Tuesday 26 February 2013

Off-air recordings for week 2-8 March 2013


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

*This applies to staff members and students at the University of Gloucestershire only. Any recordings made are to be used only for educational and non-commercial purposes under the terms of the ERA Licence.
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Saturday 2nd March

Natural World > Science and Nature > Documentaries

Queen of Tigers: Natural World Special
BBC2, 8:30-9:30pm


In this tender, elegaic film, wildlife cameraman Colin Stafford-Johnson charts his 13-year association with Machli, “Queen of Tigers”, in the Ranthambore National Park in India. He’s been on hand for most of the milestones in her life, but she’s reaching the end of her days (though, to the inexpert eye, she still looks pretty healthy). He wants to pay her one last visit because “I have no desire to see her when she’s dead”.

So this is effectively a greatest hits compilation from their association. She is irresistible, of course, and quite a scrapper; the footage of her fighting and killing a fully grown crocodile is familiar, yet remains incredibly powerful. Stafford-Johnson’s final “meeting” is touching and tearful.

Machli is one of the world's most famous tigers - the star of five films, with her own Facebook page and more than a million YouTube hits of her attacking a crocodile. Wildlife cameraman Colin Stafford-Johnson returns to India to find his old friend in this documentary charting the extraordinary milestones in Machli's life as a mother and a hunter.



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Monday 4th March

Current Affairs > News > Documentaries

Dispatches: Death in the Wards
Channel 4, 8:00-9:00pm


Dispatches investigates the truth behind allegations that tens of thousands of seriously ill people have been put on a pathway to death - likened to legalised euthanasia - and claims from families that doctors have callously killed off patients who could have had months or even years of life to live.  Death on the Wards interviews leading specialists, terminally ill patients and families. And, it reveals the results of the first survey of thousands of doctors into how the process of dying is managed in our hospitals.

The Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP), which originated in the hospice movement for cancer patients, is intended to ease the often lengthy and painful process of dying. A key principle is to stop treating a patient’s underlying condition if treatment is judged to be futile or harmful.  Official guidelines now mean that every hospice and hospital has to have an approved end of life pathway, and the LCP is by far the most prevalent. An estimated 130,000 people last year died after being placed on the LCP and many of us can expect to have our deaths, or those of our loved ones, managed using the pathway.

However, the process has become hugely controversial. It is not only those with terminal cancer who are now being put on the LCP. Many more patients are now put on the pathway following other illnesses such as strokes and some families are claiming that their relatives could, and should, have lived longer.  At the heart of the controversy is a simple question: can doctors accurately tell when someone is dying? Dispatches includes an exclusive interview with leading neurologist Professor Patrick Pullicino, who believes they can't. "There is no data for telling that somebody is in the last hours or days of life," he tells the programme. "If you start to say somebody has a poor prognosis then you make it a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Professor Pullicino believes the case of one his patients proves him right. Salvatore De Francisci was placed on the LCP, not by him, but by doctors on a weekend team who judged his condition to have seriously deteriorated to the point he had hours to live. When returning to work, Professor Pullicino insisted Sammy be taken off the pathway. Within days he was allowed home and subsequently lived with his family for a further 14 months.  Speaking to the media for the first time, his daughter Rosaria Squire tells Dispatches: "It wasn't time for him to go. I did mention to the nurse, I did say to them my dad's not a number, he's my dad; he's a husband, a granddad. And I wanted my dad home with us."

Dispatches also interviews Professor Sam Ahmedzai, one of the UK’s leading palliative care doctors. He has more than 30 years' experience in this area yet chooses not to use the LCP with his patients. "I've no doubt that many patients do achieve a good, calm, peaceful death," he says. "The problem is that it's not always initiated at the right time, on the right patient, and the medication and the actual things that are taken away can sometimes aggravate a person's dying rather than smooth it over."

