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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Sunday 23rd December
Documentaries
Joanna Lumkley: The Search for Noah's Ark
ITV1, 9:00-10:30pm
Joanna Lumley embarks on an epic journey overseas to investigate one of the oldest and most famous stories in the world – Noah’s Ark.
Joanna sets out across two continents to investigate the origins of this ancient tale. Was there a global flood and where did it happen? What was the ‘Ark’ ship like and where is it now? Perhaps most importantly – why does this story hold such resonance and significance for people across so many religions and cultures around the world?
The story of Noah has fascinated many adventurers and explorers who have gone in search of the Ark – from Marco Polo to Sir Walter Raleigh, and more recently NASA astronaut James Irwin. But beyond a physical search for the ship, Joanna is also keen to unearth the symbolism of the story – from the dove as a sign of peace to the rainbow as a sign of hope.
Joanna’s epic adventure takes her from nomads on the slopes of Mount Ararat in Turkey to an ancient Sumerian flood tale on the Mesopotamian flood plain – now on the Turkish/Syrian border. In India a lost civilization, ancient trade routes and the Hindu faith turn up more clues, as do the sinking mountain ranges and maritime history of Oman.
The twists and turns of Joanna’s detective story provide a fresh perspective on how myth, legend, religion and science have come to play their part in understanding a story far older than the Bible itself. The journey to uncover the origins of one of the most enduring tales of all time is a surprising one.
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Monday 24th December
Literature; Animation
A Christmas Carol
BBC1, 6:45-8:15pm
An animated retelling of Charles Dickens' classic novel about a Victorian-era miser taken on a journey of self-redemption, courtesy of several mysterious Christmas apparitions.
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Tuesday 25th December
Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries
Arena: Sister Wendy and the Art of the Gospel
BBC2, 5:25-6:25pm
The arresting sight of Sister Wendy Beckett - all teeth and glasses - burst on to our screens in the 1990’s. An instant star, she glided around the world in her habit telling us the story of painting. But she revealed nothing of her own, extraordinary story.
Was she in fact a real nun? How did she know so much about art? And how could this consecrated virgin and hermit justify appearing on television and keep her rule of silence?
Arena goes in search of the ‘real’ Wendy, who, at 82, talks frankly and humourously about her life – and death (“not too long now, I hope!”) for the first time. The film's director, Randall Wright, met Wendy over 20 years ago, living in a caravan in the middle of a wood, abiding by a strict timetable of nightly prayer. That meeting led to her hugely popular TV programmes, but while they told us a great deal about art they told us little about her. Now Wright revisits Sister Wendy to offer her the chance to make a film on her own terms.
Her Carmelite monastery gave Arena unprecedented access to their grounds in Quidenham, Norfolk, where Sister Wendy still follows her strict and eccentric regime: praying every night for six hours from midnight, then joining the other Sisters for mass via electric scooter. Sister Rachael is the former prioress at the monastery: “I would say if you expressed it in the old jargon, she could read souls.”
Typically, Sister Wendy set her own unusual ground rules for the programme: she would – albeit reluctantly - talk about her own life, but also wanted to share with us a carefully chosen selection of paintings by the greatest old masters – mostly in the National Gallery and Louvre – in an attempt to connect us to the big emotional insights in the Gospel stories they depict. These are the stories that are at the core of her faith and have formed her unique rebellious spirit. Yet these same stories - that were once universally familiar - and formed the moral template of Western civilisation – are now largely forgotten.
“I have noticed it in museums,” she says: “People looking at the kind of Christian stories that they would have been told in Sunday school in the past. Now they just don’t know.”
As we rediscover both the stories and the paintings, we also discover how Wendy found God, aged four, sitting under a table. How she left her parents aged 16 – without a backward glance - to become a nun. She tells us she has never experienced sexual feelings, and so felt being a nun was no real sacrifice. She reveals how her first job, as a teaching nun, led to a physical and nervous breakdown. And how living as a hermit ironically gave her the strength to face the outside world again, and encourage people towards the beauty of art.
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Wednesday 26th December
Science; Lectures
Royal Institute Christmas Lectures: The Alchemist
BBC4, 8:00-9:00pm, 1/3 - Air: The Elixir of Life
Take a deep breath. Inside your lungs is a mixture of highly reactive and incredibly stable gases. Oxygen is the most reactive constituent. When we eat it’s these O2 molecules that seize electrons from our food to give our bodies the energy to live. Add a third oxygen atom and we make ozone, a gas so reactive that it’s toxic if we breathe it in, but high up in the stratosphere this gas protects us from the sun’s radiation. Add a carbon atom and we produce carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas responsible for warming the planet. We will unravel the puzzle of how and why these compounds of oxygen hold the key to the viability of life on the planet.
Nitrogen, the most common element in air, is an unreactive gas, but a key atom in every cell in every living thing on Earth. How can we imitate nature to bring this suffocating gas alive? Even less reactive are the Noble or inert gases. They’re so stable they are the only elements that exist naturally as individual atoms – but what is it about them that make them so inert? And how can we excite these gases enough to join the chemical party? We’ve come a long way from the days when alchemists thought air was a single element.
Children's Literature; Drama; Documentaries
Moominlandtales: The Life of Tove Jansson
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm
Moomintroll and the Moomin family are characters loved by children and parents worldwide who have grown up listening to Finnish writer Tove Jansson's delightful stories about a group of philosophical trolls who face a range of adventures in Moominland. This documentary reveals the strong autobiographical slant in the Moomins series as it traces the author's own extraordinary story from living the bohemian life of an artist in war-torn Helsinki to becoming a recluse on a remote island in the Gulf of Finland. Enjoying unprecedented access to Jansson's personal archive, the film reveals an unconventional, brave and compelling woman whose creative genius extended beyond Moominland to satire, fine art and masterful adult fiction - not least her highly-regarded The Summer Book. With home movie footage shot by her long-term female lover and companion, it offers a unique glimpse of an uncompromising fun-loving woman who developed love as the central theme of her work.
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Thursday 27th December
Science; Lectures
Royal Institute Christmas Lectures: The Alchemist
BBC4, 8:00-9:00pm, 2/3 - Water: The Fountain of Youth
Water is essential to life since every reaction in our bodies takes place in it. But what makes this fluid so special? What happens when you add a lighted splint to a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen? Kaboom! But why? What makes this particular rearrangement of atoms to form water so explosive? Can we tap this energy release to provide environmentally friendly solution to our energy problems? Plants have the ability to reverse this reaction by using the energy from sunlight to release oxygen from water. We are starting to learn how to do the same.
In this lecture we unpack how energy lies at the heart of chemistry. We’ll also look at the salts contained in water. Once again we will see the startling difference between a compound and its constituent elements. Take sodium chloride – aka table salt. Sodium is a soft silvery metal that explodes with water; chlorine a deadly poisonous, choking green gas. Both elements are lethal to us, but after they have met, a dramatic change takes place. The sodium and chloride ions that form are essential components in our bodies. They help generate the electrical impulses that make our brains and nerves work. We begin to see how chemistry plays a vital role in our lives.
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Friday 27th December
Science; Lectures
Royal Institute Christmas Lectures: The Alchemist
BBC4, 8:00-9:00pm, 3/3 - Earth: The Philosopher's Stone
The rocks that form planet Earth have always fascinated alchemists. Deep in the bowels of the Earth they thought the metals literally grew in the rocks and that one metal over time matured into another. They dreamed of replicating these natural processes turning ‘base metals’ into gold. Today the extraction of minerals and metals from rocks has made fortunes, but not quite in the way the alchemists imagined. We now know many rocks are the result of oxygen combining with different elements – each with individual properties. Breaking the strong bonds between oxygen and these elements has always been a challenge. Humankind learned how to release copper in the Bronze Age, and iron in the Iron Age, through smelting. Now we can extract even more exotic materials.
By understanding the properties of materials, such as the silicon present in computers, or the rare earth magnets generating our electricity in wind turbines, we are entering a new era of chemistry in which we can engineer electrons in new configurations for future technologies. We can now put together the unique cluster of protons, neutrons and electrons that form each of the 80 elements in exciting new ways. If the ancient alchemists were alive today they’d be dazzled by the wonders created by the Modern Alchemist.
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Tuesday 1st January 2013
Religion; Documentaries
Goodbye To Canterbury
BBC2, 5:30-6:30pm
On the eve of his retirement as the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams gives BBC Two an exclusive insight into his thoughts after 10 years in one of the toughest jobs in Britain.
Goodbye To Canterbury reveals how the art and architecture of Canterbury Cathedral have been a spiritual touchstone throughout his ministry; how ancient stones and relics are signposts in the modern world; and what this extraordinary building has to teach his successors.
The Archbishop reveals how the struggle between the established Catholic church and the new forces of the Reformation shaped the cathedral and, even today, mean it is a divided building. He also reveals how the brave deeds of the ordinary people of Canterbury saved their church from the carpet bombing of the Luftwaffe in 1942 – and most recently, how the ancient stones have taught him how to respond to the pressures of being a modern Archbishop.
This is a journey through 2000 years of English art and architecture: most spectacularly, the exotic tombs of his predecessors, the Archbishops’ throne itself, the oldest illustrated book in England, a casket that once held remains of the most famous saint in the medieval world, and the Miracle Windows showing pilgrims restored to health.
Most importantly, the Archbishop reveals how the tensions between Church and State (which led to the murder of an archbishop in 1170, inside the cathedral) continue today as both the cathedral building and the individual holding the office of Archbishop must struggle to resolve twin loyalties to country and to God.
As Archbishop Williams asserts: “This is the mother church of England… throughout history, any battle about how this space was going to be used was in part a battle for the very soul of England… even today, it is the point of intersection between the kingdom of God, the values of God, and all the skill, the art, the problems, the politics of human beings.”
Factual; Science and Nature; Environment; Documentaries
Nature's Weirdest Events
BBC2, 8:00-9:00pm, 1/3
In the first programme of this two-part series, Chris Packham takes us around the world to the scene of some of the weirdest natural events on the planet. With the help of footage taken by eyewitnesses and news crews, he unravels the facts and the science behind each phenomenon. There is the mysterious case of the car cocooned by caterpillars in Holland, and the baffling case of the exploding toads in Germany. In Switzerland a lakeside town is entombed in ice and a once in a lifetime storm turns Sydney, Australia crimson overnight. There are some disturbing plagues of mice and locusts and a swarm of ladybirds. And finally there are extraordinary strandings of starfish, crabs and whales. Chris tells the real story of the events behind the headlines and helps to explain what on earth happened.
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Wednesday 2nd January
Factual; Science and Nature; Environment; Documentaries
Nature's Weirdest Events
BBC2, 8:00-9:00pm, 2/3
The second in this two-part series about the weirdest natural events on the planet features the incredible sea foam which turns part of the Australian coast into what looks like the world's biggest bubble bath. Plus there is a look at the mysterious death of thousands of sea birds on America's west coast, and the otherworldly phenomenon known as milky seas.
Other strange events include thousands of birds falling from the sky in America, causing panic and predictions of the apocalypse among the residents, and the fish that fell from the sky in south London.
And finally there is the story of the truly terrifying holes which open up in the earth's crust and swallow not only buildings, but in the case of a nature reserve in Florida, an entire lake.
Factual
Africa
BBC1, 1/6 - Kalahari
South West Africa is home to two great deserts. Animals will need their wits to survive.
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Thursday 3rd January
Factual; Science and Nature; Environment; Documentaries
Nature's Weirdest Events
BBC2, 8:00-9:00pm, 3/3
Chris Packham examines some of the weirdest natural events on the planet. With the help of footage taken by eyewitnesses and news crews, he unravels the facts behind each story
Factual; Documentaries
Death Camp Treblinka: Survival Stories
BBC4, 11:05pm-12:05am
The dark heart of the Nazi holocaust, Treblinka was an extermination camp where over 800,000 Polish Jews perished from 1942. Only two men can bear final witness to its terrible crimes. Samuel Willenberg and Kalman Taigman were slave labourers who escaped in a dramatic revolt in August 1943. One would seek vengeance in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, while the other would appear in the sensational trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961. This film documents their amazing survivor stories and the tragic fate of their families, and offers new insights into a forgotten death camp.
