year-old family business go up in flames. This film follows him in the aftermath of that night, trying to work out how the town he had always thought so safe could descend into arson and looting, and whether he should ever open up shop again in the midst of a community that could spiral out of control so drastically. In the weeks that follow he meets other victims of the riots, comes face to face with disaffected Croydon young people, and takes on local politicIans - becoming more and more Churchillian by the week, a steadfast octogenarian rebuttal to riot and violence.


____________________________________________________________
Friday 16th December

Arts, Culture and the Media; History; Documentaries

Andy Hamilton's Search for Satan
BBC4, 2:25-3:25am

Just how did the Devil get inside our heads? And who put him there? For Halloween, award-winning comedy writer and performer Andy Hamilton (creator and star of Radio 4's acclaimed infernal comedy Old Harry's Game) explores just who the devil Satan is, where he comes from and what he's been up to all this time.

Tuesday 29 November 2011

Off-air recordings for week 3-9 December 2011

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

_________________________________________________________
Saturday 3rd December


Documentaries

Tony Robinson's Gods and Monsters
Channel 4, 8:00-9:00pm, 2/2 Evil Spirits

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.


__________________________________________________________
Sunday 4th December


Factual; Money; Documentaries

Mark Zuckerberg: Inside Facebook
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm

In just seven years, Mark Zuckerberg has gone from his Harvard college dorm to running a business with 800 million users, and a possible value of $100 billion. His idea to 'make the world more open and connected' has sparked a revolution in communication, and now looks set to have a huge impact on business too.

Emily Maitlis reports on life inside Facebook. Featuring a rare interview with Zuckerberg himself, the film tells the story of Facebook's creation, looks at the accuracy of The Social Network movie, and examines Facebook's plans to use the personal information it has collected to power a new kind of online advertising.

__________________________________________________________
Monday 5th December


Documentaries; News, Current Affairs and Politics

Dispatches: Landlords from Hell
Channel 4, 8:30-9:00pm

In this undercover investigation, Jon Snow reports on the return of the slum landlord in 21st-century Britain. At a time when more people than ever are having to rent privately, unable to get on the property ladder, Dispatches reveals the shocking conditions in which tenants are forced to live.


Dispatches sends an undercover reporter to work for a rogue property empire in the north of England. He reveals a world of forced evictions, slum properties in dangerous condition, and routine bullying of tenants. Jon confronts the man raking in millions while his tenants suffer.

Dispatches also exposes an extraordinary new phenomenon: thousands of people living in illegal sheds, transforming parts of London into slums. A second undercover reporter lives in a squalid, illegal shed in London, paying £40 a week rent to another rogue landlord.

Dispatches lifts the lid on a world where unscrupulous landlords are exploiting the most vulnerable people in society and getting away with it.

August 2011:

Since the programme has gone out, the Charity Commission has opened an inquiry into housing charity, the Meridian Foundation, exposed in a recent Channel 4 Dispatches undercover investigation.

Meridian's property empire extends across greater Manchester and the north west of England. It has a turnover of hundreds of thousands of pounds with much of that money from the taxpayer in the form of Housing Benefit.

A spokeswoman for the Charity Commission confirmed it had received 25 complaints about the charity after the programme was broadcast.



Documentaries

The Great British Property Scandal
Channel 4, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/2 (part 2 on Tuesday)

Almost two million British families are currently on the waiting lists for social housing, and thousands live in unsuitable temporary accommodation or are struggling with soaring rent payments. Cutbacks and the recession also mean that homelessness has become a very real threat to thousands across the whole social spectrum who are increasingly struggling to make ends meet.


Meanwhile, one million properties lie empty across the UK, even though many cost huge amounts to keep secure - a bill often footed by taxpayers. In some areas whole streets of houses stand deserted, damaging the local community as well as neighbourhood businesses. In others, empty stranded houses are a blight on the local landscape attracting vermin and vandals, and depressing surrounding property prices.

For The Great British Property Scandal season, Channel 4 investigates some of the issues that have contributed to the housing crisis and speak to a broad range of the people affected by it.


_________________________________________________________
Tuesday 6th December


Documentaries

My Child's Not Perfect
ITV1, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/2

Children struggling with problems which drastically affect their behaviour and profoundly impact on their families’ lives are the focus of this brand new ITV1 series.


Among the children featured are a six-year-old girl who, despite being talkative at home, becomes mute as soon as she passes through the school gates each day, a 16 year old boy with Tourette’s Syndrome, whose condition appeared suddenly following a seizure, and a ten-year-old boy whose family have spent almost his entire life desperately searching for a clear, satisfactory diagnosis to help them understand why something ‘is not right’ with him.

Produced by Maverick Television, 2x60 documentary series, My Child’s Not Perfect, focuses on each family’s efforts to understand more about their child’s behaviour and ways to cope with the challenge of raising young people with a range of behavioural, emotional or clinical problems. In each programme, the children and their families, drawn from across the country and from a range of backgrounds, are shown dealing with the emotional demands and practical difficulties of searching for and testing methods of combating and managing each condition.

And, as the series will show, for some a significant part of their struggle is finding an adequate diagnosis for their condition in the first place.

Working with mental health professionals from established institutions including The Maudsley Hospital, The Anna Freud Centre and The Priory Hospital, My Child’s Not Perfect sets out to provide an insight into issues faced by many families today.

Episode 1

In episode one we meet Katherine, a lively little six year old who is the life and soul of the family at home. However, as soon as she passes through the school gates each day, she becomes mute. Unable to speak a word for eight hours a day, her family embarks on a course of intensive speech therapy to get to the cause of her resistance to talk.

For 16 year old Henry, the problem isn’t talking, it’s what he says: Henry has Tourette’s Syndrome. Diagnosed just over a year ago, following a sudden seizure, Henry and his family’s lives were turned upside down in an instant. Unable to control either physical movement or vocal expression, he’s coming to terms with the impact of this incurable condition and seeking alternative therapies to manage it, while studying for his GCSEs.

The programme also features Charlotte, who has been searching for a diagnosis to explain her ten year old son Adam’s behaviour. Convinced that something just ‘wasn’t right’ since he was a baby, she has come to the mental health unit of the Priory in Cheadle, near Stockport, to meet Dr Faeza Khan. She assesses Adam and diagnoses him with Autistic Spectrum Disorder, which comes as a relief to his mother, who has spent his life searching for a diagnosis which will hopefully enable the family to access services and support to formulate a long-term care package for him.


__________________________________________________________
Wednesday 7th December


Factual; Science and Nature; Documentaries

After Life: The Strange Science of Decay
BBC4, 4:00-5:30am

Ever wondered what would happen in your own home if you were taken away, and everything inside was left to rot? The answer is revealed in this fascinating programme, which explores the strange and surprising science of decay.

For two months in summer 2011, a glass box containing a typical kitchen and garden was left to rot in full public view within Edinburgh Zoo. In this resulting documentary, presenter Dr George McGavin and his team use time-lapse cameras and specialist photography to capture the extraordinary way in which moulds, microbes and insects are able to break down our everyday things and allow new life to emerge from old.

