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.
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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.


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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.


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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.


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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.



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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?


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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.


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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.

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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.


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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.



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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.


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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.


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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.


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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.


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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.