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Tuesday 11 December 2012
Wednesday 5 December 2012
Off-air recordings for week 8-14 December 2012
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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Sunday 9th December
Factual; Documentaries
The Trouble with Aid
BBC4, 9:00-11:00pm
45 years ago a group of young men and women set out to make the world a better place. They wanted to bring aid to those in dire need. These idealists would help create a new mass movement - humanitarianism. Its core belief is a simple one - that it is our duty to help those in desperate need, wherever they are. But trying to do good in the world's worst conflict zones is filled with danger and compromise.
The Trouble with Aid tells the story of what really happened during the major humanitarian disasters of the last 50 years: from the Biafran War, through to the Ethiopian famine and Live Aid, to the military intervention in Somalia and to present-day Afghanistan. Despite the best intentions, aid can have some unintended and terrible consequences.
Using the testimony of key players from the world's largest aid agencies, the film looks at what happens when good people try to help in a bad world.
Today, any humanitarian crisis leads to cries that we must 'do something'. The Trouble with Aid challenges this fundamental assumption by asking the question few us are prepared to face: can aid sometimes do more harm than good?
Factual; Discussion and Talk
The Trouble with Aid - The Debate
BBC4, 11:00-11:45pm
Saving lives in dangerous and complex humanitarian crises is fraught with moral dilemmas. Further exploring the emergencies highlighted in Ricardo Pollack's film The Trouble with Aid, aid professionals and critics debate whether there are occasions when humanitarian aid might do more harm than good, and what emergency aid means in the 21st century.
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Monday 10th December
News
Panorama: The Secret Drone War
BBC1, 8:30-9:00pm
America's CIA is fighting a secret war in the badlands of Pakistan - targeting al Qaeda and other militants with hellfire missiles in drone strikes that the UN says are illegal. No one knows the true number who have died, but it is estimated that the death toll may be around 3,000 - some of them, it is claimed, innocent women and children.
Panorama goes to Waziristan, one of the most dangerous places in the world, to report on the drone war and to find out from its victims why they are seeking justice in the British courts.
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Tuesday 11th December
Documentaries
Is Our Weather Getting Worse?
Channel 4, 9:00-9:00pm
n Britain we love to moan about the weather. And over the past decade we have experienced some extraordinary weather conditions, with 2012 no exception. It has led many people to wonder if our weather really is getting worse.
The year started with storms and gale-force winds tearing across much of the UK, before our driest spring in a century left 35 million people in the UK suffering from drought. In Aberdeen in March, temperatures soared to 23 degrees Celsius. But within four weeks, everything had changed. April 15 marked the beginning of our wettest summer on record. Towns such as Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire were flooded not once, but twice, and by the end of August 4000 homes across Britain had been devastated by floods. But the strange events of 2012 are only part of the story. For the past decade, our weather has been so erratic that government scientists have begun to use words like 'unprecedented' and 'extraordinary'.
This programme gets to the truth of our extraordinary decade of extreme weather. Blending dramatic archive footage, expert insight and cutting-edge graphics, the film investigates the most severe weather events to have struck Britain in recent memory and puts them into the wider context of climate change. Are the strange events of 2012 a one-off or an ominous sign of climate change in action? How does the changing global climate affect the British weather and what can we expect in the future? Is our weather getting worse?
Factual; News
Cuba with Simon Reeve
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm
Adventurer and journalist Simon Reeve heads to Cuba to find a communist country in the middle of a capitalist revolution. Two years ago Cuba announced the most sweeping and radical economic reforms the country has seen in decades. From ending state rationing to cutting one million public-sector jobs, one of the last communist bastions in the world has begun rolling back the state on an unprecedented scale. Simon Reeve meets ordinary Cubans whose lives are being transformed, from the owners of fledgling businesses to the newly rich estate agents selling properties worth up to 750,000 pounds.
In this hour-long documentary for the BBC's award-winning This World strand, Simon gets under the skin of a colourful and vibrant country famous for its hospitality and humour and asks if this new economic openness could lead to political liberalisation in a totalitarian country with a poor human rights record. Will Cuba be able to maintain the positive aspects of its long isolation under socialism - low crime, top-notch education and one of the best health systems in the world - while embracing what certainly looks like capitalism? Is this the last chance to see Cuba before it becomes just like any other country?
Factual; Documentaries
The Dark Ages: An Age of Light
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm, 3/4 - The Wonder of Islam
The Dark Ages have been misunderstood. History has identified the period following the fall of the Roman Empire with a descent into barbarism - a terrible time when civilisation stopped.
Waldemar Januszczak disagrees. In this four-part series he argues that the Dark Ages were a time of great artistic achievement, with new ideas and religions provoking new artistic adventures. He embarks on a fascinating trip across Europe, Africa and Asia, visits the world's most famous collections and discovers hidden artistic gems, all to prove that the Dark Ages were actually an 'Age of Light'.
Along with Christianity, the Dark Ages saw the emergence of another vital religion - Islam. After emerging in the near East it spread across North Africa and into Europe, bringing its unique artistic style with it. Waldemar examines the early artistic explorations of the first Muslims, the development of their mosques and their scientific achievements
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Wednesday 12th December
Factual; Science and Nature; Environment; Documentaries
Miniature Britain
BBC1, 8:00-9:00pm
Biologist George McGavin goes on a journey around the British Isles to show us the extraordinary little things that are vital to our land. With a revolutionary new microscope camera seven thousand times more powerful than the human eye, George reveals the surprising beauty of Britain close-up.
Caterpillars' feet have hooks that anchor them to leaves even upside down, the wings of butterflies and moths are a kaleidoscope of colourful scales that keep them safe from predators, bee stings have barbs that make them stick deep in your skin, and feathers have thousands of hooks that zip together keeping birds airborne.
Our cities are full of invisible miniature life too: millions of cute 'water bears' graze pavement mosses, and our homes have legions of dust mites scavenging for food in our carpets. This is Britain as you've never seen it before.
Factual; History; Documentaries
Rome: A History of the Eternal City
9:00-10:00pm, 2/3
Simon Sebag Montefiore charts the rocky course of Rome's rise to become the capital of Western Christendom and its impact on the lives of its citizens, elites and high priests. Rome casts aside its pantheon of pagan gods and a radical new religion takes hold. Christianity was just a persecuted sect until Emperor Constantine took a huge leap of faith, promoting it as the religion of Empire. But would this divine gamble pay off?
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Thursday 13th December
Factual; News; Documentaries
Britain's Hidden Housing Crisis
BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm
Britain is in the grip of a housing crisis of a sort not seen before, where even the most unexpected people are finding themselves homeless. Every two and a half minutes someone in Britain is threatened with losing their home. Hard-working people who’ve reliably paid their rent or mortgages for years can be only a few pay packets away from finding themselves without a roof over their heads. And with more people becoming homeless and fewer homes being built, tens of thousands of families are living in temporary accommodation, sometimes in squalid conditions.
In Britain’s New Homeless, Panorama follows the struggles and challenges faced by four people as they face the reality of losing their homes. Filmed over the course of five months, the programme reveals the devastating impact of losing everything: An investment banker who, following the crash of 2008, lost everything and eventually found himself sleeping rough in a park in Croydon; another businessman whose company went under in the recession and whose family home was repossessed when he was unable to keep up the mortgage repayments; a grandmother who had worked all her life but could no longer pay the mortgage when she was diagnosed with breast cancer and was forced to stop work; and a bus driver, whose family of six was evicted from their council house when they couldn't keep up with the rental payments. The family found themselves living in one-bedroom emergency accommodation, while the council decided whether they have made themselves 'intentionally homeless'.
Documentaries
Pensioners Behind Bars
ITV1, 9:00-10:00pm
This colourful film includes the stories of men and women who have turned to crime only in later years after a lifetime as law-abiding citizens. It features a septuagenarian heroin dealer, a former driving instructor turned brothel keeper and a retired builder convicted of possession of blackmarket cigarettes and cannabis. They explain what drew them into crime, what it’s like to be locked up for the first time at their age, and how they are dealing with the consequences. It also shows how career criminals such as former Krays associate Freddie Foreman are coping in retirement and asks if they still retain the urge to commit crime.
The number of over-60s in prison has trebled in the last 20 years and the programme begins with Anthony McErlean, 67, serving a five-year sentence at HMP Elmley for an audacious fraud. After faking his own death while abroad, in order to swindle his insurance company out of £500,000, he realised the potential pitfalls of spending his old age overseas. “I thought if I get sick I can’t go back to the UK as a dead person and get healthcare. I’m up s*** creek without a paddle. I thought how do you un-kill yourself?” Anthony was caught when police found his fingerprints on his own death certificate. He pleaded guilty to fraud and theft. He says: “I regret being in here, but I don’t feel that I shouldn’t be in here. I knew what I was doing and I knew the risks.”
But the programme features others who were shocked at being sent to prison. Grandmother Adele Lubin, 66, was sentenced to 15 months in prison for conspiracy to control prostitution at the age of 62 and began her term in Holloway. She started a legitimate massage therapy business but discovered that it was difficult to make money without offering extra services – and as her business expanded she became a brothel madam. “The phone used to ring and they would say, ‘What kind of massage is it?’ And I would say, ‘Well it’s very therapeutic, and relaxing and sensual.’ And then some people would say, ‘Well do you do a happy ending?’ And I’d have to say, ‘Yeah, no problem.’ “I never thought if I ever got caught I’d end up in jail… I just didn’t think I was doing anything too terrible.”
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Friday 14th December
News; World Affairs
Unreported World: Russia's Radical Chic
Channel 4, 7:30-7:55pm
Glamorous young Russian socialite Ksenia Sobchak has swapped high-profile TV stardom for a life leading political protests against President Putin, who also happens to be a close family friend. Unreported World reveals how far Sobchak is risking her livelihood and privileged lifestyle to confront the strongman of the Kremlin, who has dealt ruthlessly with other political opponents. Sobchak is one of the most famous people in Russia, known by millions as the presenter of Russian Big Brother, and a member of the elite that made fortunes following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Her father was the mayor of St Petersburg and mentor to Vladimir Putin, a family friend. A quick search of her career highlights on YouTube turns up clips of her dancing lasciviously, fighting with a boyfriend, and being carried home to her apartment in a drunken stupor.
So, when Muscovites took to the streets in December 2011 in a series of unprecedented mass protests against electoral fraud and the Putin regime, they were amazed when she joined them, telling them she had a lot to lose in fighting their cause. Since then, she's changed her image and started going out with Ilya Yashin, a political organiser. She's still using her celebrity, but now to oppose the regime of a man she's known since she was a child. And she's suffering the consequences. By opposing the government, Sobchak has swapped a life of privilege for one of uncertainty. She's been banished from mainstream television to a tiny cable station, where she hosts a political discussion programme. In June 2012, armed police raided her apartment.
Reporter Marcel Theroux and director David Fuller follow Sobchak as she records an hour-long interview with Katya Samutsevich, one of the Pussy Riot protestors. It's Sobchak's idea to film the interview outside with the cathedral the protestors invaded. At Sobchak's suggestion, she and Samutsevich wear prison jackets. It's a well-calculated tease, but the Kremlin is showing signs of losing patience with her.
Sobchak tells Theroux that she's just had word that her mother, a career politician, has lost her job. She attributes this, like her banishment to cable television and the police raid, to a government that is trying to squeeze the life out of the opposition. To a certain extent, it's succeeding. With Putin in office for another six years, and the most recent elections marked by low turn-outs and widespread apathy, it appears that a certain Russian fatalism is returning. As the Unreported World team leaves Moscow, Theroux concludes that high-wattage stars like Sobchak, who can galvanise Russia's younger and least cynical voters, could be an answer to this fatalism.
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Wednesday 28 November 2012
Off-air recordings for week 1-7 December 2012
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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Sunday 2nd December
Factual; Documentaries
Solar Mamas
BBC4, 6/8 - Why Poverty? season
Solar Mamas follows the remarkable story of Rafea, a mother-of-four from Jordan who challenges the status quo of her traditional marriage by travelling to India to train as a solar engineer for six months. Along with 27 other mothers and grandmothers from poor communities around the world - many of whom are illiterate - she will learn the skills needed to bring electricity and light back to her village.