Decay is something that many of us are repulsed by. But as the programme shows, it's a process that's vital in nature. And seen in close up, it has an unexpected and sometimes mesmerising beauty.

__________________________________________________________
Thursday 8th December


Documentaries

Jerusalem: The Making of a Holy City
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/3

Author and historian Simon Sebag Montefiore presents a three-part series that illuminates the history of the sacred, and peerlessly beautiful city - Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is one of the oldest cities in the world. For the Jewish faith, it is the site of the Western Wall, the last remnant of the second Jewish Temple. For Christians, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the site of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For Muslims, the Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third holiest Sanctuary of Islam.

In episode one Simon Sebag Montefiore will delve into the past to explore how this unique city came into being, explaining how it became of such major importance to the three Abrahamic faiths; and how these faiths emerged from the Biblical tradition of the Israelites.

Starting with the Canaanites, Simon goes on a chronological journey to trace the rise of the city as a holy place and discusses the evidence for it becoming a Jewish city under King David. The programme explores the construction of the First Temple by Solomon through to the life and death of Jesus Christ and the eventual expulsion of the Jews by the Romans, concluding in the 7th Century AD, on the eve of the capture of Jerusalem by the Muslim Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab.


__________________________________________________________
Friday 9th December


News, Current Affairs and Politics

Unreported World
Channel 4, 7:30-8:00, 10/10, Australia's Hidden Valley

Unreported World investigates the effect of controversial emergency legislation on Australia's Aboriginal population. The government has used this legislation to take control of many Aboriginal settlements. It said this was help to end violence and child abuse, and combat the alcohol abuse that ravages many Aboriginal communities.


Reporter Oliver Steeds and director Ed Braman begin their journey in Alice Springs - visited by tens of thousands of Britons every year for its aboriginal art galleries and tourist sites - where alcohol addiction is still ravaging the lives of the country's original inhabitants, many of whom live in desolate squatter camps on the outskirts of town.

The team joins a regular night patrol, staffed by volunteers who search the streets for Aboriginal people incapacitated by alcohol. Many of them live in townships or settlements outside the town: a legacy from 1928 when they weren't allowed to live in the town itself.

Steeds and Braman visit a settlement called Hidden Valley. At the entrance is a sign warning that, under emergency legislation, alcohol is illegal. Despite this, the ground is littered with bottles and cans.

They give one resident, Beverley, a lift to the largest supermarket in the centre of Alice Springs. Since the emergency legislation, which required the suspension of Australia's race discrimination act, her welfare payments are ring-fenced to help prevent the purchase of alcohol.

Aboriginal people are five times more likely to die of alcohol-related causes than other Australians. However, the legislation, and the knowledge of the harm alcohol is doing, does little to stop her - or her friends - from buying it.


__________________________________________________________
*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.

Thursday 24 November 2011

Off-air recordings for week 26 November - 2 December 2011

Please email Rich Deakin rdeakin@glos.ac.uk if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*
_________________________________________________________
Sunday 27th November

Factual; Surfing; Documentaries

Riding Giants
BBC4, 9:00-10:30pm

The history of surfing culture is told through the exploits of the pioneers and contemporary heroes of big-wave surfing in Stacy Peralta's documentary, which features the likes of Greg Noll and Jeff Clark. Riding Giants makes palpable the magnitude and terrifying power of the waves they seek to conquer and captures the unfathomable combination of adrenaline and fear that the surfers experience each time they take on a monster swell.


_________________________________________________________
Monday  28th November

Crime and Justice; Documentaries

The British Woman on Death Row
Channel 4, 8:00-9:00pm

Linda Carty was born on the Commonwealth island of St Kitts. She's awaiting execution in Texas: if she's killed, she'll be the first British woman to be executed since Ruth Ellis, over 50 years ago.


In this moving documentary, film maker Steve Humphries goes in search of the real Linda Carty: who she is, where she came from, and how she ended up in arguably the worst place in the world, Death Row.

Linda was convicted of capital murder in 2002 after it was alleged she was the mastermind behind a horrific crime. In May 2001, a criminal gang broke into the home of Linda's neighbours and abducted a young mother and her three-day-old baby boy.

The next day the baby was found alive in one of Linda's cars, but his mother was found dead in another: she had been suffocated.

Linda has always denied any involvement in the crime, but testimony from the gang and circumstantial evidence found at the scene led to her arrest.

At her trial, Linda was represented by one of the State's capital defence attorneys, who's had over 20 of his clients end up on Death Row. It's claimed his poor defence of Linda helped lead to her conviction.

But this isn't just a film about a miscarriage of justice; it's a revealing account of Linda and her extraordinary life: she's been a primary school teacher, a dedicated single mother who overcame the stigma of illegitimacy, the victim of rape and abuse, and a woman blackmailed into becoming a confidential informant for the Drugs Enforcement Administration.

With contributions from family, friends, lawyers and Linda herself, this is an intimate and emotional portrait of a woman facing death and an exploration of why society believes she should die.


Factual; Travel; Documentaries

American Nomads
BBC4, 10:00-11:30pm

Beneath the America we think we know lies a nation hidden from view - a nomadic nation, living on the roads, the rails and in the wild open spaces. In its deserts, forests, mountain ranges and on the plains, a huge population of modern nomads pursues its version of the American dream - to live free from the world of careers, mortgages and the white picket fence.

When British writer Richard Grant moved to the USA more than 20 years ago it wasn't just a change of country. He soon found himself in a world of travellers and the culture of roadside America - existing alongside, but separate from, conventional society. In this film he takes to the road again, on a journey without destination.

In a series of encounters and unplanned meetings, Richard is guided by his own instincts and experiences - and the serendipity of the road. Travelling with loners and groups, he encounters the different 'tribes' of nomads as he journeys across the deserts of America's south west.


Factual; Crime and Justice; Documentaries

Real Crime with Mark Austin: Manhunt
ITV1, 10:35-11:35pm, 4/4

The search for Northumbrian gunman Raoul Moat, a case that dominated the UK news in July 2010. Armed with a sawn-off shotgun, the former bouncer began his campaign of terror after being released from prison, murdering Chris Brown - his ex-girlfriend Samantha Stobbart's partner - and shooting policeman David Rathband, which left the officer blind. Following a manhunt that lasted almost a week, Moat was found in Rothbury, Northumberland, where he eventually took his own life after a stand-off with police.


__________________________________________________________
Tuesday 29th November 2011

Documentaries; Politics

Jon Snow Meets Jimmy Carter
More4, 2:05-3:00am

In October 2011, Jimmy Carter entertained 2500 people at London's Southbank Centre with stories from his four years as US President and his subsequent life.


The Nobel Prize-winner, author, humanitarian, professor, farmer, naval officer and carpenter spoke to Jon Snow about everything from combatting guinea worm disease to the conflict in Israel and Palestine, Osama Bin Laden's death, the execution of Troy Davis, his assessment of the Harry Potter novels, and why he found it easier to work with George Bush Snr than Bill Clinton.


Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Food and Drink; Documentaries

America on a Plate: The Story of the Diner
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm

Writer and broadcaster Stephen Smith re-envisions the story of 20th century American culture through its most iconic institution - the diner. Whether Edward Hopper's Nighthawks or the infamous encounter between Pacino and de Niro in Heat, these gleaming, gawdy shacks are at the absolute heart of the American vision.

Stephen embarks on a girth-busting road journey that takes him to some of America's most iconic diners. He meets the film-makers and singers who have immortalised them, and looks at the role diners have played not only in America's greatest paintings and movies, but also in the fight against racial oppression and the chain restaurants' global takeover.

For Stephen, it's because the diner is the last vestige of a vital part of the American psyche - the frontier. Like the Dodge City saloon it's a place where strangers are thrown together, where normal rules are suspended and anything can happen. And it's this crackle of potentially violent and sexual energy that have drawn so many artists to the diner, and made it not a convenient setting but an engine room of 20th century American culture.


___________________________________________________________
Wednesday 30th November 2011

Documentaries; History

The Great Inca Rebellion
Mire 4, 11:10pm-12:10am

Recent archaeological discoveries in Peru are casting doubt on the received wisdom of the Spanish conquistadors' defeat of the Incas. It's long been believed that Francisco Pizarro led a lightning defeat of one of the mightiest civilisations of the New World.


But archaeologist Guillermo Cock has uncovered what may be the first physical evidence of an untold story of Inca guerrilla warfare, rebellion, counter-sieges and terror tactics.

The Great Inca Rebellion combines forensic anthropology, science and historical analysis to explore the possibility that it may have taken the Spanish decades to subdue Inca rebels who mounted guerrilla wars against the treasure-seeking conquistadors.


__________________________________________________________
Thursday 1st December 2011

Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media

America in Pictures: The Story of Life Magazine
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm

Life was an iconic weekly magazine that specialised in extraordinarily vivid photojournalism. Through its most dynamic decades, - the 40s, 50s and 60s - Life caught the spirit of America as it blossomed into a world superpower. Read by over half the country, its influence on American people was unparalleled. No other magazine in the world held the photograph in such high esteem. At Life the pictures, not the words, did the talking. As a result, the Life photographer was king.


In this film, leading UK fashion photographer Rankin celebrates the work of Life's legendary photographers including Alfred Eisenstaedt and Margaret Bourke-White, who went to outrageous lengths to get the best picture - moving armies, naval fleets and even the population of entire towns. He travels across the USA to meet photographers Bill Eppridge, John Shearer, John Loengard, Burk Uzzle and Harry Benson who, between them, have shot the big moments in American history - from the assassination of Robert F Kennedy, the Civil Rights struggle and Vietnam to behind the scenes at the Playboy mansion and the greatest names in Hollywood.

These photographers pioneered new forms of photojournalism, living with and photographing their subjects for weeks, enabling them to capture compelling yet ordinary aspects of American life too. Rankin discovers that Life told the story of America in photographs, and also taught America how to be American.


Factual, Art's, Culture and Media

Arena: James Ellroy's Feast of Death
BBC4, 11:25pm-1:00am

A programme exploring the work of crime writer James Ellroy, whose credits include LA Confidential, The Black Dahlia and My Dark Places, the latter a harrowing memoir of his own mother's murder. Ellroy later moved on from crime writing to pen his own secret history of the United States. As the second volume of his 'Underworld USA' trilogy - The Cold Six Thousand - was published in the UK in 2001, the film takes a tour of Ellroy's often disturbing world.


___________________________________________________________
Friday 2nd December 2011

World News; Current Affairs: Documentaries

Unreported World
Channel 4, 7:30-8:00pm, 9/10 Honduras: Diving Into Danger

Indigenous people in Honduras are risking their lives diving to dangerous depths for lobsters destined for North American and European diners. Overfishing means they must now dive as deep as 150ft to land their catch. Each time they dive, they risk paralysis or death from the bends.


Reporter Jenny Kleeman and director Daniel Bogado travel into the Caribbean with divers on board a lobster diving boat. Kleeman discovers that while companies and consumers care about buying tuna that's caught in a way that doesn't harm dolphins, we don't seem to care about lobster that's caught in a way that has left hundreds dead and thousands paralysed.

The team begin their journey in Cocobila, where a lobster fishing boat is recruiting divers. Kleeman meets 29-year-old diver Alexis as he says goodbye to his wife and five children.

Alexis risks death on every trip but has no choice but make his living in this way, as he says there are no other work opportunities on the Mosquito Coast. Only four days ago, one of his friends was killed diving for lobster.

Kleeman and Bogado join the divers and crew as they head out to the lobster banks. For the next 12 days, this 60ft boat will be home to more than 100 men. The air is thick with marijuana and many of the men are very drunk, even though they will be diving the next day.

Overfishing means it takes 13 hours to reach the first banks where lobster could be found. Twenty years ago, they caught them metres from the shore...


____________________________________________________________
*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.

Wednesday 16 November 2011

Off-air recordings for week 19-25 November 2011

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 20th November

Factual; Science and Nature; Science and Technology; Documentaries

Frontline Medicine
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/2, Survival

War drives innovation and in this series, Michael Mosley travels from the frontline of war to the frontline of research to uncover the medical breakthroughs that are coming out of current conflicts.

The first episode takes Michael to Camp Bastion hospital in Afghanistan to find out how medics have achieved the highest survival rate in the history of warfare. And in A&E departments in the USA, he looks at the latest medical advances that could save thousands of lives both on and off the battlefield.


__________________________________________________________
Monday 21st November

Documentaries; Crime and Justice

Real Crime with Mark Austin
ITV1, 10:35-11:35pm, 3/4, Fallen Angel

The case of Hells Angel Gerry Tobin, who was murdered by members of rival motorcycle gang the Outlaws on the M40 while travelling back from the Bulldog Bash festival in August 2007. With access to the police investigation and CCTV footage, as well as interviews with Tobin's family, the programme pieces together the events that led up to his death.


Documentaries

We Need To Talk About Dad

Channel 4, 10:20-11:25pm

The Johnson family appeared to have it all after two decades of happy marriage: professional success, a beautiful house in Kent, flaxen-haired children.  Locals jokingly referred to them as a 'Sunday Supplement Family'. But one day Nick told his wife he had a surprise for, led her blind-folded into the garden, and committed an act of violence far worse than anything they could have imagined.  Henry, who was just 16 at the time, became a witness to the crime.  We Need to Talk About Dad meets the Johnsons as they reunite for Christmas, fulfilling the dreams of the youngest son Felix who - until now - has been sheltered from the events of that day.  Henry's need to confront what happened sees each of them come face to face with the mystery of the attack, and the impact it has had on their lives.


