Off-air recordings for week 14-20 May 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.*


Monday 16th May

BBC1 - The Street That Cut Everything - "Nick Robinson presents a unique social experiment, as he persuades one street in Preston to give up all council services for six weeks."


BBC2 - The Story Of Ireland - 5-part series - "A new five-part landmark series, written and presented by BBC Special Correspondent Fergal Keane, The Story of Ireland is a clear-eyed and expansive view of the history of the island and its people from its earliest times to the present day. Far from being a remote European outpost, episode one charts the formation of Ireland's DNA by successive ways of invaders and settlers. Along the way, Keane exposes the myth of Ireland's Celtic identity; he travels to Norway and presents the Vikings as resourceful settlers and traders in Ireland rather than as the barbarous marauders of popular belief. He also follows the trail of the early Iris monks as they bring their literature and learning through Europe to re-energise the Christian world, in the early middle ages."

Wednesday 18th

BBC2 - Wonderland: A Hasidic Guide To Love, Marriage, And Finding A Bride - "With their trademark ringletted hairstyles, tall fur hats (even in summer) and long dark coats, the Hasidic Jewish community of Stamford Hill live in a unique world divided between 21st-century urban life and 18th-century traditions.
For the most part this community is reserved and publicity shy, but film-maker Paddy Wivell has spent three months with members of the community who have decided it is time to let the rest of world inside their personal and religious lives. Father of five Avi Bresler invites Paddy to his oldest son's wedding – a scene of religious solemnity, family gathering and exuberant drinking – and on his quest to find a wife for his second son.  The programme follows a trip to spend Jewish New Year in the Ukraine at one of the world's largest Hasidic festivals; a visit to Avi's family in Jerusalem; regular audiences with a Hasidic scholar to find out about his notions of love and marriage; and a meeting with a professional shadchan (Jewish matchmaker) at which the family-loving Avi reveals something from his past that takes everyone by surprise."

Thursday 19th

BBC4 - The Golden Age Of Canals - "Most people thought that when the working traffic on canals faded away after the war, it would be the end of their story. But they were wrong. A few diehard enthusiasts and boat owners campaigned, lobbied and dug, sometimes with their bare hands, to keep the network of narrow canals open.
Some of these enthusiasts filmed their campaigns and their home movies tell the story of how, in the teeth of much political opposition, they saved the inland waterways for the nation and, more than 200 years after they were first built, created a second golden age of the canals.
Stan Offley, an IWA activist from Ellesmere Port, filmed his boating trips around the wide canals in the 40s, 50s and 60s in 16mm colour. But equally charming is the film made by Ed Frangleton, help from Harry Arnold, of a hostel boat holiday on the Llangollen Canal in 1961. There are the films shot by ex-working boatmen Ike Argent from his home in Nottinghamshire and looked after by his son Barry.
There is astonishing film of the last days of working boats, some shot by John Pyper when he spent time with the Beechey's in the 60s, film taken by Keith Christie of the last days of the cut around the BCN, and the films made by Keith and his mate Tony Gregory of their attempts to keep working the canals through their carrying company, Midland Canal Transport.
There is film of key restorations, the Stourbridge 16 being talked about with great wit and affection by one of the leading activists in that watershed of restorations in the mid-60s, David Tomlinson, and John Maynard's beautiful films of the restoration of the Huddersfield, 'the impossible restoration', shot over two decades.
All these and more are in the programme alongside the people who made the films and some of the stars of them. Together they tell the story of how, in the years after 1945, a few people fought the government like David fought Goliath to keep canals open and restore ones that had become defunct, and won against all the odds.

Channel 4 - Hunting Britain's Most Wanted - "The expansion of the EU and open borders in the UK have led to a surge in foreign criminals heading for Britain. The number of requests for wanted fugitives has risen ten-fold over the past five years and now totals more than 4300 a year.
Over the course of three months Cutting Edge has unique access to New Scotland Yard's Extradition Unit as they track down murderers, suspected rapists and armed robbers from abroad.
A record 1500 foreign fugitives are now arrested each year and with more and more coming to these shores it's a job that is stretching the unit and its officers to the limit.
Some of these criminals go to extraordinary lengths to evade capture, changing their name and ID so it's a painstaking and often frustrating experience tracking them down.
The film makers are there as officers follow up on leads, tracing potentially dangerous criminals, and capture high-tension arrests as the unit's hard work finally pays off.
The cameras are also with the unit when it deals with some of its biggest ever high profile cases, including the arrest of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, wanted in Sweden for alleged sex crimes, and the arrest of Shrien Dewani, wanted in South Africa in connection with the death of his wife, Anni, on their honeymoon.
Other cases include the hunt for Hungary's most wanted fugitive, a Turkish man who conducted an honour killing, a suspected Croatian war criminal and an alleged serial rapist who's escaped the French authorities and who they must close in on before it's too late."

Friday 20th

Channel 4 - Unreported World - Mexico: Living With Hitmen - "Mexico's drug wars have been well reported, but there is a frightening, new phenomenon that is going largely unnoticed. A growing number of journalists are being killed or 'disappeared' as they try to report on drug violence and the growing links between the cartels and the corrupt police and politicians.
Reporter Evan Williams and Director Alex Nott travel to Ciudad Juarez, on the US border, to experience the daily life of a journalist who has been called one of the most courageous women in Mexico.
Luz Sosa is chief crime reporter on El Diario, the main newspaper in Ciudad Juarez, where more than 3000 were murdered last year as powerful drug cartels fight for control of routes to smuggle cocaine and heroin into the US.
Luz spends her days travelling from one crime scene to another trying to ascertain the truth of what's happened and provide a record of the conflict, which is spiraling out of control and in which hundreds of women, grandmothers and even babies have been murdered in revenge attacks or warnings.
Someone - possibly the drugs cartels, or the security services, or both - is targeting her, and several colleagues have already paid the ultimate price.
Just two years ago, Luz's predecessor, crime reporter Armando Rodriguez, was shot dead in front of his home as he was about to take his children to school. No one knows for sure who killed him but Luz says he had written about the links between the cartels and corrupt politicians.
Nearby in the office there is another small flower by the photograph of Luis Carlos Santiago, a 21-year-old photographer. In September 2010, Luz got a call that there was another murder. They arrived at the scene to find their young colleague dead.
It was after she wrote up this story that she too received a direct threat. Her front-page article was found next to a severed human head on the outskirts of the city.
A single mother of two, she says she's never sure whether each day will be the one when she doesn't come home to her kids. Her mother says she prays every day for her daughter's safety and that she will see her again at the end of the day.
The team also meets TV journalist Arturo Perez. He tells Williams that crime gangs, corrupt officials or police could be responsible for the killing and disappearances of journalists but there is never any credible investigation into these killings.
Just across the border in the United States, Williams and Nott meet one of Juarez's leading journalists, who has been given asylum. He claims that after he published an investigation into corrupt officials linked to the cartels he received a threat from an official in the state governor's office that he would be the next journalist to die.
He also claims that some police are involved in extortion with the drug gangs, and that they take their orders from corrupt politicians involved with the drug business. 'They can do anything, they use their weapons and uniforms for this as they know they will never be prosecuted,' he says."
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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.