The allegations have now become so serious that the government has ordered a review to look at all aspects of the LCP, including whether cost pressures play a role. While the review is being conducted, Dispatches, in conjunction with the British Medical Journal, has carried out the first ever survey of thousands of palliative care doctors to find out what they think of the pathway.  However, many doctors support the use of the pathway. One of them is Dr Kate Granger. She is in a unique position: diagnosed with a rare cancer just before her 30th birthday, she's decided she wants to go on the LCP and is worried that the backlash is beginning to affect its use. "What would we do if we got rid of it? What would happen to these patients?" she tells Dispatches. "That really worries me, and what - what would happen to me? Would I get the comfortable, dignified, serene death that I would like? I'm not sure."



Factual > Science & Nature > Nature & Environment > Documentaries

The Great British Winter
BBC2, 6:30-7:30pm, 1/5 - Mountains


This series explores five of Britain's most extreme winter landscapes, looking at the conditions that challenge both the wildlife and people that try to survive in the countryside and uncovering a world few get to see.  Ellie Harrison looks at British mountains as she reveals the surprises this terrain holds, from volcanoes to avalanches, frogs attempting to spawn to the small herds of reindeer in Britain. There's more than meets the eye to this landscape in winter.



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Tuesday 5th March

Factual > Science & Nature > Nature & Environment > Documentaries

The Great British Winter
BBC2, 6:30-7:30pm, 2/5 - Rivers and Lakes

Ellie Harrison is in the iconic landscape of the Lake District, uncovering the perils of our changeable weather, finding out about an extremely rare Arctic winter resident, and enjoying a lakeside spectacle put on by a family of otters.


Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media > Documentaries

The Kimbolton Cabinet: Secret Knowledge
BBC4, 8:00-8:30pm

Granted privileged access to the Victoria and Albert Museum after hours, John Bly seeks out the Kimbolton Cabinet, an exquisite piece of 18th century English furniture that promises to reveal much about not only our nation's craft heritage but also his very own childhood.


Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media > Documentaries

The Art of the Vikings: Secret Knowledge
BBC4, 8:30-9:00pm

Through interpretations of some of the archaeological treasures of the Swedish National Museum, now on display in Edinburgh, Dr Janina Ramirez of Oxford University explores the fascinating wealth of Viking culture and its long-lasting influence on the British Isles.


Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media > Documentaries

Treasures of the Louvre
BBC4, 9:0--10:00pm

Paris-based writer Andrew Hussey travels through the glorious art and surprising history of an extraordinary French institution to show that the story of the Louvre is the story of France. As well as exploring the masterpieces of painters such as Veronese, Rubens, David, Chardin, Gericault and Delacroix, he examines the changing face of the Louvre itself through its architecture and design. Medieval fortress, Renaissance palace, luxurious home to kings, emperors and more recently civil servants, today it attracts eight million visitors a year. The documentary also reflects the very latest transformation of the Louvre - the museum's recently-opened Islamic Gallery.


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Wednesday 6th March

Factual > Science & Nature > Nature & Environment > Documentaries

The Great British Winter
BBC2, 6:30-7:30pm, 3/5 - Forests

Explores five of Britain's most extreme winter landscapes, looking at the conditions that challenge both the wildlife and people that try to survive in the countryside.


Natural World > Science and Nature > Nature and Environment > Documentaries

Nature's Microworlds
BBC4, 8:30-9:00pm, 7/7 - Scotland

Steve Backshall visits the Scottish Highlands, home to some of the most iconic wildlife in the British Isles, including red squirrels and mountain hares. The two contrasting landscapes of open moor and Caledonian forest are equally important to the animals that live there, and yet the history of the area shows that they should not exist side by side. He also reveals the part that humans have to play in allowing both habitats to thrive.


This World: America's Poor Kids
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm


Ten-year-old Kayleigh totters along railway tracks, looking for discarded cans to recycle. It’s dangerous, of course, but she can earn up to five cents per can, and her family – her mum and brother – need all the money they can get. Kayleigh is just one of the small casualties of America’s biting recession, a sparky little girl who dreams of being a dancer and who lives in poverty, moving from cheap motel to cheap motel.