__________________________________________________________
Tuesday 22nd November 2011

Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries

John Steinbeck: Voice of America
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm

Melvyn Bragg travels from Oklahoma to California to examine the enduring legacy of the Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck.

In novels such as The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men and Cannery Row, Steinbeck gave voice to ordinary people who were battling poverty, drought and homelessness. Travelling the famous Route 66 from the midwest to the Pacific coast, Melvyn assesses how relevant Steinbeck's work is today. He visits the site of the 1930s dust bowl in Oklahoma; the California orchards where bloody political battles were fought between migrant labourers and growers; and the Monterey coastline where Steinbeck developed his ideas on ecology. Melvyn makes a case for Steinbeck as one of the great voices of American literature.


Factual; Documentaries

Storyville: Deadline - New York Times
BBC4, 10:00-11:30pm

Documentary which goes inside the newsroom at one of the most venerable publishing institutions in the world, the New York Times. Director Andrew Rossi gained unprecedented access to America's pre-eminent news factory during one of its most tumultuous years, as the film follows its struggle to survive in a year where Wikileaks emerged as a household name and other newspapers folded. Led by people such as David Carr - a firebrand journalist and former crack addict - can the foot soldiers of this bastion of old media keep up with the torrent of information that is the world wide web?


__________________________________________________________
Wednesday 23rd November 2011

Documentaries
 
More 4, 12:50-2.30am
 
Twenty-year-old JoEllen Marsh has always known her family wasn't like other families. She grew up in Pennsylvania with two mothers and a burning curiosity to know more about her anonymous donor father.

When JoEllen discovers a unique online registry that connects donor-conceived children, she tracks down a half-sister in New York. The New York Times picks up the story, and, over time, 12 more half-siblings emerge across the United States.

The New York Times article also falls into the hands of Jeffrey Harrison, living alone with four dogs and a pigeon in a broken-down RV in a Venice Beach car park. In the 1980s, Jeffrey supplemented his meagre incoming by becoming a sperm donor at California Cryobank.

This is a uniquely 21st-century story. The children and their donor dad are reunited as much by modern technology as by old-fashioned coincidence. While the siblings seem to take their ever-expanding family in their stride, Jeffrey is more apprehensive about meeting some of his biological children for the first time.

Funny, moving and surprising, Sperm Donor Unknown raises intriguing questions about our understanding of parenthood, and the strange power of our genetic connections.


__________________________________________________________
Thursday 24th November 2011


Factual; Documentaries

Close Up: Jackson Pollock - Love and Death On Long Island
BBC4, 11:25pm-12:15am

First transmitted in 1999, this documentary profiles American abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock, who died at the age of 44 in a car accident. At the time of his death in 1956, Jackson Pollock was the most celebrated artist in America. His new way of pouring or dripping paint onto the canvas redefined the nature of painting.

Jackson Pollock remains one of America's most controversial artists. "Sometimes I use a brush, but often prefer using a stick. Sometimes I pour the paint straight out of the can. I like to use a dripping fluid paint. A method of painting has a natural growth out of a need. I want to express my feelings rather than illustrate them," he says in this programme. It was this desire to find a more direct form of expression that led to Pollock and his contemporaries being called the 'abstract impressionists'.

Pollock led life to the full, but it was a troubled existence which led to a violent death. Jackson Pollock's lover, Ruth Kligman, reflects, "It was a romantic way to die. If he hadn't met Lee and died in that car he would have died a sick man with maybe an enlarged liver, which is not as romantic as dying tragically in a car with a woman he loved." Artist and friend Cile Downs adds, "It's a lot easier to think about the drama of his history than it is to think about what he did in the realm of art." This documentary explores both themes, leaving you to make up your own mind.


________________________________________________________
Friday 25th November 2011

News; Current Affairs and Politics

Unreported World
Channel 4, 7:30-8:00pm, episode 18. Trinidad: Guns, Drugs and Secrets

Trinidad has become the murder capital of the Caribbean. While half a million tourists soak up the carnival atmosphere every year, the government has introduced a state of emergency to try to stop the gang violence that results in a murder on average every 17 hours.


At 11pm in the capital Port of Spain the atmosphere changes as a strict curfew comes into force and the normally bustling city becomes a ghost town. Reporter Seyi Rhodes and director Will West are only allowed out because they have obtained a special curfew pass for journalists.

The state of emergency has been in force since August and while the murder rate has halved, the killings are continuing.

The team follows police to Laventille, a notoriously violent area. Police officers tell the team that illegal guns and gangs are the cause of most of the murders.

Under the emergency powers the police and army can enter any property without a warrant and arrest anyone they choose. They've rounded up more than 4000 people in the two months since the start of the state of emergency.

Another neighbourhood, Calvary Hill, has been the scene of scores of murders as gang culture and drug dealing have spiraled out of control over the last decade. During the state of emergency many families here have had their homes raided and their sons arrested.

One mother, Susan, has just seen two of her sons arrested, suspected of being gang members. She doubts the state of emergency will end the violence.

Round the corner in Nelson Street, the team discovers that the drug dealing that has blighted this area is still going on, in spite of the police presence.


___________________________________________________________
*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.

Tuesday 8 November 2011

Off-air recordings for week 12-18 November 2011

Please email Rich Deakin rdeakin@glos.ac.uk , or fchmediaservices@glos.ac.uk if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*
_________________________________________________________
Saturday 12th November

Factual; Life Stories; Documentaries

Arena: George Harrison - Living in the Material World
BBC1, 9:45-11:20pm, 1/2

Arena broadcasts the UK television premiere of Martin Scorsese's portrait of the late George Harrison.

Scorsese traces Harrison's life from his beginnings in Liverpool to becoming a world-famous musician, philanthropist and filmmaker, weaving together interviews with George and his closest friends, photographs and archive footage including live performances - much of it previously unseen.

The result is a rare glimpse into the mind of one of the most talented artists of his generation.

Part one looks at George's early years in The Beatles - from their first gigs in Hamburg and the beginning of Beatlemania, through to his psychedelic phase and involvement in religion and Indian music.

The programme includes contributions from Sir Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton, Sir George Martin and Phil Spector.


__________________________________________________________
Sunday 13th November

News; Performances and Events

Remembrance Sunday: The Cenotaph
BBC1, 10:25am-12:15pm

Her Majesty the Queen leads the nation's Remembrance Sunday commemorations. Dignitaries from around the Commonwealth, the prime minister, leading politicians, representatives of many of the world's religions and military leaders join thousands of veterans from countless conflicts for the two minute silence, service and march past. All gather to remember those men and women who have died in action serving their country.


Factual; Life Stories; Documentaries


Arena: George Harrison - Living in the Material World

BBC1, 9:45-11:20pm, 2/2


Factual; History; Documentaries

Timewatch: Beatlemania

Documentary which tells the inside story of the rise and fall of Beatlemania, using previously unseen archive footage and interviews with those who accompanied the Beatles on tour.

By 1966 they had played over 1,400 gigs, toured the world four times and sold the equivalent of 200 million records. At the height of their popularity, and without warning, they pulled the plug and never toured again.