For Rafea, it is a life changing journey. As the second wife of a Bedouin living in a remote part of the Jordanian desert, she has had limited opportunities in life. Now she has been selected to attend the Barefoot College in India run by the inimitable Roy Bunker. Alongside women from Kenya, Burkina Faso and Colombia and across cultural and language divides, Rafea needs to get to grips with electrical components, circuit boards and soldering. Her new knowledge will see her do things she never imagined, but it will also have an unanticipated effect on her relationship with her patriarchal husband.
Addressing themes of education, gender equality, environmental sustainability and development, the documentary takes an inspiring and compelling look at poverty - and the ways women around the world are working to pull themselves out of the poverty trap.
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Monday 3rd December
News
Panorama: How Safe Is Your Hospital?
BBC1, 8:30-9:00pm
The NHS is under huge pressure with increasing demand, limited finances and facing the largest reorganization in its history. With the latest data on hospital death rates, Panorama reveals poor patient care is putting thousands of people at risk of death or serious injury every year.
Many of these problems were first highlighted five years ago during the scandal at Stafford Hospital when hundreds of people died unnecessarily. Despite assurances that it could never happen again, reporter Declan Lawn finds serious ongoing problems in trusts across the country - and a systemic failure to act on warnings that patients are being put at risk.
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Tuesday 4th December
Factual; History; Documentaries
Britain on Film
BBC4, 8:30-9:00pm, 5/5 - The Joy of Tech
Factual; Documentaries
Dark Ages: An Age of Light
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm, 2/4 - What The Barbarians Did For Us
The Dark Ages have been misunderstood. History has identified the period following the fall of the Roman Empire with a descent into barbarism - a terrible time when civilisation stopped.
Waldemar Januszczak disagrees. In this four-part series he argues that the Dark Ages were a time of great artistic achievement, with new ideas and religions provoking new artistic adventures. He embarks on a fascinating trip across Europe, Africa and Asia, visits the world's most famous collections and discovers hidden artistic gems, all to prove that the Dark Ages were actually an 'Age of Light'.
The 'Barbarians' are often blamed for the collapse of the Roman Empire, but in reality they were fascinating civilisations that produced magnificent art. Focusing on the Huns, Vandals and Goths, Waldemar follows each tribe's journey across Europe and discovers the incredible art they produced along the way.
Factual; Documentaries
The Great Land Rush
BBC4, 10:00-11:00pm, 7/8 - Why Poverty? season
75 per cent of Mali's population are farmers, but rich land-hungry nations like China and Saudi Arabia are leasing Mali's land in order to turn large areas into agri-business farms. Many Malian peasants do not welcome these efforts, seeing them as yet another manifestation of imperialism. Tackling questions such as food sovereignty, land ownership and how development is sold to Africa, Hugo Berkeley and Osvalde Lewat's film asks who owns Africa.
A BBC Storyville film, produced in partnership with the Open University, the film screens as part of Why Poverty? - when the BBC, in conjunction with more than 70 broadcasters around the world, hosts a debate about contemporary poverty. The global cross-media event sees the same eight films screened in 180 countries to explore why, in the 21st Century, a billion people still live in poverty.
Factual, Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries
Imagine... Jeanette Winterson: My Monster and Me
BBC1, 10:35-11:55pm
Nearly thirty years after her triumphant debut novel, Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson returns with Alan Yentob to the scenes of her extraordinary childhood in Lancashire. She was adopted and brought up to be a missionary by the larger-than-life Mrs Winterson. But Jeanette followed a different path: she found literature, fell in love with a girl, and escaped to university.
Following her recent memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal, Jeanette Winterson tells the story of her recent breakdown and suicide attempt, her quest to find her birth mother and how the power of books helped her to survive.
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Wednesday 5th December
factual; Documentaries
Supersized Earth
BBC1, 8:00-9:00pm, 3/3
In this final episode, Dallas examines what it takes to keep seven billion humans alive with food, energy and water. 40% of the Earth's surface is now devoted to growing food. To appreciate how we have transformed vast swathes of land to produce food, Dallas paraglides over the south coast of Spain, where what was once an arid landscape is now home to the world's largest greenhouse array.
He also rides with cowboys on Brazil's largest cattle ranch, to help herd over 125,000 cattle. He visits Lake Mead, the biggest man-made lake in the USA, to see how it has helped us transform harsh desert into the bright lights of Las Vegas. He also joins the team building a 750 mile long artificial river to transport water from south to north China.
Factual; History; Documentaries
Rome: A History of the Eternal City
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/3
Simon Sebag Montefiore looks at how every event in ancient Rome revolved around religion. From the foundation myth through to the deification of Emperors; nothing could happen without calling upon the Pantheon of Roman gods. Simon investigates how the Roman's worshipped and sacrificed to the gods. He discovers that sacredness defined what was Roman and it was the responsibility of every Roman to play their part in the cult. Even the ancient Roman sewer was holy ground!
_____________________________________________
Thursday 6th December
News; Documentaries
Madeley Meets The Squatters
ITV1, 9:00-10:00pm
Today in Britain, it’s estimated there are anything between 20,000 and 50,000 people squatting. They are often portrayed as anti-social, drug-taking freeloaders, who contribute nothing to society. But is that really the case? With a new law having just come into force making squatting a criminal offence, Richard Madeley is on a mission to meet Britain’s squatters, to see what their lives are really like and find out why they squat. He also hears from landlords and even brings them face-to-face with the people occupying their property against their wishes.
Richard travels the country to meet squatters from wide-ranging backgrounds, all with a different story to tell and conflicting views on the morality of how they live. In doing so, he examines how the change in the law will impact on the current situation faced by both squatters and landlords.
Richard visits a former pub in Walthamstow, used as a squat for five years despite being surrounded by local businesses. Nigel Jenkins owns the garage opposite and explains what he has seen in the past: “Nine o’clock in the morning they are drunk out of their skulls. First thing in the morning we come in…they have used the driveway as toilets.” Despite this he admits: “Everyone sees them as an inconvenience but nobody sees the amount of trouble these people are in. What are you going to do with them? Unless you can re-house them, there’s nothing you can do with them.”
Richard heads to Bristol, where he discovers that local squatters have organised themselves into groups, with their own planning committee that meets each week to help members find new squats to live in. Richard attends one of the meetings to find out more and a squatter explains to him: “I like to think of us as urban wombles, we roam the streets that aren’t being used and we make a use of them. How can you argue the morality of that? We don’t pay rent, no, but at least people aren’t sleeping rough.”
There is a tense atmosphere when Richard introduces Dave Durant to the squatters who have occupied a property he owns in south Bristol. It’s the second time he’s had squatters in his building and with Richard as mediator he confronts the people occupying his building: “I know that the place was locked, you know that the place was locked. I know, that you must have broken into my house.” Squatter Tristan refuses to confirm how he gained access but is keen to respond: “If people are suffering they should be allowed to sleep under a roof, especially if it lies dormant like this one.” He tells Richard: ”I see it as greed. When there are five of us wandering the streets, hungry, needing somewhere to live, when he has multiple properties, I see that as greed. Until you’ve been in our position and suffered like we have, you’re going to find it hard to have a balanced view.”
_____________________________________________
Friday 7th December
News; World Affairs
Unreported World - Egypt: Sex, Mobs and Revolution
Channel 4, 7:30-7:55pm
Unreported World examines the increase in sexual assaults and harassment in Egypt.
The programme reveals claims that young men are being paid to carry out horrendous mob attacks on women. It is claimed that this started under the Mubarak regime and it is suspected by some to still continue.
Women have been at the forefront of the Egyptian revolution but are now often fearful of taking part in the regular public demonstrations.
Sexual harassment is not a new problem in Egypt. In a 2010 United Nations survey, more than 80 per cent of women surveyed said they'd been sexually harassed.
But there are signs that the problem has got worse with the breakdown of public order since the revolution. Reports of mob sex attacks are on the increase.
Reporter Ramita Navai and director Dimitri Collingridge meet a young woman who has recently survived such an attack. Nihal was out at a protest in Tahrir Square with four other women. She managed to escape but her friend suffered an ordeal that is typical of these attacks.
She was stripped naked and dozens of men raped her with their hands. Nihal's friend sustained internal injuries and couldn't walk for a week. She has since fled Egypt. Nihal too was severely traumatised.
Nihal has become involved in Harassmap, an anti-sexual harassment movement that charts mob attacks and allows women to log sexual harassment. In the last two years the team has received more than 900 reports from women across the country.
Despite the publicity on the issue, the women themselves are worried about speaking about their personal experiences. It's a taboo subject and many of them are even afraid to tell their parents what they've suffered.
Even when women decide to go to the police, they say they rarely receive help. Twenty-one-year-old student Dina has been the victim of several assaults. She claims that on one occasion she managed to alert a nearby police officer, but that he refused to help, telling her the attack was her fault because she was wearing the wrong clothes.
The team witnesses the everyday harassment women face. As they film, a woman is chased by a group of teenagers. And as Navai and Dina walk down a busy main street, they are constantly verbally abused.
Many of the women Unreported World meets say that age, dress and looks have very little to do with becoming a target. In one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Cairo, Stable Anta, all the women are veiled and they suffer harassment similar to their more westernised counterparts downtown...
__________________________________________
Wednesday 21 November 2012
Off-air recordings for week 24-30 November 2012
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.
______________________________________________
Sunday 25th November
Factuall Life Stories; Documentaries
Return to Forgotten Britain
BBC2, 8:00-9:00pm, 1/2
In the previous series of 'Forgotten Britain', the BBC's foreign correspondent Fergal Keane took a journey closer to home to see how some of Britain's hard pressed communities were managing at the turn of the millennium. In the first episode of this follow-up series, Fergal retraces his steps to find out what happened to the inspiring families he met then and how they are coping today.
Factual; Documentaries
Give Us The Money
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm
Documentary taking an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at 30 years of Bob Geldof and Bono's campaign against poverty. Their work has made them icons of aid and even garnered them Nobel Peace Prize nominations, but what impact has it really had on Africa? Through archive footage and candid new interviews with key players including Geldof, Bono and Bill Gates, the film re-examines three decades of unprecedented campaigns and scrutinises the effectiveness of celebrity-led activism.
Nearly 30 years ago, two young pop singers set out to challenge the world. Their aim - to use their celebrity status to end poverty in Africa. After Bob Geldof instigated a chart-topping charity single and staged one of the biggest rock concerts ever seen, he and Bono joined forces and went on to build a multi-million dollar lobbying organisation. Along the way, they hi-jacked the Brits, enlisted IT billionaires, fashion models and academics, won over the wiliest of politicians, lobbied world leaders and put the politics of poverty firmly on the international agenda. They raised vast sums for charity and persuaded western powers to dramatically reduce third world debt.
But did they really help make poverty history in Africa? What impact has their work really had on economic growth and poverty reduction? And if they haven't made poverty history, has their campaign at least been responsible for a big step forward?
Factual; History; Documentaries
Michael Wood: The Story of India
BBC4, 11:35pm-12:35am, 6/6
The final episode examines the British Raj and India's freedom struggle. In South India, Michael sees how a global corporation, the East India Company, came to control much of the subcontinent. He visits the magical culture of Lucknow and discovers the enigmatic Briton, 'the rebel in the Raj' who helped found the freedom movement. Then the Amritsar massacre, the rise of Gandhi and Nehru and the fateful events that led to the Partition of India in 1947. The series ends with India once again a global giant, as she has been for most of her amazing history
______________________________________________
Monday 26th November
Documentaries
Dispatches: Where Has Your Aid Money Gone?
Channel 4, 8:00-9:00pm
Public spending is being slashed across the board. But the Department for International Development, which doles out Britain's overseas aid, is set to enjoy substantial year-on-year increases to £11bn by 2015.
Jonathan Miller travels to Rwanda - the jewel in the crown of British overseas aid - to investigate what British taxes have paid for, and to ask what our government has achieved with the influence our aid supposedly buys us.
David Cameron personally backs increasing British aid to Rwanda to nearly £100m a year by 2015. He's called it 'a role model for development and lifting people out of poverty in Africa'.
The Conservatives have a particularly close relationship with the architect of Rwanda's success, President Paul Kagame.
But Dispatches has found that, far from creating a beacon of democracy, Kagame has established a repressive regime with a worrying disregard for human rights.
Dispatches asks if British aid to Rwanda is truly helping the poor, or helping to create Africa's next tyrant?