Jezza Neumann’s quietly passionate film will leave you feeling both angry and helpless, because this shouldn’t be happening anywhere. The kids are only too well aware of their plight. In San Francisco, 11-year-old Sera lives with her mum and sister in a one-roomed flat, their belongings in piles. “This is not the great American dream,” she says with a wisdom that is heartbreakingly beyond her years.

Child poverty has reached record levels in the US, with more than 16 million children now affected, food banks facing unprecedented demand and homeless shelters dealing with long waiting lists. This documentary offers a unique insight into the impact of the country's economic crisis, as three children affected by the downturn reveal how life in modern America is viewed from their perspective.


Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media > Magazines

Going Underground: A Culture Show Special

BBC2, 10:00-10:30pm

Alastair Sooke presents a cultural history of the London Underground to celebrate its 150th anniversary. He follows the progress of a major new artwork for all 270 stations by Turner Prize winner Mark Wallinger and tells the story of Frank Pick, who steered the development of the Tube's corporate identity by commissioning eye-catching commercial art, graphic design and modern architecture. With contributions by writers Paul Morley, Peter York and John Lanchester.


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Thursday 7th March

Factual > Science & Nature > Nature & Environment > Documentaries

The Great British Winter
BBC2, 6:30-7:30pm, 4/5 - Estuaries

Explores five of Britain's most extreme winter landscapes, looking at the conditions that challenge both the wildlife and people that try to survive in the countryside.


Religions > Beliefs >  Documentaries

Pagans and Pilgrims: Britain's Holy Places
BBC4, 8:30-9:00pm, 1/6


Presenter and Welsh poet Ifor ap Glyn explores the wealth of Britain’s extraordinary holy places on a pilgrimage that spans almost 2,000 years of history.

Travelling across the breadth of the UK, Ifor will uncover the stories and rich history behind many of our most famous sites, explaining the myths and legends of some of Britain’s most sacred places.

Over six half-hour episodes, Ifor will visit crumbling ruins, tranquil healing pools, sacred caves, island refuges, towering mountain hideaways and ancient shrines to find out what these historical sites tell us about who we are today. From the divine to the unexpected, the series uncovers Britain’s extraordinary variety of inspirational, surprising and half-forgotten holy places, and brings to life our spiritual history.

In the first episode, Ifor explores why ruins are among the best-preserved and most-loved holy sites in Britain. He’ll take in the famous ruins of St Andrews Cathedral, the mystical atmosphere of Wales’ best-preserved Roman site, the battered remains of Coventry’s iconic cathedral and the Gothic majesty of North Yorkshire’s Whitby Abbey - the inspiration behind Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Along the way, he’ll ask why we’re drawn to holy ruins long after their religious use is over. Is it just nostalgia or something much deeper that fuels our obsession and enduring fascination with the decaying grandeur of a ruin?



Religion > Beliefs > Documentaries

How to Get to Heaven with the Hutterites
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm


Like the Amish, the Hutterites are a religious group who live communally, keeping the world at arm’s length. “We try to insulate our people, not isolate them,” is how Zach, the minister at a remote colony in Canada, puts it.

Everyone works for the common good, men and women’s roles are clearly defined and there are strict rules about everything, whether it’s visiting relatives in another community, taking preserves from the food stores or where you sit at the communal dining table.

Lynn Alleway filmed at the Maple Grove Colony over a period of four months as they went about their lives, but while the Hutterites extol the virtues of their simple life and the benefits of an ordered system, they struggle to explain the reasoning behind the rules. “Because we’ve always done it that way,” is all they can eventually come up with.

An insight into clandestine Christian community the Hutterites, who believe that living communally and separately from what they refer to as `the world' will secure them a place in heaven. With exclusive access, this film follows one member of the religious society as he embarks on a secret escape.



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Friday 8th March



Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media > Arts > Factual > History


Heritage! The Battle for Britain's Past
BBC4, 3:00-4:00am, 1/3


The birth of the heritage movement and the first arguments of radical thought, from figures including John Lubbock MP, Lieutenant General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers, Charles Darwin and John Ruskin. These remarkable individuals asked important questions and came up with the building blocks of a new world - a world that valued the past.