_________________________________________________________
Monday 14th November

News

Panorama: Meet The Burglars
BBC1, 8:30-9:00pm
SynopsisVictims of burglary and other crimes are increasingly being offered the opportunity to meet the criminals who offended against them, in a controversial scheme aimed at empowering victims and potentially cut levels of re-offending among former prisoners.

Panorama reporter Raphael Rowe goes into a jail to witness a tense encounter between two young women and the youth who broke into their home while they slept.

Meetings between victims and offenders have proved to be remarkably successful in cutting reoffending and allowing victims to recover far more quickly. The government wants to see more of these restorative justice meetings used in the criminal justice system following all types of crimes.

Another victim of a horrific attack reveals to Panorama how her true motive in agreeing to meet her burglar was to get revenge and kill him.



Documentaries

Confessions of an Undercover Cop
Channel 4, 9:00-10:00pm

With exclusive access to Mark Kennedy, Britain's most controversial undercover police officer, this gripping and revelatory documentary tells the definitive, inside story of Mark Stone/Kennedy.


Directed by BAFTA Award-winner Brian Hill and narrated by Kennedy, the Cutting Edge film, coming soon to Channel 4, also features interviews with the police to reconstruct the story of how Mark Kennedy went from being a regular south London police officer, with a wife and two children, to becoming Mark Stone.

This was Mark the environmental campaigner, militant activist and undercover cop who broke into power stations, learned how to make bombs, infiltrated groups hell-bent on attacking major corporations and stood arm-in-arm with anti-capitalist anarchists.

He also had a relationship with a female activist for four years and was even beaten up by fellow police officers who were unaware he was undercover. All the time he was feeding intelligence back to his handlers.

Now, with his cover blown, he lives in fear for his life. He is separated from his wife and family. The woman he fell deeply in love with as Mark Stone never wants to see him again.

For the first time, Kennedy is returning to face up to himself, his actions and to the people who claim he betrayed them.


Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries

Art of America
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/3 - Looking For Paradise

n the first episode of a series exploring the history of American art, Andrew Graham-Dixon embarks on an epic journey from east to west, following in the footsteps of the pioneers who built the foundations of modern America.

During his journey, he travels to Massachusetts to see the earliest portraits in America depicting the Puritan settlers and visits Pennsylvania to uncover the dark truth behind Benjamin West's most famous painting, the spectacular Treaty of Penn with the Indians. In Philadelphia, he turns the pages of one of the world's most expensive books - John James Audubon's exquisite Birds of America, and explores the wilderness that inspired America's greatest landscape painter, Thomas Cole.

He also uncovers the paradox at the heart of America: that progress and innovation have come at a tragic price, the destruction of the unique cultural heritage of Native Americans by European settlers.

Andrew's journey takes us to the end of the 19th century and the announcement that the era of westward expansion was officially over.


Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Crime and Justice

Storyville: Billion Dollar Art Heist
BBC4, 10:00-11:30pm

Documentary which chronicles the long and dramatic struggle for control of the Barnes Foundation, a private art collection valued at more than $25bn. In 1922, Dr Albert C Barnes formed a remarkable educational institution around his priceless collection of art, located just five miles outside of Philadelphia. Now, more than 50 years after Barnes's death, a powerful group of moneyed interests have gone to court for control of the art, intending to bring it to a new museum in Philadelphia. Standing in their way is a group of Barnes's former students and his will, which contains strict instructions stating the foundation should always be an educational institution and that the paintings may never be removed. Will politics prevail over a man's dying wishes?


Documentaries

The Man Who Forged America
BBC4, 11:30pm-12:30am

Mark Hofmann is the greatest forger of the 20th century. In the 1980s he forged historic American and Mormon documents that fooled the world's best experts. As well as making money, many of his forgeries had a darker purpose - to undermine and ridicule the institution that had dominated his life - the Mormon Church.

On 15 October 1985, Hofmann's crimes reached another level when he murdered two innocent people. This film explores the complex motivations behind his forgery and the pressures that drove him to become a killer.


__________________________________________________________
Tuesday 15th November


Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries


Imagine... Alan Ayckbourn: Greetings from Scarborough
BBC1, 10:35-11:45pm

In Imagine: Alan Ayckbourn – Greetings From Scarborough, Alan meets playwright and director Alan Ayckbourn as he unveils his 75th play, Neighbourhood Watch. Ayckbourn is often described as the world's most performed living playwright and his work has been translated into more than 35 languages, and in this fascinating programme Alan Yentob uncovers what lies beneath the writer's tragi-comic characters. He also speaks to some of the actors and directors who have worked with Ayckbourn, including Sir Peter Hall, Michael Gambon, Richard Briers, Catherine Tate and Alain Resnais.


__________________________________________________________
Wednesday 16th November

Factual

Rich Hall's Continental Drifters
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm

Returning from his successful BBC Four documentary The Dirty South, comedian Rich Hall embarks on a new journey across America to explore the symbolism of the classic road movie.

Cruising through the breathtaking badlands of South Dakota to the mountains of Montana, Rich follows in the famous Thunderbird tyre tracks of Thelma And Louise and serial killer classic Natural Born Killers, as well as Vanishing Point, Badlands, Lost In America, Easy Rider and Sugarland Express, to name a few.

This seductive exploration of the open road leads him on an inspiring journey of freedom and escapism, as he chases the horizon, discovering why the combination of road and rubber had become so iconic.

Rich Hall's Continental Drifters is not only a visual feast, but also a fascinating insight into classic Americana and the history of the American highway system.

With historians, motel experts and interstate scholars joining him on his captivating journey, and with a remarkable mixture of history, symbolism, wit and classic clips, viewers can sit back, enjoy – and let Rich do the driving.


__________________________________________________________
Thursday 17th November


News

Tonight: Waking Up To Insomnia
ITV1, 7:30-8:00pm

No programme information yet


__________________________________________________________
Friday 18th November

News; Current Affairs

Unreported World - India's Child Savers
ITV1, 7:30-7:55pm

Reporter Evan Williams and Director James Brabazon journey to the dark side of India's booming economy, where they that find thousands of children are being kidnapped into domestic slavery for the growing middle class and businesses; and the growth of a deadly new terror: children being kidnapped for ransom by those desperate to share some of the country's new wealth. Across India more than 60,000 children go missing every year; in Delhi alone seven children go missing every day. Williams and Brabazon discover that the capital has become a major destination and transit point for tens of thousands of children being trafficked into forced labour, prostitution, begging and drug running. And India's boom appears to be fueling the trade in children.


Criminology; Crime and Justice

Real Crime With Mark Austin: The Jigsaw Killer
ITV4, 9:00-10:00pm

The case of `jigsaw killer' Stephen Marshall, who murdered businessman Jeffrey Howe in March 2009 and scattered his body parts in locations around Hertfordshire and Leicestershire. Featuring interviews with police officers involved, the programme reveals how the grisly case was solved, with Marshall sentenced to life imprisonment in February 2010 and his girlfriend Sarah Bush jailed for three years and nine months for perverting the course of justice.