Documentaries
The Curious Case of the Clark Brothers
Channel 4, 9:00-10:00pm
What would you do if your adult children developed an age-defying disease that made them regress to childhood in front of your eyes? How would you cope with seeing them go from man to boy and looking after them 24 hours a day? This documentary tells the harrowing but brutally honest story of Tony and Christine Clark and their two sons Matthew, who's 39 and Michael, who's 42, as they live and cope with this dreadful condition; not once, but twice.
Michael and Matthew Clark from Hull had lived normal lives until their late thirties. They were totally unaware their brains were carrying a deadly neurological time bomb: a rare and little known condition called Leukodystrophy. The condition causes a progressive loss of every neurological function - speech, memory, movement, sight, hearing, touch, eating, swallowing - and normally affects children. To discover a late onset strain is exceptional and what makes it even more astonishing to the Clark family is that it should attack two members of the same family.
Christine and Tony thought their parenting days were over. They had taken early retirement and were enjoying a pleasant ex-pat life in Spain. When news of their sons' illness and rapid deterioration reached them, they had to abandon their life abroad and return to the UK. The family moved into a cramped one-bedroom flat and the parents were forced to look after and care for their two 'boys' 24 hours a day. This film follows the Clark family on their fascinating and traumatic journey as they struggle with their day-to-day life, trying to come to terms with watching their grown-up sons become young boys trapped in adult bodies.
Factual; Documentaries
Stealing Africa
BBC4, 10:00-11:00pm
Ruschlikon is a village in Switzerland with a very low tax rate and very wealthy residents. There is so much money in the public coffers that mayor can't spend it all, largely thanks to the contribution from one resident - Ivan Glasenberg, CEO of commodities giant Glencore. However, Glencore's copper mines in Zambia don't generate similar tax windfalls for Zambians. The country has the third largest copper reserves in the world, but 60 per cent of the population live on less than $1 a day and 80 per cent are unemployed. Christoffer Guldbrandsen investigates the dark heart of the tax system employed by multi-nationals and asks how much profit is fair.
A BBC Storyville film, produced in partnership with the Open University, Stealing Africa screens as part of Why Poverty? - when the BBC, in conjunction with more than 70 broadcasters around the world, hosts a debate about contemporary poverty. The global cross-media event sees the same eight films screened in 180 countries to explore why, in the 21st Century, a billion people still live in poverty.
______________________________________________
Tuesday 27th November
Factual; Documentaries
The State of Welfare
BBC Radio 4, 10:00am-1:00pm
Seventy years ago William Beveridge wrote a report that was to lay the foundations for the welfare state. He identified the Five Giants that society needed to slay: Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. His vision was to lead to the welfare state we know today. Jane Garvey and Julian Worricker discuss how well the state serves those who rely it on it and those who pay for it. They'll hear from a new BBC-commissioned poll on attitudes to those on welfare and how well the system is working. They also challenge some of the myths surrounding the Beveridge report with his biographer Jose Harris and political historian Steven Fielding. They will be exploring fresh visions for welfare in 2012 from Julia Slay of the New Economics Foundation, the author James Bartholomew and Frances O'Grady, the leader of the TUC. They'll face some tough questioning from a panel of Anne McElvoy of The Economist magazine, Patrick Nolan from the thinktank Reform and Alison Garnham of The Child Poverty Action Group. And debating how we make decisions about fairness and entitlement to welfare are Frank Field, Labour MP, the philosopher Roger Scruton and social commentator Polly Toynbee. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Iain Duncan Smith will also be taking questions on welfare.
Factual; History; Documentaries
Britain on Film
BBC 4, 8:30-9:00pm, 4/5 - Dedicated Followers of Fashion
Throughout the 1960s, the Rank Organisation produced hundreds of short, quirky documentaries that examined all aspects of life in Britain. Shot on high-quality colour film stock, they were screened in cinemas, but until now very little of the footage has been shown on television. This series draws on this unique archive to offer illuminating and often surprising insights into a pivotal decade in modern British history. This episode examines the films that recorded developments in one of 1960s Britain's most dynamic, innovative and industries - the glamorous and fast-moving world of fashion.
Factual; Documentaries
The Dark Ages: An Age of Light
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/4
The Dark Ages have been misunderstood. History has identified the period following the fall of the Roman Empire with a descent into barbarism - a terrible time when civilisation stopped.
Waldemar Januszczak disagrees. In this four-part series he argues that the Dark Ages were a time of great artistic achievement, with new ideas and religions provoking new artistic adventures. He embarks on a fascinating trip across Europe, Africa and Asia, visits the world's most famous collections and discovers hidden artistic gems, all to prove that the Dark Ages were actually an 'Age of Light'.
In the first episode he looks at how Christianity emerged into the Roman Empire as an artistic force in the third and fourth centuries. But with no description of Jesus in the Bible, how were Christians to represent their God? Waldemar explores how Christian artists drew on images of ancient gods for inspiration and developed new forms of architecture to contain their art.
Factual; Documentaries
Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream
BBC4, 10:00-11:00pm
740 Park Avenue - an exclusive apartment building in Manhattan - is currently home to more billionaires than any other building in the United States. Less than five miles to the north is another Park Avenue in the South Bronx, where almost 40 per cent live in poverty and life prospects are less promising for those stuck at the bottom of the American pile. As international attention focuses on the US elections, Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney looks at inequality in the US through the prism of these two, near-adjacent places, to ask if America is still the land of opportunity.
"There's always been a gap between the wealthiest in our society and everyone else, but in the last 30 years something changed: that gap became the Grand Canyon," says Gibney. Through the story of the two Park Avenues, he argues that the extreme wealth of a few has been used to impose their ideas on the rest of America. By focusing on the residents of 740 Park, he asks questions about the influence of CEOs in Washington in return for tax policies that favour the ultra-rich. What chances do those at the bottom of the ladder have for upward mobility? Can someone who starts life on Park Avenue in the South Bronx end up living on Park Avenue in Manhattan?
Through archive and interviews with academics, political scientists, psychologists, former lobbyists and even a former doorman at 740 Park, Gibney's film is a polemical look at the socio-economic political landscape of contemporary USA.
Factual; Arts, Culure and the Media; Documentaries
Imagine... How Music Makes Us Feel
BBC1, 10:35-11:40pm
Many people turn to music when words are not enough, at funerals and weddings, at times of heartbreak and euphoria. It seems to hold more emotion and go deeper than words.
Musicians as varied as Emeli Sande, who enthralled the world when she sang at the Olympics, opera diva Jessye Norman, dubstep artist Mala and modern classical composer George Benjamin explain how music makes them feel. Alan Yentob also talks to a vicar, a psychologist, a Hollywood composer, an adman and even the people who choose the music played in shopping malls. He sees babies dance to a rhythm, and old people brought forth out of silence by the power of music.
______________________________________________
Wednesday 28th November
Factual; Documentaries
Supersized Earth
BBC1, 8:00-9:00pm, 2/3 - The Way We Move
Supersized Earth traces the spectacular story of how humans have transformed our world in a generation. In this awe-inspiring three-part series, Dallas Campbell travels the globe, visiting the world's largest and most ambitious engineering projects, exploring the power of human ingenuity and the making of the modern world.
In this episode, Dallas explores how we can travel further and faster than ever before - and how our desire to shrink the world is inspiring some of the most extraordinary engineering projects on the planet. He takes a treacherous walk along what will be one of the longest suspension bridges in the world and reveals how to move an object the size of Buckingham Palace half way around the globe. He examines how we have created a permanent home beyond the atmosphere in space and here on earth, he takes part in a modern day love affair - a drive-through wedding.
Factual; Documentaries
Poor Us: An Animated History of Poverty
BBC4, 10:30-11:30pm
Do we know what poverty is? Throughout human existence, the poor have always been with us. Beginning with the Neolithic age, Ben Lewis's funny and sinister animated odyssey takes us through the changing image of poverty - helping us define what poverty looks like today and question whether it is inevitable.
A BBC Storyville film, produced in partnership with the Open University, Poor Us screens as part of Why Poverty? - when the BBC, in conjunction with more than 70 broadcasters around the world, hosts a debate about contemporary poverty. The global cross-media event sees the same eight films screened in 180 countries to explore why, in the 21st Century, a billion people still live in poverty.
______________________________________________
Thursday 29th November
Arts, Culture and the Media; History; Documentaries
The Beat Hotel
BBC Radio 4, 11:30am-12:04pm
Professor Andrew Hussey retraces the steps of the Beat Generation writers who found refuge in a Parisian hotel during the 1950s and 60s. He recounts how they created some of their most significant works in the city, including William Burroughs' Naked Lunch, and that relaxed French social attitudes helped them to thrive.
News; Documentaries
Britain's Deadly Gun Trade
ITV1, 7:30-8:00pm
When two unarmed female police officers were shot dead in Manchester in September, the nation was horrified and the Government responded by pledging to crack down on the trade in illegal firearms in a bid to keep guns off our streets.
This special Tonight investigation looks at how guns are finding their way into the hands of criminals and uncovers a new supply route that could see the number of illegal weapons in circulation rise dramatically.
Fiona Foster meets the family of an innocent victim who was shot dead by accident and the police officers who risk their lives every day. She also heads to America following the trail of an international gun-runner, who was allegedly arming criminals in the North West.
News; Current Affairs
Stoned Again
BBC Radio 5 Live, 10:00-11:00pm
In a revealing documentary, former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith talks to some of her fiercest critics as she reassesses her 2008 decision to reclassify cannabis from Category C to the more serious Category B, a decision that prompted public debate, but attracted criticism from some drugs charities, health workers and academics.
In “Stoned Again”, Jacqui Smith tests the evidence and reasons for her decision and considers its impact.
She talks to those who opposed the decision including her first face-to-face meeting with Professor David Nutt, who was on the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs at the time.
She and another former Home Secretary, David Blunkett, discuss the political decision making process involved in the cannabis debate. David Blunkett was previously responsible for downgrading the cannabis classification from B to C.
Drug users and front-line workers talk about their experiences of the law and the drug, and Jacqui sees drugs education in action. As Jacqui reflects on these conversations, she considers whether she stands by this decision and whether it had any impact on cannabis use in Britain.
Stoned Again presented by Jacqui Smith will be broadcast on BBC Radio 5 live on Thursday 29 November at 10pm. Tony Livesey will continue the discussion of the issues raised in the programme at 11pm.
______________________________________________
Friday 30th November
News; Documentaries
Unreported World: Mumbai's Party Police
Channel 4, 7:30-7:55pm
Young clubbers in Mumbai are being arrested, assaulted and accused of being prostitutes in a police crackdown on the city's nightlife. Reporter Jenny Kleeman and director Alex Nott investigate why a policeman dubbed 'Inspector Killjoy' is now enforcing long-forgotten laws and how being caught up in the raids can change young women's lives forever.
The film looks at the fault lines where East meets West and where generations clash as India changes.
The team is taken to one of the city's best-known clubs - the Blue Frog - by Nisha Harale Bedi, a former Miss Mumbai. It's a place where models and Bollywood stars come to party, but it's also one of over 200 venues the police have raided this year, under 60-year-old licensing laws that many feel are out of step with modern Mumbai.
The policeman leading the crackdown, Assistant Police Commissioner Vasant Dhoble, has detained at least 1000 clubbers on suspicion of anything from taking drugs to selling sex. Nisha tells Kleeman how during one raid she was forced into a bathroom and strip searched.
Female clubbers have also been humiliated when the police have accused them of being prostitutes in front of local TV cameras.
Karishma Ramesh Kadam was born in a slum and is now a shop assistant who aspires to the glamorous lifestyle that Nisha and her friends enjoy. The first time she ever went clubbing she was caught in a raid.
Dhoble told reporters he'd been tipped off that prostitutes were soliciting from the club, and he arrested all the female customers. They were imprisoned for three weeks and then released without charge.
Karishma tells Kleeman she was strip searched and beaten, but the worst thing was that the raid had been filmed and photographed by journalists who publically branded her a prostitute. Her family say she's brought shame on them. They won't let her come home and refuse to speak to her. Karishma says she has tried to kill herself twice since they rejected her.
______________________________________________
*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.