Factual > Science & Nature > Nature & Environment > Documentaries

The Great British Winter
BBC2, 6:30-7:30pm, 5/5 - Islands

Explores five of Britain's most extreme winter landscapes, looking at the conditions that challenge both the wildlife and people that try to survive in the countryside.


Factual > Science & Nature > Nature & Environment > Factual > Travel

Wild Arabia
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 3/3 - Shifting Sands


In a rapidly changing Arabia, wildlife finds surprising opportunites and allies.



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Wednesday 20 February 2013

Off air recordings for week 23 February - 1 March 2013


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

*This applies to staff members and students at the University of Gloucestershire only. Any recordings made are to be used only for educational and non-commercial purposes under the terms of the ERA Licence.
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Saturday 23rd February

Documentaries

DNA: The Story of Life
More4, 7:55-9:00pm

Documentary marking the 60th anniversary of one of the most significant scientific moments of the 20th century - Francis Crick and Jim Watson's discovery in 1953 of the double-helix structure of DNA, for which they later received the Nobel Prize for Medicine. Although assured of their place in history, the film explores how the pair also faced unfounded rumours of plagiarism.


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Sunday 24th February

Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries

WHAAM! Roy Lichtenstein at the Tate Modern
BBC4, 8:00-9:00pm


In a special programme broadcast on the opening weekend of the Roy Lichtenstein Retrospective at Tate Modern, Alastair Sooke takes us on an exclusive personal tour of the latest blockbuster art exhibition.

Together with fans, critics, artists and those who knew Lichtenstein, Alastair leads an entertaining and provocative discussion about the work and legacy of one of the most celebrated and instantly recognisable artists of the 20th century.
Renowned for his works based on comic strips and advertising imagery, Lichtenstein's chisel-jawed action men and love-lorn women made him the hero of the Pop Art movement.

When the pictures first appeared in the 1960s they caused a sensation - but also outrage and controversy, with many questioning whether his re-workings of other people's images could really be called art. As the exhibition reveals, however, there was more to Lichtenstein than simply the famous comic book images and also on display are many of his less familiar works - nudes, landscapes, sculpture and his own take on the work of modern art masters such as Picasso and Matisse.

Offering an in-depth look at one of the year's most talked about exhibitions, Alastair and guests explore the enduring appeal of Lichtenstein's imagery, debate the controversies around his work and his influence on today's generation of artists and tackle the big question - was Lichtenstein a Pop Art genius and one of the defining image-makers of the 20th century, or a one-trick wonder whose big idea was so powerful he could never let it go?



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Monday 25th February

Current Affairs; News, Documentaries

Dispatches: Britain on Benefits (postponed from 18th February)
Channel 4, 8:00-8:30pm


The Disability Living Allowance helps more than three million people lead useful lives. It pays for transport and carers, meaning that disabled people can work and lead independent lives. But the benefit bill has to be cut, and the government plans to take more than half a million claimants off DLA. What will that mean for those who depend on it? Talking to fellow Paralympians, disabled army veterans and disabled people in work, wheelchair basketball ace Ade Adepitan goes in search of answers, and asks if this hugely ambitious and expensive plan to reassess disabled people has been properly thought through.



News

Panorama: America's Gun Addiction
BBC1, 8:30-9:00pm


The Newtown massacre, in which 20 primary schoolchildren died, has been hailed as a turning point on gun control in America. President Obama wants to ban assault weapons, but his opponents say more guns are the answer, not fewer. Panorama meets the teachers learning to use guns to protect their schools.  With many of America's mass killers having mental health issues and easy access to guns, Panorama reveals the national crisis in mental healthcare which has left 3.5 million severely mentally ill Americans receiving no treatment at all.  Reporter Hilary Andersson goes undercover to show how easy it is to buy the type of assault weapon used at Newtown, with no checks. Will Newtown finally change things, or will the mass killings continue?