__________________________________________________________
*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.

Thursday 3 November 2011

Off-air recordings for week 5-11 November 2011

Please email Rich Deakin rdeakin@glos.ac.uk , or fchmediaservices@glos.ac.uk if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*
__________________________________________________________
Saturday 5th November

Documentaries

The Truth About Binge Drinking
ITV2, 8:00-9:00pm

As the debate continues over Britain's apparently increasing `booze culture', former Liberty X star Michelle Heaton participates in a social experiment. Under the close supervision of medics, she drinks more than the recommended level of alcohol for 30 consecutive days, intending to reveal the full price that binge drinkers pay for their habit.

_________________________________________________________
Sunday 6th November

Factual; Science and Nature; Science and Technology; Weather

Will It Snow?
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm

This topical programme taps into the nation's obsession with the weather and asks whether we are heading for another 'snowmageddon' as experienced in the previous two years.

Can forecasters give us warning this time around? How does the 'olde' weather lore compare with the supercomputers? And what are we doing across Britain to prepare ourselves as we head into winter?

'Will It Snow?' predicts what another extreme cold snap would spell for Britain's economy as it puts the science of weather forecasting to the test and asks the experts what we are in store for between now and spring.


Factual; Crime and Justice; Documentaries

Storyville: Murder on a Sunday Morning
BBC4, 10:00-11:55pm

Jacksonville, Florida, May 2000. Mary Ann Stephens is shot in the head at point blank range in front of her husband. Two hours later, a 15-year-old black American, Brenton Butler, is arrested walking down a nearby street.

Jean-Xavier De Lestrade's Academy Award-winning film follows his trial. Everyone involved with the case, from investigators to journalists, is ready to condemn Butler, except his lawyer Patrick McGuiness. A dazzling and magnetic presence of Hollywood proportions, McGuiness reopens the inquiry, and in a dramatic and spine-tingling sequence of events, he and his team discover a slew of shocking and troubling elements about the case.

Murder on a Sunday Morning is gripping and heart-wrenching - the stuff suspense novelists only dream of writing.


Factual; Science and Nature

A History of the Brain
BBC Radio 4, 10 part series

Dr Geoff Bunn's 10 part History of the Brain is a journey through 5000 years of our understanding of the most complex thing in the known universe. From Neolithic times to the present day, Geoff journeys through the many ideas of what the brain is for and how it fulfils its functions. While referencing the core physiology and neuroscience, this is a cultural, not a scientific history. What soon becomes obvious is that our understanding of this most inscrutable organ has in all periods been coloured by the social and political expedients of the day no less than by the contemporary scope of scientific or biological exploration.

In Episode 1: A Hole in the Head, the focus is on trepanation, the practice of drilling holes in the skull believing that such operations might correct physiological or spiritual problems. Trepanation reveals much about the understanding of the brain from Neolithic to recent times. The Ancient Egyptians, however, rarely trepanned, even though their Secret Book of the Physician, one of the oldest medical texts in the world, shows that they recognised how damage to the brain can paralyze limbs on opposite sides of the body. Believing the heart to be the core organ, they discarded the brain altogether at death, since it had no part to play in the afterlife.

The series is written and presented by Dr Geoff Bunn of Manchester Metropolitan University. Actors Paul Bhattacharjee and Jonathan Forbes provide the voices of those who have written about the brain across the ages. Actor Hattie Morahan gives the Anatomy Lesson establishing the part of the brain to be highlighted in each episode - in this instance the cranium and the meninges. The original, atmospheric score is supplied by composer, Barney Quinton. The producer is Marya Burgess.


Factual; Documentaries

Shankill Butchers
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm

With 19 murders between them, the Shankill Butchers were the most prolific gang of serial killers in UK history. During the dark days of the Troubles their savagery stood apart, paralysing both communities in Northern Ireland with fear. With unique access to the evidence, and exclusive interviews, Stephen Nolan goes back to the patch where he was brought up to ask how the Shankill Butchers got away with murder for so long.


One Life: Getting Away With Murder
BBC4, 11:30pm-12:10am

Documentary which follows Ann Ming as she campaigns to have her daughter's killer tried for murder a second time. Julie was murdered 17 years ago by her boyfriend, Billy Dunlop. Billy was subsequently tried for her murder, but found not guilty. Only later did he brag that he had committed the crime, but the double jeopardy law, which has stood for 800 years in Britain, meant that he could not be tried for the same crime twice. Ann Ming has successfully campaigned to change the law. ONE life follows Ann as she seeks to get justice for the murder of her daughter as the first double jeopardy case is brought back to the courts.



__________________________________________________________
Tuesday 8th November

Documentaries

My Transsexual Summer
Channel 4, 10:00-11:05pm, 1/4

Max, 25, has already undergone 'top surgery': a double mastectomy and male chest sculpting. He is hoping to become Britain's first transgender Rabbi.  

Former policeman Karen, 52, is preparing for full gender re-assignment surgery. Drew, 22, is stuck living at home, and desperate to lead a 'normal' life in a world that constantly asks 'Is that a boy or a girl?'

Lewis, 22, is looking to raise money for a double mastectomy and investigating a phalloplasty: penis construction; the surgeries he wants to make him feel fully male.

Fox, 30, has only been transitioning for six months, and struggles daily to overcome his feminine looks. Donna, 25, is content living between genders, but navigating relationships can be hard.

Sarah, 28, has just begun to live full-time as a woman and is building up the courage to tell her parents that she has changed her life forever.

The decision to change gender can leave many trans people profoundly isolated, and this group of seven is no different. Though some derive enormous strength from family and friends, others can find themselves cut off and many struggle to find work.

Now they are coming together to share advice and support, reflecting a growing on-line community where many hundreds of transgender people have been making contact with one another.

By physically coming together, the group develops genuine friendships and gives themselves the strength to overcome some of the multiple challenges of being trans in day-to-day life.


__________________________________________________________
Wednesday 9th November


Factual; Crime and Justice; Science and Nature; Nature and Environment

Murder On The Lake
BBC4, 2:30-4:00am

Joan Root, with her husband Alan, produced beautiful and famous natural history films, born of her deep love of Africa and its flora and fauna. This delicate but determined member of Kenya's Happy Valley was gunned down in January 2006 by intruders bearing AK-47s. Four men were charged with her murder, including David Chege, the leader of a private vigilante group Root herself had financed to stop the illegal fishing that was killing Lake Naivasha, the beautiful lake beside which she lived.

Chege was from Karagita, the largest of the slums that has sprung up beside the lake in the last twenty years. In that time, the population of Naivasha has rocketed from 30,000 to 350,000 as a desperate tide of impoverished migrant workers arrived in search of employment on Kenya's flourishing flower farms. This has created squalor, crime and, in the minds of Root and her fellow naturalists, ecological apocalypse.