______________________________________________
Sunday 25th November
Factuall Life Stories; Documentaries
Return to Forgotten Britain
BBC2, 8:00-9:00pm, 1/2
In the previous series of 'Forgotten Britain', the BBC's foreign correspondent Fergal Keane took a journey closer to home to see how some of Britain's hard pressed communities were managing at the turn of the millennium. In the first episode of this follow-up series, Fergal retraces his steps to find out what happened to the inspiring families he met then and how they are coping today.
Factual; Documentaries
Give Us The Money
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm
Documentary taking an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at 30 years of Bob Geldof and Bono's campaign against poverty. Their work has made them icons of aid and even garnered them Nobel Peace Prize nominations, but what impact has it really had on Africa? Through archive footage and candid new interviews with key players including Geldof, Bono and Bill Gates, the film re-examines three decades of unprecedented campaigns and scrutinises the effectiveness of celebrity-led activism.
Nearly 30 years ago, two young pop singers set out to challenge the world. Their aim - to use their celebrity status to end poverty in Africa. After Bob Geldof instigated a chart-topping charity single and staged one of the biggest rock concerts ever seen, he and Bono joined forces and went on to build a multi-million dollar lobbying organisation. Along the way, they hi-jacked the Brits, enlisted IT billionaires, fashion models and academics, won over the wiliest of politicians, lobbied world leaders and put the politics of poverty firmly on the international agenda. They raised vast sums for charity and persuaded western powers to dramatically reduce third world debt.
But did they really help make poverty history in Africa? What impact has their work really had on economic growth and poverty reduction? And if they haven't made poverty history, has their campaign at least been responsible for a big step forward?
Factual; History; Documentaries
Michael Wood: The Story of India
BBC4, 11:35pm-12:35am, 6/6
The final episode examines the British Raj and India's freedom struggle. In South India, Michael sees how a global corporation, the East India Company, came to control much of the subcontinent. He visits the magical culture of Lucknow and discovers the enigmatic Briton, 'the rebel in the Raj' who helped found the freedom movement. Then the Amritsar massacre, the rise of Gandhi and Nehru and the fateful events that led to the Partition of India in 1947. The series ends with India once again a global giant, as she has been for most of her amazing history
______________________________________________
Monday 26th November
Documentaries
Dispatches: Where Has Your Aid Money Gone?
Channel 4, 8:00-9:00pm
Public spending is being slashed across the board. But the Department for International Development, which doles out Britain's overseas aid, is set to enjoy substantial year-on-year increases to £11bn by 2015.
Jonathan Miller travels to Rwanda - the jewel in the crown of British overseas aid - to investigate what British taxes have paid for, and to ask what our government has achieved with the influence our aid supposedly buys us.
David Cameron personally backs increasing British aid to Rwanda to nearly £100m a year by 2015. He's called it 'a role model for development and lifting people out of poverty in Africa'.
The Conservatives have a particularly close relationship with the architect of Rwanda's success, President Paul Kagame.
But Dispatches has found that, far from creating a beacon of democracy, Kagame has established a repressive regime with a worrying disregard for human rights.
Dispatches asks if British aid to Rwanda is truly helping the poor, or helping to create Africa's next tyrant?
Documentaries
The Curious Case of the Clark Brothers
Channel 4, 9:00-10:00pm
What would you do if your adult children developed an age-defying disease that made them regress to childhood in front of your eyes? How would you cope with seeing them go from man to boy and looking after them 24 hours a day? This documentary tells the harrowing but brutally honest story of Tony and Christine Clark and their two sons Matthew, who's 39 and Michael, who's 42, as they live and cope with this dreadful condition; not once, but twice.
Michael and Matthew Clark from Hull had lived normal lives until their late thirties. They were totally unaware their brains were carrying a deadly neurological time bomb: a rare and little known condition called Leukodystrophy. The condition causes a progressive loss of every neurological function - speech, memory, movement, sight, hearing, touch, eating, swallowing - and normally affects children. To discover a late onset strain is exceptional and what makes it even more astonishing to the Clark family is that it should attack two members of the same family.
Christine and Tony thought their parenting days were over. They had taken early retirement and were enjoying a pleasant ex-pat life in Spain. When news of their sons' illness and rapid deterioration reached them, they had to abandon their life abroad and return to the UK. The family moved into a cramped one-bedroom flat and the parents were forced to look after and care for their two 'boys' 24 hours a day. This film follows the Clark family on their fascinating and traumatic journey as they struggle with their day-to-day life, trying to come to terms with watching their grown-up sons become young boys trapped in adult bodies.
Factual; Documentaries
Stealing Africa
BBC4, 10:00-11:00pm
Ruschlikon is a village in Switzerland with a very low tax rate and very wealthy residents. There is so much money in the public coffers that mayor can't spend it all, largely thanks to the contribution from one resident - Ivan Glasenberg, CEO of commodities giant Glencore. However, Glencore's copper mines in Zambia don't generate similar tax windfalls for Zambians. The country has the third largest copper reserves in the world, but 60 per cent of the population live on less than $1 a day and 80 per cent are unemployed. Christoffer Guldbrandsen investigates the dark heart of the tax system employed by multi-nationals and asks how much profit is fair.
A BBC Storyville film, produced in partnership with the Open University, Stealing Africa screens as part of Why Poverty? - when the BBC, in conjunction with more than 70 broadcasters around the world, hosts a debate about contemporary poverty. The global cross-media event sees the same eight films screened in 180 countries to explore why, in the 21st Century, a billion people still live in poverty.
______________________________________________
Tuesday 27th November
Factual; Documentaries
The State of Welfare
BBC Radio 4, 10:00am-1:00pm
Seventy years ago William Beveridge wrote a report that was to lay the foundations for the welfare state. He identified the Five Giants that society needed to slay: Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. His vision was to lead to the welfare state we know today. Jane Garvey and Julian Worricker discuss how well the state serves those who rely it on it and those who pay for it. They'll hear from a new BBC-commissioned poll on attitudes to those on welfare and how well the system is working. They also challenge some of the myths surrounding the Beveridge report with his biographer Jose Harris and political historian Steven Fielding. They will be exploring fresh visions for welfare in 2012 from Julia Slay of the New Economics Foundation, the author James Bartholomew and Frances O'Grady, the leader of the TUC. They'll face some tough questioning from a panel of Anne McElvoy of The Economist magazine, Patrick Nolan from the thinktank Reform and Alison Garnham of The Child Poverty Action Group. And debating how we make decisions about fairness and entitlement to welfare are Frank Field, Labour MP, the philosopher Roger Scruton and social commentator Polly Toynbee. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Iain Duncan Smith will also be taking questions on welfare.
Factual; History; Documentaries
Britain on Film
BBC 4, 8:30-9:00pm, 4/5 - Dedicated Followers of Fashion
Throughout the 1960s, the Rank Organisation produced hundreds of short, quirky documentaries that examined all aspects of life in Britain. Shot on high-quality colour film stock, they were screened in cinemas, but until now very little of the footage has been shown on television. This series draws on this unique archive to offer illuminating and often surprising insights into a pivotal decade in modern British history. This episode examines the films that recorded developments in one of 1960s Britain's most dynamic, innovative and industries - the glamorous and fast-moving world of fashion.
Factual; Documentaries
The Dark Ages: An Age of Light
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/4
The Dark Ages have been misunderstood. History has identified the period following the fall of the Roman Empire with a descent into barbarism - a terrible time when civilisation stopped.
Waldemar Januszczak disagrees. In this four-part series he argues that the Dark Ages were a time of great artistic achievement, with new ideas and religions provoking new artistic adventures. He embarks on a fascinating trip across Europe, Africa and Asia, visits the world's most famous collections and discovers hidden artistic gems, all to prove that the Dark Ages were actually an 'Age of Light'.
In the first episode he looks at how Christianity emerged into the Roman Empire as an artistic force in the third and fourth centuries. But with no description of Jesus in the Bible, how were Christians to represent their God? Waldemar explores how Christian artists drew on images of ancient gods for inspiration and developed new forms of architecture to contain their art.
Factual; Documentaries
Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream
BBC4, 10:00-11:00pm
740 Park Avenue - an exclusive apartment building in Manhattan - is currently home to more billionaires than any other building in the United States. Less than five miles to the north is another Park Avenue in the South Bronx, where almost 40 per cent live in poverty and life prospects are less promising for those stuck at the bottom of the American pile. As international attention focuses on the US elections, Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney looks at inequality in the US through the prism of these two, near-adjacent places, to ask if America is still the land of opportunity.
"There's always been a gap between the wealthiest in our society and everyone else, but in the last 30 years something changed: that gap became the Grand Canyon," says Gibney. Through the story of the two Park Avenues, he argues that the extreme wealth of a few has been used to impose their ideas on the rest of America. By focusing on the residents of 740 Park, he asks questions about the influence of CEOs in Washington in return for tax policies that favour the ultra-rich. What chances do those at the bottom of the ladder have for upward mobility? Can someone who starts life on Park Avenue in the South Bronx end up living on Park Avenue in Manhattan?
Through archive and interviews with academics, political scientists, psychologists, former lobbyists and even a former doorman at 740 Park, Gibney's film is a polemical look at the socio-economic political landscape of contemporary USA.
Factual; Arts, Culure and the Media; Documentaries
Imagine... How Music Makes Us Feel
BBC1, 10:35-11:40pm
Many people turn to music when words are not enough, at funerals and weddings, at times of heartbreak and euphoria. It seems to hold more emotion and go deeper than words.
Musicians as varied as Emeli Sande, who enthralled the world when she sang at the Olympics, opera diva Jessye Norman, dubstep artist Mala and modern classical composer George Benjamin explain how music makes them feel. Alan Yentob also talks to a vicar, a psychologist, a Hollywood composer, an adman and even the people who choose the music played in shopping malls. He sees babies dance to a rhythm, and old people brought forth out of silence by the power of music.
______________________________________________
Wednesday 28th November
Factual; Documentaries
Supersized Earth
BBC1, 8:00-9:00pm, 2/3 - The Way We Move
Supersized Earth traces the spectacular story of how humans have transformed our world in a generation. In this awe-inspiring three-part series, Dallas Campbell travels the globe, visiting the world's largest and most ambitious engineering projects, exploring the power of human ingenuity and the making of the modern world.
In this episode, Dallas explores how we can travel further and faster than ever before - and how our desire to shrink the world is inspiring some of the most extraordinary engineering projects on the planet. He takes a treacherous walk along what will be one of the longest suspension bridges in the world and reveals how to move an object the size of Buckingham Palace half way around the globe. He examines how we have created a permanent home beyond the atmosphere in space and here on earth, he takes part in a modern day love affair - a drive-through wedding.
Factual; Documentaries
Poor Us: An Animated History of Poverty
BBC4, 10:30-11:30pm
Do we know what poverty is? Throughout human existence, the poor have always been with us. Beginning with the Neolithic age, Ben Lewis's funny and sinister animated odyssey takes us through the changing image of poverty - helping us define what poverty looks like today and question whether it is inevitable.
A BBC Storyville film, produced in partnership with the Open University, Poor Us screens as part of Why Poverty? - when the BBC, in conjunction with more than 70 broadcasters around the world, hosts a debate about contemporary poverty. The global cross-media event sees the same eight films screened in 180 countries to explore why, in the 21st Century, a billion people still live in poverty.
______________________________________________
Thursday 29th November
Arts, Culture and the Media; History; Documentaries
The Beat Hotel
BBC Radio 4, 11:30am-12:04pm
Professor Andrew Hussey retraces the steps of the Beat Generation writers who found refuge in a Parisian hotel during the 1950s and 60s. He recounts how they created some of their most significant works in the city, including William Burroughs' Naked Lunch, and that relaxed French social attitudes helped them to thrive.
News; Documentaries
Britain's Deadly Gun Trade
ITV1, 7:30-8:00pm
When two unarmed female police officers were shot dead in Manchester in September, the nation was horrified and the Government responded by pledging to crack down on the trade in illegal firearms in a bid to keep guns off our streets.
This special Tonight investigation looks at how guns are finding their way into the hands of criminals and uncovers a new supply route that could see the number of illegal weapons in circulation rise dramatically.
Fiona Foster meets the family of an innocent victim who was shot dead by accident and the police officers who risk their lives every day. She also heads to America following the trail of an international gun-runner, who was allegedly arming criminals in the North West.