Crime and Punishment; Documentaries

Her Majesty's Prison - Aylesbury
ITV1, 9:00-10:00pm, 2/2


The authorities at Aylesbury prison, have to try to manage some of the most dangerous and disruptive young offenders in the country. In this second episode Prison governor Kevin Leggett reveals how his staff are attacked frequently as they try to ensure they keep control and help to rebuild the fractured lives of these young men.  He says: “A lot of them are violent and just bringing them into prison doesn’t switch that off. It’s just the way they’ve been brought up or the way they would choose to adopt when they interact with people. So it can be a very intimidating environment at times. We’ve had a number of staff assaulted in the last couple of weeks.”

The film captures an incident in the prison when  female prison officer is head butted by a prisoner.

Kevin Leggett says”
“That’s been the real change for me. The propensity for prisoners to assault female staff, because it used to be the taboo and you’d expect a prisoner backlash from their peers, if they assaulted a female member of staff - which is something that we’ve not really had to deal with for a long time.”  Officers are permitted to use reasonable force to defend themselves when attacked. Thirty five members of staff were assaulted at Aylesbury in 2012. Sixteen needed hospital treatment.

Prison officer Kevin Smith says: “Some of the staff assaults we’ve had in this establishment are horrendous and you watch them back and you got to say some of them are really lucky to keep their lives.”  One prisoner Emirali Ockay has a reputation for attacking prison officers. He has been so violent and difficult towards staff he has already been moved several times. Now Aylesbury is looking to transfer him.

Prison Service Manager Darren Voss says:
“Young Okcay wants out of the establishment. Problem is he has a little bit of stability and then he has moments where he then gets disruptive and he’s assaulted individuals whether that’s staff or prisoners. He’s assaulted a member of the work’s team so again now, while we’re communicating with other jails, we got to add that onto his record that he’s gone and assaulted another member of staff so it’s going to be difficult to move him.”

Nine prisons were contacted and they all refused to take Okcay.

The film shows how officers also have to deal with prisoners intent on killing themselves. They have to release the noose around the neck of one prisoner after a failed suicide attempt, and restrain him to prevent him from continuing to self-harm...




Documentaries

Storyville: I Will Be Murdered
BBC4, 10:00-11:25pm


This week’s Storyville chronicles an extraordinary story of murder, love and political conspiracy triggered when a video of a murdered Guatemalan lawyer surfaced on Youtube in which he foretold his own death and named the culprits.

In May 2009, Rodrigo Rosenberg, a wealthy, charismatic lawyer, went cycling near his home in Guatemala City and was murdered. In a country with one of the highest murder rates in the world, such killings were not uncommon. But what was extraordinary is that Rodrigo Rosenberg knew, for certain, he was about to be killed.

Rosenberg’s lover had been murdered a few weeks before, driving Rosenberg to investigate a case which, he told friends, he feared would lead to his death. In a video he recorded days before he died, he accused the President of his murder. It became a Youtube sensation, prompting crowds to take to the street demanding the President’s resignation. But the subsequent investigation into Rosenberg’s death would take multiple twists and turns, before reaching a stunning revelation.



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Tuesday 26th February

Factual; History; Documentaries

Chivalry and Betrayal: The One Hundred Years' War
BBC4, 3/3, 3:00-3.55am

Henry V has claimed the crown of France for his heirs, but to secure it the English must conquer all of France. Potent French resistance comes in the most unlikely form - an illiterate, young peasant girl, Joan of Arc. Dr Janina Ramirez explores the longest and bloodiest divorce in history.


Documentaries

Secrets of the Pickpockets
Channel 4, 9:00-10:00pm, series 2, 1/1


A new crime wave hits London above and below ground. This is the story of the pickpockets and the police squads sent in to track them down.

This time Secrets is at street level in London's West End - to witness how gangs target pub crowds as they spill out onto the streets. The documentary reveals some new tricks of the criminal trade, from the 'Lebanese loop' to 'Scattering', in which a pickpocket disorientates their drunk victim by weaving and bobbing around while talking to them.

As the public changes its spending habits, the programme reveals how the criminals are changing their techniques too - looking at a recent rise in cash point scams. The Secrets team sits on a stake-out with a specialist police unit targeted on catching one organised ATM gang in the act.