This film tells the story of the extraordinary life and brutal death of Joan Root, and of her campaign to save the lake she loved. Who killed Joan Root? Was it the fish poachers, whom Root stopped from plying their illegal trade in a bid to save her beloved Lake Naivasha? Was it her loyal lieutenant Chege, whom Root ultimately cut off from her payroll? Or was it one of her white neighbours, with whom Root had feuded?

Through the telling of Root's story, the film opens a window onto contemporary Africa and the developed world's relationship to it. For it is the Kenyan rose, which is exported by the millions on a daily basis from Naivasha, that has brought not just jobs and foreign exchange earnings, but a population explosion that has caused the destruction of the environment Root worked so hard to stop. Her campaign may have ultimately cost her her life.


Factual; Crime and Justice; Documentaries

The Thin Blue Line
BBC4, 9:00-10:35pm

Errol Morris broke cinematic ground with The Thin Blue Line, establishing a new genre in the non-fiction feature by creating a fascinating reconstruction and investigation of a brutal and senseless murder.

The case in question is centred on the 1976 murder of a Dallas policeman. The murder remained unsolved for over a month until the Dallas police department received word that 16-year-old David Harris had been arrested in Vidor, Texas, after having bragged to friends that he killed a Dallas cop. Although the murder weapon was found in a nearby swamp, Harris later insisted that his boasting was meant only to impress his friends and insisted the real murderer was a hitchhiker he had picked up earlier that day named Randall Adams.

Morris assembles diverse interviews, photo montages, film clips and reenactments of the crime to make a strong case for Adams's innocence, leading to a shocking finale.


__________________________________________________________
Thursday 10th November

News; Current Affairs; Politics

Tonight: Life After The Riots
ITV1, 7:30-8:00pm

Julie Etchingham visits towns and cities affected by the August riots to discover whether promises to help families and business owners affected by the disturbances have been kept. She also examines how the police are faring in their efforts to catch those responsible for the looting and violence.


Factual; Science and Nature; Religion and Ethics

The End of God? A Horizon Guide to Science and Religion
BBC4, 8:00-9:00pm

The relationship between science and religion has been long and troubled: from the condemnation of Galileo by the Catholic Church in 17th century Italy, through the clashes between creationism and evolution in 20th century America, right up to recent claims that the universe does not need God.

Delving through the rich archive of programmes from Horizon and BBC Science, Thomas Dixon looks at what lies behind this difficult relationship. Using original footage from 1925, he tells the story of John Scopes, a Tennessee teacher who was tried for teaching evolution. He sees the connections between religion and American politics in the story of a more recent court case – the trial of Intelligent Design. He looks at what happens when new scientific discoveries start to explain events that were once seen as the workings of God, and explains how some of our most famous scientists have seen God in the grandest laws of the universe. Finally, he finds intriguing evidence from brain science which hints that belief in God is here to stay.


Documentary

Brunel's Last Launch: A Time Team Special
Channel 4, 9:00-10:00pm

Nowadays, London's East End is synonymous with the 2012 Olympic Games. Cutting-edge engineering and design have transformed the Olympic Park. But 150 years ago, the world was watching for a very different reason, although the spectacle on display was as high-tech as anything on offer today. The East End was once home to the most advanced shipbuilding industry - and best workers and shipyards - in the world. A century and a half ago, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Britain's most famous engineer, was about to launch a ship five times bigger than any that had ever been built before, the most revolutionary vessel the world had ever seen: the SS Great Eastern. Pioneering the transition from sail to steam and timber to iron, Brunel and East London's ship builders created vessels that were bigger, faster and tougher than ever before. But this launch was a disaster. Brunel went from hero to laughing stock overnight as his leviathan stuck on the slipway. Brunel died not long after. Today archaeologists are scouring the banks of the Thames to discover why launching such a big vessel proved a complete disaster. Examining the slipways, they hope to discover what went wrong and how it affected shipbuilding in London for ever. Tony Robinson joins them in their quest to solve the puzzle. But he and the team also explore some of the extraordinary successes of this long-gone industry and a time when the East End led the world.


__________________________________________________________
Friday 11th November

Art, Culture and the Media

Art For Heroes: A Culture Show Special
BBC2, 7:00-8:00pm

Tim Samuels offers an insight into the role of art therapy in the rehabilitation of former servicemen and women suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Veterans of recent British conflicts share their experiences of the condition and reveal how drawing, sculpting and painting are helping alleviate their symptoms. Tim also travels to Chicago, where he meets Professor of Neurology Dr Lukas Konopka, whose brain mapping demonstrates art's potential to heal.

__________________________________________________________
*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.

Tuesday 25 October 2011

Off-air recordings for week 29 October - 4 November 2011

Please email Rich Deakin rdeakin@glos.ac.uk , or fchmediaservices@glos.ac.uk if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*
_________________________________________________________
Saturday 29th October

Factual; Science and Nature; Nature and Environment; Documentaries

The Secret Life Of Ice
BBC4, 10:25-11:25pm

Ice is one of the strangest, most beguiling and mesmerising substances in the world. Full of contradictions, it is transparent yet it can glow with colour, it is powerful enough to shatter rock but it can melt in the blink of an eye. It takes many shapes, from the fleeting beauty of a snowflake to the multi-million tonne vastness of a glacier and the eeriness of the ice fountains of far-flung moons.

Science writer Dr Gabrielle Walker has been obsessed with ice ever since she first set foot on Arctic sea ice. In this programme she searches out some of the secrets hidden deep within the ice crystal to try to discover how something so ephemeral has the power to sculpt landscapes, to preserve our past and inform our future.


_________________________________________________________
Sunday 30th October

Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries


Tintin's Adventure with Frank Gardiner
BBC2, 8:00-9:00pm

Journalist Frank Gardner sets out to trace the first adventure of Tintin, the childhood hero that inspired him to travel and report from the world's hot spots. Frank follows Tintin to Moscow and discovers the influences that created the successful cartoon strip.


Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries

Da Vinci: The Lost Treasure
BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm

Leonardo da Vinci is considered by many to be one of the greatest artists who ever lived. Yet his reputation rests on only a handful of pictures - including the world's most famous painting, the Mona Lisa.

As the National Gallery in London prepares to open its doors on a remarkable exhibition of Leonardo's work, Fiona Bruce travels to Florence, Milan, Paris and Warsaw to uncover the story of this enigmatic genius - and to New York, where she is given an exclusive preview of a sensational discovery: a new Leonardo.

_________________________________________________________
Tuesday 1st November

Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries

Imagine... Grayson Perry: The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman
BBC1, 10:35-11:35pm

The new season of BBC One's Imagine begins with Grayson Perry – The Tomb Of The Unknown Craftsman. Over a two-year period, Imagine has had exclusive access to the creation of Perry's latest exhibition at the British Museum. This unique portrait of the artist at work sees editor and presenter Alan Yentob delve into Grayson Perry's childhood, join him on a motorbike pilgrimage to Germany and follow him as he explores the artefacts in the British Museum's collection which will inspire his own exhibition.

