Off-air recordings for week 5-11 February 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

BBC2 - Faulks On Fiction - 4 part series - "Best-selling author Sebastian Faulks presents a major four part series on the brilliance of the British novel and its characters."

Sunday 6th

BBC4 - Storyville - American Idol: Reagan - "To mark the centenary of the birth of one of the most iconic figures in recent American politics, a documentary which examines the enigmatic career of screen star and two-term US president Ronald Reagan.
He has been heralded as one of the architects of the modern world and since his death many Americans have been working to cement his legacy, but some critics argue that the aftershocks of Reaganomics continue to crumble economies the world over and that the hubris of Reagan's foreign policy continues to propel America into a cycle of overseas ventures. To such critics Reagan is an ominous figure who did more harm than good.
But who was Ronald Reagan, and how did he come to shape world politics in the way he did? Featuring in-depth interviews with those who worked with him and knew him best, this film provides a definitive and penetrating look at Reaganism, whose grip on the public mind has been rekindled by recent events in Republican politics."

Monday 7th

BBC1 - Panorama: WikiLeaks - The Secret Story - "On the eve of the extradition hearing to decide whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange must return to Sweden to face rape allegations, Panorama talks to his former right hand man who walked out last year. Assessing what WikiLeaks and its exposing of senstive offcial material has achieved, the film examines claims that the organisation famous for leaking government secrets was paranoid about leaks from within and that it has failed to live up to its own ideals on openness."

Tuesday 8th

BBC4 - The Beauty of Books - 4 part series - "Series combining human stories, expert interviews, book illustrations and historic archive to reveal the beauty of books."

BBC4 - The Birth of the British Novel - "Author Henry Hitchings explores the lives and works of Britain's radical and pioneering 18th century novelists who, in just 80 years, established all the literary genres we recognise today. It was a golden age of creativity led by Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, Fanny Burney and William Godwin, amongst others. Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels, Tom Jones and Tristram Shandy are novels that still sparkle with audacity and innovation.

On his journey through 18th century fiction, Hitchings reveals how the novel was more than mere entertainment, it was also a subversive hand grenade that would change British society for the better. He travels from the homes of Britain's great and good to its lowliest prisons, meeting contemporary writers like Martin Amis, Will Self, Tom McCarthy and Jenny Uglow on the way.

Although 18th century novels are woefully neglected today compared to those of the following two centuries, Hitchings shows how the best of them can offer as much pleasure to the reader as any modern classic."

BBC4 - Justice: How To Measure Pleasure - "In the third in a series of lectures drawn from Harvard professor Michael Sandel's famous undergraduate course on the philosophy of justice, he introduces the British philosopher John Stuart Mill and compares the artistic merits of Shakespeare and The Simpsons.

Mill argued that seeking the greatest good for the greatest number is compatible with protecting individual rights, and that utilitarianism can make room for a distinction between higher and lower pleasures. Sandel tests Mill's theory that that the higher pleasure is that which is preferred by a well-informed majority by playing video clips from three very different forms of entertainment - Shakespeare's Hamlet, the reality show Fear Factor and The Simpsons. Students debate their own preferences and whether Mill's defense of utilitarianism is successful."

Wednesday 9th

BBC2 - Madagascar - 3 part series - "David Attenborough narrates the story of the island in the Indian Ocean, off the southeastern coast of Africa, an ecosystem that has stood in isolation for millions of years, and produced an array of wildlife that cannot be found anywhere else on the planet. He begins by observing lemurs in their habitat, male red giraffe-necked weevils fighting each other, the courting rituals of chameleons, and the antics of spiders and fossas."

BBC2 - A History of Ancient Britain - 4 part series - "Neil Oliver tells the epic story of how Britain and its people came to be over thousands of years of ancient history - the beginnings of our world forged in ice, stone, and bronze."


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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.