News; Current Affairs
Stoned Again
BBC Radio 5 Live, 10:00-11:00pm
In a revealing documentary, former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith talks to some of her fiercest critics as she reassesses her 2008 decision to reclassify cannabis from Category C to the more serious Category B, a decision that prompted public debate, but attracted criticism from some drugs charities, health workers and academics.
In “Stoned Again”, Jacqui Smith tests the evidence and reasons for her decision and considers its impact.
She talks to those who opposed the decision including her first face-to-face meeting with Professor David Nutt, who was on the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs at the time.
She and another former Home Secretary, David Blunkett, discuss the political decision making process involved in the cannabis debate. David Blunkett was previously responsible for downgrading the cannabis classification from B to C.
Drug users and front-line workers talk about their experiences of the law and the drug, and Jacqui sees drugs education in action. As Jacqui reflects on these conversations, she considers whether she stands by this decision and whether it had any impact on cannabis use in Britain.
Stoned Again presented by Jacqui Smith will be broadcast on BBC Radio 5 live on Thursday 29 November at 10pm. Tony Livesey will continue the discussion of the issues raised in the programme at 11pm.
______________________________________________
Friday 30th November
News; Documentaries
Unreported World: Mumbai's Party Police
Channel 4, 7:30-7:55pm
Young clubbers in Mumbai are being arrested, assaulted and accused of being prostitutes in a police crackdown on the city's nightlife. Reporter Jenny Kleeman and director Alex Nott investigate why a policeman dubbed 'Inspector Killjoy' is now enforcing long-forgotten laws and how being caught up in the raids can change young women's lives forever.
The film looks at the fault lines where East meets West and where generations clash as India changes.
The team is taken to one of the city's best-known clubs - the Blue Frog - by Nisha Harale Bedi, a former Miss Mumbai. It's a place where models and Bollywood stars come to party, but it's also one of over 200 venues the police have raided this year, under 60-year-old licensing laws that many feel are out of step with modern Mumbai.
The policeman leading the crackdown, Assistant Police Commissioner Vasant Dhoble, has detained at least 1000 clubbers on suspicion of anything from taking drugs to selling sex. Nisha tells Kleeman how during one raid she was forced into a bathroom and strip searched.
Female clubbers have also been humiliated when the police have accused them of being prostitutes in front of local TV cameras.
Karishma Ramesh Kadam was born in a slum and is now a shop assistant who aspires to the glamorous lifestyle that Nisha and her friends enjoy. The first time she ever went clubbing she was caught in a raid.
Dhoble told reporters he'd been tipped off that prostitutes were soliciting from the club, and he arrested all the female customers. They were imprisoned for three weeks and then released without charge.
Karishma tells Kleeman she was strip searched and beaten, but the worst thing was that the raid had been filmed and photographed by journalists who publically branded her a prostitute. Her family say she's brought shame on them. They won't let her come home and refuse to speak to her. Karishma says she has tried to kill herself twice since they rejected her.
______________________________________________
Wednesday 14 November 2012
Off-air recordings for week 17-23 November 2012
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.
_____________________________________________
Sunday 18 November
Factual; Documentaries
The Last Days of Steam
BBC4, 7:00-8:00pm
Documentary which tells the surprising story of how Britain entered a new age of steam railways after the Second World War and why it quickly came to an end.
After the war, the largely destroyed railways of Europe were rebuilt to carry more modern diesel and electric trains. Britain, however, chose to build thousands of brand new steam locomotives. Did we stay with steam because coal was seen as the most reliable power source or were the railways run by men who couldn't bear to let go of their beloved steam trains?
The new British locomotives were designed to stay in service well into the 1970s, but in some cases they were taken off the railways and scrapped within just five years. When Dr Richard Beeching took over British Railways in the 1960s the writing was on the wall, and in 1968 the last steam passenger train blew its whistle.
But while steam use declined, steam enthusiasm grew. As many steam engines lay rusting in scrap-yards around Britain, enthusiasts raised funds to buy, restore and return them to their former glory. In 2008, the first brand new steam locomotive to be built in Britain in nearly 50 years rolled off the line, proving our enduring love of these machines.
Factual; Science and Nature; Nature and Environment; Documentaries
Sandy: Anatomy of a Superstorm
BBC2, 8:00-9:00pm
A dramatic minute-by-minute account of the superstorm that brought New York State to its knees. Using satellite imagery, CGI mapping and the powerful personal testimony of those who lived through it, this is a forensic analysis of the meteorological, engineering and human devastation wreaked by Sandy.
Factual; Documentaries
From the Sea to the Land Beyond: Britain's Coast on Film
BBC4, 9:00-10:15pm
Storyville: Made from over 100 years of BFI archive footage, From the Sea to the Land Beyond offers a poetic meditation on Britain's unique coastline and the role it plays in our lives. With a soundtrack specially created by Brighton-based band British Sea Power, award-winning director Penny Woolcock's film offers moving testimony to our relationship to the coast - during wartime, on our holidays and as a hive of activity during the industrial age.
Factual; History; Documentaries
Michael Wood: The Story of India
BBC4, 11:50pm-12:50am
Michael Wood charts the coming of Islam to the subcontinent and one of the greatest ages of world civilisation: the Mughals. Michael visits Sufi shrines in Old Delhi, desert fortresses in Rajasthan and the cities of Lahore and Agra, where he offers a new theory on the design of the Taj Mahal. He also looks at the life of Akbar, a Muslim emperor who decreed that no single religion could hold the ultimate truth. But Akbar's dream of unity ended in civil war and waiting in the wings to pick up the spoils were the British.
____________________________________________
Monday 19th November
Factual; Families and Relationships; Life Stories; Documentaries
Four Born Every Second
BBC1, 10:35-11:35pm
130 million babies are born each year, but the circumstances and country of their birth will determine their life story. Brian Hill travels from the UK to America, Cambodia and Sierra Leone to reveal the shocking lottery of child birth across the globe.
In Sierra Leone - the worst country to be born in terms of infant mortality - we meet Hawa, who is expecting her fifth baby, as well as the MSF obstetricians working to reduce the infant and maternal mortality rate. However for some of the women arriving at the Gondama Referral Centre with complications, they will already be too late.
In Cambodia, babies are more likely to grow up malnourished than attend high school. We meet Neang, 36, and her 12-year-old son Pisey who helps support his pregnant mother and little sister by scavenging the streets.
In the UK - where four million children live in poverty - we follow single mum, Lisa, 22, who is expecting her second child. She is reluctant to be a 'stereotypical mum on benefits' and wants to work to provide for her children. However with her childcare costs at £1,400 per month, her options are limited.
In America, the infant mortality rate has worsened over the last 20 years. In San Francisco, we meet expectant mother Starr, her partner and two children. A year ago, they became homeless, making her children among the 1.6 million homeless children now living in the US.
Poignant and sobering, the film features scenes of stillbirths and shocking statistics about infant mortality.
____________________________________________
Tuesday 20th November
Factual; History; Documentaries
Britain on Film
BBC4, 8:30-9:00pm, 3/5 - Getting Down to Business
This episode examines Look at Life's surprisingly entertaining films on the British economy, at a time when industry faced ever-increasing competition from abroad.
factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries
Imagine... The Many Lives of William Klein
BBC1, 10:35-11:40pm
William Klein has lived many lives. One of the world's most influential photographers, he pioneered the art of street photography and created some of the most iconic fashion images of the 20th century. He also made over twenty films, including the first ever documentary about Muhammad Ali and a brilliant satire of the fashion world, Who Are You Polly Magoo?
With a major Tate Modern exhibition currently celebrating his work, imagine... spends time with William Klein to discover the irrepressible, charismatic personality behind a remarkable creative life.
Factual; Documentaries
Storyville: Jonestown - The World's Biggest Mass Suicide
BBC2, 11:20pm-12:45am
On November 17th, 1978, San Francisco congressman Leo Ryan travelled to the Guyanan rainforest to investigate the Jonestown cult, led by Jim Jones.
According to rumours from the area, US citizens were being imprisoned in death camp conditions, subject to violence and sexual abuse. As an impassioned human rights activist, Ryan wanted to find out the truth. But within 48 hours of his arrival, Ryan, Jones and more than 900 Jonestown settlers were dead in what may have been the largest mass suicide in history. In the next few days, grisly tales of cyanide-laced fruit punch and children poisoned by their parents emerged from the jungle.
This documentary goes beyond the headlines to provide a revealing portrait of Jones, his followers and the times that produced the calamity in the Guyanese jungle. It is told by eye witnesses: Jonestown survivors, Temple defectors, relatives of the dead and journalists.
___________________________________________
Wednesday 21st February
Factual; Documentaries
Supersized Earth
BBC1, 1/3 - A Place to Live
Supersized Earth traces the spectacular story of how humans have transformed our world in a generation. In this awe-inspiring three-part series, Dallas Campbell travels the globe, visiting the world's largest and most ambitious engineering projects, exploring the power of human ingenuity and the making of the modern world.
In this episode, Dallas explores how we have been redesigning the planet as we build ever more astonishing places to live. In Dubai, he climbs to the very top of the world's tallest building - over half a mile above the desert sand - to help clean the highest windows in the world; and he explores how desert wastelands have been transformed into bristling forests of skyscrapers as we've conquered the sky and turned it into a place we can call home.
In China, the rate of change is accelerating as millions move into the cities; to keep pace, they have learned to erect 30-storey buildings in under three weeks. The world is changing underneath our feet too; Dallas dives beneath Mexico City with one of the two-man team whose unenviable job it is to keep the city sewers flowing, before examining a very new-world solution to this age-old problem.
Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; History; Documentaries
Metalworks!
BBC4, 11:30pm-12:30am, 1/3 - The Golden Age of Silver
Dan Cruickshank visits Britain's finest country houses, museums and factories as he uncovers the 18th- and 19th-century fascination with silver. Delving into an unsurpassed era of shimmering opulence, heady indulgence and conspicuous consumption, Dan discovers the Georgian and Victorian obsession with this tantalising precious metal which represented status, wealth and excellent taste. He gives us a glimpse of some of the most extensive collections and exquisite pieces of silverware to have ever been made on British shores.
___________________________________________
Friday 22nd February
Factual; Science and Nature; Nature and Environment; Documentaries
Attenborough: 60 Years in the World
BBC2, 9:00-10:00-m, 2/3 - Understanding the Natural World
David Attenborough shares his passion for exciting scientific discoveries in his lifetime.
___________________________________________
*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.
_____________________________________________
Sunday 18 November
Factual; Documentaries
The Last Days of Steam
BBC4, 7:00-8:00pm
Documentary which tells the surprising story of how Britain entered a new age of steam railways after the Second World War and why it quickly came to an end.
After the war, the largely destroyed railways of Europe were rebuilt to carry more modern diesel and electric trains. Britain, however, chose to build thousands of brand new steam locomotives. Did we stay with steam because coal was seen as the most reliable power source or were the railways run by men who couldn't bear to let go of their beloved steam trains?
The new British locomotives were designed to stay in service well into the 1970s, but in some cases they were taken off the railways and scrapped within just five years. When Dr Richard Beeching took over British Railways in the 1960s the writing was on the wall, and in 1968 the last steam passenger train blew its whistle.
But while steam use declined, steam enthusiasm grew. As many steam engines lay rusting in scrap-yards around Britain, enthusiasts raised funds to buy, restore and return them to their former glory. In 2008, the first brand new steam locomotive to be built in Britain in nearly 50 years rolled off the line, proving our enduring love of these machines.
Factual; Science and Nature; Nature and Environment; Documentaries
Sandy: Anatomy of a Superstorm
BBC2, 8:00-9:00pm
A dramatic minute-by-minute account of the superstorm that brought New York State to its knees. Using satellite imagery, CGI mapping and the powerful personal testimony of those who lived through it, this is a forensic analysis of the meteorological, engineering and human devastation wreaked by Sandy.
Factual; Documentaries
From the Sea to the Land Beyond: Britain's Coast on Film
BBC4, 9:00-10:15pm
Storyville: Made from over 100 years of BFI archive footage, From the Sea to the Land Beyond offers a poetic meditation on Britain's unique coastline and the role it plays in our lives. With a soundtrack specially created by Brighton-based band British Sea Power, award-winning director Penny Woolcock's film offers moving testimony to our relationship to the coast - during wartime, on our holidays and as a hive of activity during the industrial age.