Throughout this period, Perry has been given free rein to choose items from the British Museum's extensive collection of more than eight million objects to feature in his exhibition alongside his own creations; from his trademark ceramics to sculptures, tapestries and even a working motorbike. The resulting exhibition, The Tomb Of The Unknown Craftsman, is his most ambitious show yet.



Factual

In the Line of Fire
ITV1,  10:35-11:35pm, 1/2

“We are dealing with very dangerous people. We are talking about life or death situations and we are talking about split second decisions.”

Bill Tillbrook, Head of CO19.

“If you think you can go, in this department, without having to pull that trigger, thinking that you are never going to pull that trigger, you are in the wrong job.”
PC Graeme Carling.

Gun and gang crime is plaguing Britain’s major cities and London has been hit the hardest with on average, two people shot every day. For the first time, ITV1 films on the frontline with CO19, the firearms division of the Metropolitan Police, the unit charged with tackling London’s gun criminals.

At a time when gun and gang crime exploded in the capital city and the Met were on trial for the shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes, In the Line of Fire’s producers gained unique access to the unit, following its officers for four months at close quarters on live operations. The series provides a rare and compelling insight into a dangerous job, where split second decisions can make the difference between life and death.

In The Line of Fire provides a no holds barred account of the Metropolitan Police’s tough battle against gun crime. Officers are seen at the sharp end of policing, where they are trained to meet force with greater force.

In the Line of Fire films C019 as they respond to life threatening incidents, tackling gang members who show no fear of turning their guns on the police.

C019 officers tell the cameras what it is like to be handed a weapon at the start of every shift and how they approach a task which increasingly pits them against armed teenagers from communities which their experience tells them deeply resent the police.

With the average age of gun criminals in London falling drastically, the stakes in many C019 operations are now significantly raised. Confronting kids armed with guns is becoming commonplace. Searching for the gunman behind a shooting in Tottenham, officers race across London to catch the suspect. They soon apprehend a young man wearing body amour and a single glove. A hand gun is found in the car he is driving and although not involved in the Tottenham shooting, he is later found guilty of being in possession of a gun.

In the Line of Fire also trails C019 Officers racing to help an unarmed police officer stuck in a bullet riddled car, who has been shot at five times. The protracted three hour search for the gunman is fraught with risk, jeopardy and false alarms.

In another incident, where a suspect is suspected of drawing a gun in a nightclub, officers smash the window of his car and drag him from his vehicle. When he fails to comply they fire a 50,000 volt taser stun gun into him, knocking him to the ground. Officers must work on the basis that suspects may be in possession of a gun but on this occasion they fail to find a firearm in the car.

Unprecedented in its access to the Met’s firearms unit, In the Line of Fire provides a unique perspective on the scale and nature of gun crime in the capital today by laying bare the daily work of the officers tasked with leading the fight against it.

“What would you do if a person pointed a gun at you on the street? I’d shoot them.”
Inspector Gareth Reiss, F- Relief CO19.

C019 contains 550 police officers who are all trained to use guns. Every officer accepts that their job may call on them open fire. Inspector Gareth Reiss says: “Officers entering into the department are under no illusion and they are told from day one that at some stage of your service here you will face a life or death situation and it will lead you to make a life or death decision.’ The stakes don’t get any higher than that.” ...

________________________________________________________
Wednesday 2nd November

Factual; Documentaries

Timeshift: The North on a Plate
BBC4, 2:15-3:15am

Paris-based cultural historian Andrew Hussey follows his success with France on a Plate by travelling back to his homeland, the north west of England, in search of its lost food culture.

He brings with him the French idea of terroir, a term used by their wine growers and foodies - a belief that a food from a particular area is rendered unique though a particular set of local circumstances including culture and landscape.

As he wanders around the north west, Andrew asks if this rather highbrow foodie term can be applied to common northern grub such as a Blackpool chip or a Wigan pie. As he isn't a foodie he relies on local people to help him out, including three generations of a Wigan biker club and a woman who knows far too much about rhubarb.

In doing so, he uncovers some fascinating cultural history and the role of the Industrial Revolution in defining modern eating habits. And, most importantly, he redefines the concept of terroir by giving it a northern accent.


________________________________________________________
Thursday 3rd November

Factual; Documentaries

Life in a Day
BBC2, 9:00-10:30pm

A documentary shot by filmmakers all over the world that serves as a time capsule to show future generations what it was like to be alive on the 24th of July, 2010.


Factual; Arts TV

Symphony
BBC, 11:25pm-12:35am, 1/4 Genesis to Genius

BBC Four with BBC Radio 3 are to celebrate and reappraise the giant of the orchestral repertoire – the Symphony, through a series of programmes to be broadcast this Autumn.

In the most in-depth appraisal of this artistic form to be broadcast on television, Simon Russell Beale explores how Symphony evolved over the last three centuries as one of the most complex and brilliant musical forms of expression. Looking at the lives and the times of the composers who created these masterpieces, Simon explores how Symphony was shaped by the world around it, and in turn, how it shaped the world.

Broadcast in four movements – Genesis And Genius; Beethoven And Beyond; New Nations And New Worlds; and Revolution And Rebirth – Symphony charts the symphony's emergence from the world of aristocratic privilege, how it accompanied the rise of nations and the fall of empires, and how it became a symbol of freedom, and a tool of totalitarianism. Throughout the series the lives of some of the greatest composers – Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Berlioz, Schubert, Brahms, Bruckner, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Sibelius, Copland, Stravinsky and Shostakovich – are brought to life with readings from their letters and diaries, and through key moments and places linking to their symphonic journeys.



________________________________________________________
Friday 4th November

News; Current Affairs and Politics;

Unreported World - Russia: Vlad's Army


Unreported World reveals the huge personality cult around Vladimir Putin as they follow the extraordinary actions of the mass youth movement dedicated to protecting the interests of the Prime Minister and Russia.

As Putin announces his intention to return as President, reporter Peter Oborne and director James Jones meet some of the young people who are utterly devoted to him, have seemingly limitless resources, and appear to be above the law.

Outside the American Embassy in Moscow the team films members of Nashi, or 'Our People', as the movement is called, spray-painting 'Russia Forward' in six-foot letters, following criticism of Russia by the American Defence Secretary.

The police step in, but it soon becomes clear who is in charge as Nashi members bully, shove and chase away the officers in an extraordinary display of strength.

Nashi's headquarters are in a £20 million house in central Moscow, decorated with murals of Putin and quotes from his speeches. Oborne joins Nashi's weekly political meeting, which reveals a sinister side to its patriotism as anti-western and racist views come to the fore amongst some members.

Masha Kislitsnya, Nashi's Commissar, describes how her experience growing up as the daughter of a single mother in the 1990s formed the basis for her admiration for Putin.

With the government in collapse following the fall of communism she recalls that her family lived in dire poverty, with the shops often empty of goods. Everything changed for the better, she says, when Putin took over...
________________________________________________________
*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.