Factual; History; Documentaries
Michael Wood: The Story of India
BBC4, 11:50pm-12:50am
Michael Wood charts the coming of Islam to the subcontinent and one of the greatest ages of world civilisation: the Mughals. Michael visits Sufi shrines in Old Delhi, desert fortresses in Rajasthan and the cities of Lahore and Agra, where he offers a new theory on the design of the Taj Mahal. He also looks at the life of Akbar, a Muslim emperor who decreed that no single religion could hold the ultimate truth. But Akbar's dream of unity ended in civil war and waiting in the wings to pick up the spoils were the British.
____________________________________________
Monday 19th November
Factual; Families and Relationships; Life Stories; Documentaries
Four Born Every Second
BBC1, 10:35-11:35pm
130 million babies are born each year, but the circumstances and country of their birth will determine their life story. Brian Hill travels from the UK to America, Cambodia and Sierra Leone to reveal the shocking lottery of child birth across the globe.
In Sierra Leone - the worst country to be born in terms of infant mortality - we meet Hawa, who is expecting her fifth baby, as well as the MSF obstetricians working to reduce the infant and maternal mortality rate. However for some of the women arriving at the Gondama Referral Centre with complications, they will already be too late.
In Cambodia, babies are more likely to grow up malnourished than attend high school. We meet Neang, 36, and her 12-year-old son Pisey who helps support his pregnant mother and little sister by scavenging the streets.
In the UK - where four million children live in poverty - we follow single mum, Lisa, 22, who is expecting her second child. She is reluctant to be a 'stereotypical mum on benefits' and wants to work to provide for her children. However with her childcare costs at £1,400 per month, her options are limited.
In America, the infant mortality rate has worsened over the last 20 years. In San Francisco, we meet expectant mother Starr, her partner and two children. A year ago, they became homeless, making her children among the 1.6 million homeless children now living in the US.
Poignant and sobering, the film features scenes of stillbirths and shocking statistics about infant mortality.
____________________________________________
Tuesday 20th November
Factual; History; Documentaries
Britain on Film
BBC4, 8:30-9:00pm, 3/5 - Getting Down to Business
This episode examines Look at Life's surprisingly entertaining films on the British economy, at a time when industry faced ever-increasing competition from abroad.
factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries
Imagine... The Many Lives of William Klein
BBC1, 10:35-11:40pm
William Klein has lived many lives. One of the world's most influential photographers, he pioneered the art of street photography and created some of the most iconic fashion images of the 20th century. He also made over twenty films, including the first ever documentary about Muhammad Ali and a brilliant satire of the fashion world, Who Are You Polly Magoo?
With a major Tate Modern exhibition currently celebrating his work, imagine... spends time with William Klein to discover the irrepressible, charismatic personality behind a remarkable creative life.
Factual; Documentaries
Storyville: Jonestown - The World's Biggest Mass Suicide
BBC2, 11:20pm-12:45am
On November 17th, 1978, San Francisco congressman Leo Ryan travelled to the Guyanan rainforest to investigate the Jonestown cult, led by Jim Jones.
According to rumours from the area, US citizens were being imprisoned in death camp conditions, subject to violence and sexual abuse. As an impassioned human rights activist, Ryan wanted to find out the truth. But within 48 hours of his arrival, Ryan, Jones and more than 900 Jonestown settlers were dead in what may have been the largest mass suicide in history. In the next few days, grisly tales of cyanide-laced fruit punch and children poisoned by their parents emerged from the jungle.
This documentary goes beyond the headlines to provide a revealing portrait of Jones, his followers and the times that produced the calamity in the Guyanese jungle. It is told by eye witnesses: Jonestown survivors, Temple defectors, relatives of the dead and journalists.
___________________________________________
Wednesday 21st February
Factual; Documentaries
Supersized Earth
BBC1, 1/3 - A Place to Live
Supersized Earth traces the spectacular story of how humans have transformed our world in a generation. In this awe-inspiring three-part series, Dallas Campbell travels the globe, visiting the world's largest and most ambitious engineering projects, exploring the power of human ingenuity and the making of the modern world.
In this episode, Dallas explores how we have been redesigning the planet as we build ever more astonishing places to live. In Dubai, he climbs to the very top of the world's tallest building - over half a mile above the desert sand - to help clean the highest windows in the world; and he explores how desert wastelands have been transformed into bristling forests of skyscrapers as we've conquered the sky and turned it into a place we can call home.
In China, the rate of change is accelerating as millions move into the cities; to keep pace, they have learned to erect 30-storey buildings in under three weeks. The world is changing underneath our feet too; Dallas dives beneath Mexico City with one of the two-man team whose unenviable job it is to keep the city sewers flowing, before examining a very new-world solution to this age-old problem.
Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; History; Documentaries
Metalworks!
BBC4, 11:30pm-12:30am, 1/3 - The Golden Age of Silver
Dan Cruickshank visits Britain's finest country houses, museums and factories as he uncovers the 18th- and 19th-century fascination with silver. Delving into an unsurpassed era of shimmering opulence, heady indulgence and conspicuous consumption, Dan discovers the Georgian and Victorian obsession with this tantalising precious metal which represented status, wealth and excellent taste. He gives us a glimpse of some of the most extensive collections and exquisite pieces of silverware to have ever been made on British shores.
___________________________________________
Friday 22nd February
Factual; Science and Nature; Nature and Environment; Documentaries
Attenborough: 60 Years in the World
BBC2, 9:00-10:00-m, 2/3 - Understanding the Natural World
David Attenborough shares his passion for exciting scientific discoveries in his lifetime.
___________________________________________
Wednesday 7 November 2012
off-air recordings for week 10-16 November 2012
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 November
Factual; Science and Nature; Documentaries
Attenborough's Ark: A Natural World Special
BBC2, 7:30-8:30pm
David Attenborough chooses his ten favourite animals that he would most like to save from extinction. From the weird to the wonderful, he picks fabulous and unusual creatures that he would like to put in his 'ark', including unexpected and little-known animals such as the olm, the solenodon and the quoll. He shows why they are so important and shares the ingenious work of biologists across the world who are helping to keep them alive.
____________________________________________
Sunday 11th November
History; Factual; Documentaries
Warhorse: The Real Story More 4, 12:55-2:00am The truth about the million British horses that served in World War I is even more epic than Steven Spielberg's War Horse feature film.
This documentary tells their extraordinary, moving story, begining with the mass call-up of horses from every farm and country estate in the land. Racing commentator Brough Scott tells the tale of his aristocratic grandfather General Jack Seely and his beloved horse Warrior, who would become the most famous horse of the war.
The British Army hoped its illustrious cavalry regiments would win a swift victory, but it would be years before they enjoyed their moment of glory. Instead, in a new era of mechanised trench warfare, the heavy horses transporting guns, ammunition and food to the front-line troops were most important.
A quarter of a million of these horses died from shrapnel wounds and disease. But the deep bond that developed between man and horse helped both survive the hell of the Somme and Passchendaele.
Behind the lines an army of vets worked miracles to treat injured horses and keep them going. The finest hour of the cavalry came in spring 1918 when - led by the warhorse Warrior - they checked the German advance before going on to help win the war.
But there was further heartache when the war ended. Eighty five thousand of the oldest horses were sold for meat to feed POWs and the half-starved local population.
Half a million horses were sold to French farmers to help rebuild the countryside. Only 60,000 made it back to Britain.
Six of these horses would pull the body of the Unknown Warrior to its last resting place in Westminster Abbey.
Factual; History; Documentaries
The Forgotten Gunners of World War I: A Time Team Special Channel 4, 4:40-5:45pm Golfers at a popular East Midlands golf club now know that a huge wooded bank beside their fairway is a rather special area of 'rough'. Time Team's experts discovered, that 90 years ago it was a machine gun firing range - and buried in the bank are tens of thousands of spent bullets.
Belton House near Grantham may be one of Britain's finest stately homes but during World War I, the grounds were home to thousands of men training for frontline duties. It was where the Machine Gun Corps was created and its troops were trained.
The Corps was set up as a response to German superiority in using these deadly weapons and became vital to the war effort. Most of the Machine Gun Corps' records were destroyed, first in a fire and then in the Blitz in World War II.
Today almost nothing is visible above ground. Tony Robinson and the Team have quite a task to locate the hundreds of barrack blocks, kitchen blocks, roads, social centres and shooting ranges.
To the Team's relief, the dig is rich in finds, revealing glimpses of the men's lives in wartime; whether from the site of the YMCA, where a cup of cocoa could be had for a few pence, or from the hastily erected huts where they lived for their six weeks of intensive training.
They uncover stories of young men who went so bravely to their deaths. Of the 170,000 who trained here more than 12,000 were killed and another 50,000 injured. The Corps' nickname was 'the Suicide Club'.
The sound of a Vickers gun reverberating around the park for the first time in 90 years provides a shocking but fitting tribute.
Factual; History; Documentaries
Michael Wood: The Story of India
BBC4, 8:00-9:00pm, 4/6 - The Age of Gold Reaching the time of the Fall of Rome in the West, Michael Wood seeks out the amazing achievements of India's golden age. We learn how India discovered zero, calculated the circumference of the earth and wrote the world's first sex guide, the Kama Sutra. In the south he visits the giant temple of Tanjore, meets the present day 'Senior Prince' and sees traditional bronze casters working as their ancestors did 1,000 years ago. After sampling southern vegetarian food with a traditional Tamil family, Michael goes on pilgrimage to a sacred mountain where the annual fire festival was already famous in 700AD. Factual; History; Documentaries
Andrew Marr's History of the World BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm, 8/8 - Age of Extremes In the final episode of this landmark series charting the history of human civilisation, Andrew Marr brings the story right up to date with the twentieth century. Marr suggests that humanity found itself propelled forward by our technological brilliance but limited by the consequences of our political idiocy. Democracy confronted communism and fascism, and two world wars would underscore our political failures more than ever before. But our achievements were also astonishing, especially in the fields of science and technology. We invented machines of awesome speed and power, and reached beyond the limits of our planet. Now, more of us live longer, healthier and wealthier lives than our ancestors could ever have imagined. But Marr argues that with seven billion of us on the planet, and rising fast, either we manage the earth's natural resources better or we risk global catastrophe. The decisions we make in the next 50 years, he argues, may well decide our fate. For Marr, the most interesting part of human history lies just ahead.
____________________________________________
Monday 12th November
Factual; Science and Nature; Documentaries
Digital Human BBC Radio 4, 4:40-5:00pm, 7/7
At the Digital Death Day Aleks meets with Vered Shavit from Israel who having dealt with her late brother's digital legacy set up a website called Digital Dust to help others going through the same experience. Hearing Vered's story Alek's asks how are we using the web to adapt the rituals that we have used for centuries to help us transition between the living and the dead? Aleks discovers that since Vered's brother's death people continue to communicate with him through his Facebook profile. Dr Elaine Kasket a Counselling Psychologist who practices psychotherapy with the bereaved likens Facebook to a modern day medium. She also explains how Facebook is enabling people to continue bonds with the deceased. The distinction between our physical selves and mental states is a philosophical construction, but it signifies a line in the sand between those who believe our bodies make us human and those who define humanity by our thoughts and social lives. But without a body do we through our presence on the web continue to be human?
____________________________________________
Tuesday 13th November
Factual; History; Documentaries
Britain On Film
BBC4, 8:30-9:00pm, 2/10 - Brits at Play
In 1959 Britain's biggest cinema company, the Rank Organisation, decided to replace its newsreels with a series of short, quirky, topical documentaries that examined all aspects of life in Britain. For the next ten years, Look at Life chronicled - on high-grade 35mm colour film - the changing face of British society, industry and culture. Britain on Film draws upon the 500 films in this unique archive to offer illuminating and often surprising insights into what became a pivotal decade in modern British history. This episode looks at the films that recorded one of the great boom industries of the 1960s. Having left behind the austerity of the immediate post-war period, Britain's increasingly affluent population took full advantage of the new leisure opportunities that made affordable newly-emerging recreational activities at home - as well as exciting holiday adventures abroad.
Factual; Science and Nature; Documentaries
The Mind Reader: Between Life and Death
BBC1, 10:35-11:35pm
Panorama special following doctors and scientists' revolutionary efforts to help a group of severely brain-injured patients communicate with their families and the outside world. Film-makers have spent more than a year with these people, and the programme includes footage of the moment someone regarded as vegetative for more than a decade is able to answer a series of questions while inside a brain scanner. But as reporter Fergus Walsh states, the findings have profound implications for the patients, their families and the medical staff.
Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries
Imagine... Theatre of War
BBC2, 11:20-12:50pm
From rehearsal room to triumphant performance, Imagine... follows the extraordinary theatrical production of The Two Worlds of Charlie F. Professional front-line soldiers, all of whom have sustained injury ranging from amputation to post-traumatic stress, join forces with a professional theatre company to help write, rehearse and perform a play based on their experiences of war in the killing fields of Afghanistan. What happened when they swapped the theatre of war for the London stage?
_____________________________________________
Thursday 15th November
Drama
Everyday
Channel 4, 9:00-10:00pm
Michael Winterbottom's drama tells the story of four children separated from their father, and a wife separated from her husband. The father Ian (John Simm) is in prison. The mother Karen (Shirley Henderson) has to bring up a family of four children by herself. Filmed over a period of five years, Everyday uses the repetitions and rhythms of everyday life to explore how a family can survive a prolonged period apart.
The story unfolds in a series of visits: first the family visiting the father in prison, later the father visiting the family at home. With each visit the distance between the children and their father becomes harder to bridge. By avoiding the normal cinematic conventions of time passing, Everyday focuses on the small subtle changes as people grow up and grow old while being apart. It is a story of survival and love: a celebration of the small pleasures of everyday life.
Factual; Politics; Documentaries
Heath Vs Wilson: The Ten Year Duel
BBC4, 11:00pm-12:30am
Harold Wilson and Edward Heath are two very different men equally overlooked by history, but they were the political titans of the era in which Britain changed for ever. For ten years they faced each other in the House of Commons, and swapped in and out of Number Ten. They fought four general elections, three of which were amongst the most exciting of the century. They were deliciously different and scorned one another, yet they were cast from the same mould. Both promised a revolution of meritocracy and dynamism in the British economy and society. Both utterly failed, but together they presided over a decade that redefined the nation: Britain ceased to be a world power and entered Europe; the postwar consensus in which they both believed was destroyed; Thatcherism and New Labour were born. The country they left behind was unrecognisable from the one they had inherited - and the one they had promised. This documentary tells the story of their highly personal and political duel in the words of those who watched it blow by blow - their colleagues in the cabinet and government, and the journalists at the ringside. Set against a scintillating backdrop of the music and style of the 1960s and 70s (which was of no interest to either man) it brings the era, and its forgotten figureheads, vividly to life.
_____________________________________________
Friday 16th November
Factual
Attenborough: 60 Years in the Wild
BBC2, 9:00-10:40pm, 1/3 - Life on Camera
David Attenborough offers a unique perspective on 60 years of wildlife filmmaking.
_____________________________________________
*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 November
Factual; Science and Nature; Documentaries
Attenborough's Ark: A Natural World Special
BBC2, 7:30-8:30pm
David Attenborough chooses his ten favourite animals that he would most like to save from extinction. From the weird to the wonderful, he picks fabulous and unusual creatures that he would like to put in his 'ark', including unexpected and little-known animals such as the olm, the solenodon and the quoll. He shows why they are so important and shares the ingenious work of biologists across the world who are helping to keep them alive.
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Sunday 11th November
History; Factual; Documentaries
Warhorse: The Real Story More 4, 12:55-2:00am The truth about the million British horses that served in World War I is even more epic than Steven Spielberg's War Horse feature film.
This documentary tells their extraordinary, moving story, begining with the mass call-up of horses from every farm and country estate in the land. Racing commentator Brough Scott tells the tale of his aristocratic grandfather General Jack Seely and his beloved horse Warrior, who would become the most famous horse of the war.
The British Army hoped its illustrious cavalry regiments would win a swift victory, but it would be years before they enjoyed their moment of glory. Instead, in a new era of mechanised trench warfare, the heavy horses transporting guns, ammunition and food to the front-line troops were most important.
A quarter of a million of these horses died from shrapnel wounds and disease. But the deep bond that developed between man and horse helped both survive the hell of the Somme and Passchendaele.
Behind the lines an army of vets worked miracles to treat injured horses and keep them going. The finest hour of the cavalry came in spring 1918 when - led by the warhorse Warrior - they checked the German advance before going on to help win the war.
But there was further heartache when the war ended. Eighty five thousand of the oldest horses were sold for meat to feed POWs and the half-starved local population.
Half a million horses were sold to French farmers to help rebuild the countryside. Only 60,000 made it back to Britain.
Six of these horses would pull the body of the Unknown Warrior to its last resting place in Westminster Abbey.
Factual; History; Documentaries
The Forgotten Gunners of World War I: A Time Team Special Channel 4, 4:40-5:45pm Golfers at a popular East Midlands golf club now know that a huge wooded bank beside their fairway is a rather special area of 'rough'. Time Team's experts discovered, that 90 years ago it was a machine gun firing range - and buried in the bank are tens of thousands of spent bullets.
Belton House near Grantham may be one of Britain's finest stately homes but during World War I, the grounds were home to thousands of men training for frontline duties. It was where the Machine Gun Corps was created and its troops were trained.
The Corps was set up as a response to German superiority in using these deadly weapons and became vital to the war effort. Most of the Machine Gun Corps' records were destroyed, first in a fire and then in the Blitz in World War II.
Today almost nothing is visible above ground. Tony Robinson and the Team have quite a task to locate the hundreds of barrack blocks, kitchen blocks, roads, social centres and shooting ranges.
To the Team's relief, the dig is rich in finds, revealing glimpses of the men's lives in wartime; whether from the site of the YMCA, where a cup of cocoa could be had for a few pence, or from the hastily erected huts where they lived for their six weeks of intensive training.
They uncover stories of young men who went so bravely to their deaths. Of the 170,000 who trained here more than 12,000 were killed and another 50,000 injured. The Corps' nickname was 'the Suicide Club'.
The sound of a Vickers gun reverberating around the park for the first time in 90 years provides a shocking but fitting tribute.
Factual; History; Documentaries
Michael Wood: The Story of India
BBC4, 8:00-9:00pm, 4/6 - The Age of Gold Reaching the time of the Fall of Rome in the West, Michael Wood seeks out the amazing achievements of India's golden age. We learn how India discovered zero, calculated the circumference of the earth and wrote the world's first sex guide, the Kama Sutra. In the south he visits the giant temple of Tanjore, meets the present day 'Senior Prince' and sees traditional bronze casters working as their ancestors did 1,000 years ago. After sampling southern vegetarian food with a traditional Tamil family, Michael goes on pilgrimage to a sacred mountain where the annual fire festival was already famous in 700AD. Factual; History; Documentaries
Andrew Marr's History of the World BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm, 8/8 - Age of Extremes In the final episode of this landmark series charting the history of human civilisation, Andrew Marr brings the story right up to date with the twentieth century. Marr suggests that humanity found itself propelled forward by our technological brilliance but limited by the consequences of our political idiocy. Democracy confronted communism and fascism, and two world wars would underscore our political failures more than ever before. But our achievements were also astonishing, especially in the fields of science and technology. We invented machines of awesome speed and power, and reached beyond the limits of our planet. Now, more of us live longer, healthier and wealthier lives than our ancestors could ever have imagined. But Marr argues that with seven billion of us on the planet, and rising fast, either we manage the earth's natural resources better or we risk global catastrophe. The decisions we make in the next 50 years, he argues, may well decide our fate. For Marr, the most interesting part of human history lies just ahead.
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Monday 12th November
Factual; Science and Nature; Documentaries
Digital Human BBC Radio 4, 4:40-5:00pm, 7/7
At the Digital Death Day Aleks meets with Vered Shavit from Israel who having dealt with her late brother's digital legacy set up a website called Digital Dust to help others going through the same experience. Hearing Vered's story Alek's asks how are we using the web to adapt the rituals that we have used for centuries to help us transition between the living and the dead? Aleks discovers that since Vered's brother's death people continue to communicate with him through his Facebook profile. Dr Elaine Kasket a Counselling Psychologist who practices psychotherapy with the bereaved likens Facebook to a modern day medium. She also explains how Facebook is enabling people to continue bonds with the deceased. The distinction between our physical selves and mental states is a philosophical construction, but it signifies a line in the sand between those who believe our bodies make us human and those who define humanity by our thoughts and social lives. But without a body do we through our presence on the web continue to be human?
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Tuesday 13th November
Factual; History; Documentaries
Britain On Film
BBC4, 8:30-9:00pm, 2/10 - Brits at Play
In 1959 Britain's biggest cinema company, the Rank Organisation, decided to replace its newsreels with a series of short, quirky, topical documentaries that examined all aspects of life in Britain. For the next ten years, Look at Life chronicled - on high-grade 35mm colour film - the changing face of British society, industry and culture. Britain on Film draws upon the 500 films in this unique archive to offer illuminating and often surprising insights into what became a pivotal decade in modern British history. This episode looks at the films that recorded one of the great boom industries of the 1960s. Having left behind the austerity of the immediate post-war period, Britain's increasingly affluent population took full advantage of the new leisure opportunities that made affordable newly-emerging recreational activities at home - as well as exciting holiday adventures abroad.
Factual; Science and Nature; Documentaries
The Mind Reader: Between Life and Death
BBC1, 10:35-11:35pm
Panorama special following doctors and scientists' revolutionary efforts to help a group of severely brain-injured patients communicate with their families and the outside world. Film-makers have spent more than a year with these people, and the programme includes footage of the moment someone regarded as vegetative for more than a decade is able to answer a series of questions while inside a brain scanner. But as reporter Fergus Walsh states, the findings have profound implications for the patients, their families and the medical staff.
Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries
Imagine... Theatre of War
BBC2, 11:20-12:50pm
From rehearsal room to triumphant performance, Imagine... follows the extraordinary theatrical production of The Two Worlds of Charlie F. Professional front-line soldiers, all of whom have sustained injury ranging from amputation to post-traumatic stress, join forces with a professional theatre company to help write, rehearse and perform a play based on their experiences of war in the killing fields of Afghanistan. What happened when they swapped the theatre of war for the London stage?
_____________________________________________
Thursday 15th November
Drama
Everyday
Channel 4, 9:00-10:00pm
Michael Winterbottom's drama tells the story of four children separated from their father, and a wife separated from her husband. The father Ian (John Simm) is in prison. The mother Karen (Shirley Henderson) has to bring up a family of four children by herself. Filmed over a period of five years, Everyday uses the repetitions and rhythms of everyday life to explore how a family can survive a prolonged period apart.
The story unfolds in a series of visits: first the family visiting the father in prison, later the father visiting the family at home. With each visit the distance between the children and their father becomes harder to bridge. By avoiding the normal cinematic conventions of time passing, Everyday focuses on the small subtle changes as people grow up and grow old while being apart. It is a story of survival and love: a celebration of the small pleasures of everyday life.
Factual; Politics; Documentaries
Heath Vs Wilson: The Ten Year Duel
BBC4, 11:00pm-12:30am
Harold Wilson and Edward Heath are two very different men equally overlooked by history, but they were the political titans of the era in which Britain changed for ever. For ten years they faced each other in the House of Commons, and swapped in and out of Number Ten. They fought four general elections, three of which were amongst the most exciting of the century. They were deliciously different and scorned one another, yet they were cast from the same mould. Both promised a revolution of meritocracy and dynamism in the British economy and society. Both utterly failed, but together they presided over a decade that redefined the nation: Britain ceased to be a world power and entered Europe; the postwar consensus in which they both believed was destroyed; Thatcherism and New Labour were born. The country they left behind was unrecognisable from the one they had inherited - and the one they had promised. This documentary tells the story of their highly personal and political duel in the words of those who watched it blow by blow - their colleagues in the cabinet and government, and the journalists at the ringside. Set against a scintillating backdrop of the music and style of the 1960s and 70s (which was of no interest to either man) it brings the era, and its forgotten figureheads, vividly to life.
_____________________________________________
Friday 16th November
Factual
Attenborough: 60 Years in the Wild
BBC2, 9:00-10:40pm, 1/3 - Life on Camera
David Attenborough offers a unique perspective on 60 years of wildlife filmmaking.
_____________________________________________
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