Plus, experts on both sides of this extraordinary game of cat and mouse - from the no-nonsense Sergeant of one of the British Transport Police's 'dip squad' with dozens of arrests to his name, to the Chilean pickpockets, who always seem to get away...



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Wednesday 27th February

Factual > Science & Nature > Nature & Environment

Nature's Microworlds
BBC4, 8:30-9:00pm, 6/7 - Australia's Red Centre

In Australia's red centre, Steve Backshall reveals two-metre-tall kangaroos, the world's most venomous snake and a burrowing toad living among the throng of animals. Parched by the sun, scorched by fire and prone to unpredictable floods, the heart of this island continent is as inhospitable as it gets. Poor soils make vegetation tough and indigestible even to Australia's largest herbivore, the red kangaroo. However, it teems with animals found nowhere else on Earth. The key to the success of this extraordinary place is as surprising as the creatures that make it home.


Factual; Life Stories; Documentaries

Child of Our Time
BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/2 - Growing Up


In this programme we follow several of our children preparing to become teenagers and see how their parents and grandparents will cope!

Having followed our children from tiny babies through to pre-teen tearaways, viewers will now get to hear them articulate their feelings about life more eloquently. We discover how they have coped with bullying, with having a famous mum or with learning to live with money worries.

The children's bodies and brains are changing, and their interviews are illustrated with not only their lives today but our rich archive, giving us a unique view into the past.

All our families take part in both programmes but this one predominantly features Helena, the only survivor of triplets born extremely prematurely; Parys, whose mum Alison Lapper is a famous artist; forthright Yorkshire girl Rhianna; technology-loving Taliesin; Het, from Wembley in London, who has big ambitions; farm girl Megan; Matthew from Surrey, whose family are preparing for a great change in their lives; Scottish twins Alex and Ivo; and sports-mad William from Settle.

The programme looks at how these children are growing up and brings the stories right up to date, as the children reach their thirteenth birthday. Exploring the last 12-18 months, we re-enter our families' lives at a time of significant change, having recently left the familiarity and safety of junior school and into the new environment of secondary school. How has each child adapted and coped with this enormous transition? We'll also witness some challenging physiological and biological changes, as they become teenagers. From mood swings and bullying, to body image issues, and fitting in.


Factual; History; Documentaries

Richard III: The Unseen Story

More 4, 9:00-10:00pm


Channel 4 Commissioning Editor John Hay has ordered a special follow-up programme for More4, to build on the success of the world exclusive Richard III: The King in the Car Park. The first programme told the story of how Richard III's body came to be found by an alliance of amateur enthusiasts intent upon rehabilitating Richard's reputation and leading archaeologists from the University of Leicester. Richard III: The Unseen Story – made by the same team from Darlow Smithson Productions who won exclusive access to film the investigation – zeros in on the five months of archaeological and scientific detective work that led to this extraordinary result. The programme uses unseen footage and new interviews with the lead scientists to tell the story of the investigation in unprecedented detail, revealing multiple new dimensions to the hunt for England's long-lost king.

John Hay says: “The more detail you get on this story, the more extraordinary it gets, so we wanted to give viewers the chance to appreciate and enjoy the University of Leicester’s amazing scientific detective work in full.”

Airing the same day as the global story broke that the remains of our most infamous King, lost for 500 years, had been discovered, Richard III: The King in the Car Park provided the full inside story of the hunt for Richard III. It proved a hit with 4.9 million viewers (consolidated) and the film was referenced in 60,000 tweets. The discovery of the body and the battery of scientific tests to establish its identity had been carried out in complete secrecy and no footage of them had been seen by anyone but the investigating team until the programme aired...




Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media > Arts Factual > History


Michael Wood on Beowulf
BBC4, 11:00pm-12:00am


Historian Michael Wood returns to his first great love, the Anglo-Saxon world, to reveal the origins of our literary heritage. Focusing on Beowulf and drawing on other Anglo-Saxon classics, he traces the birth of English poetry back to the Dark Ages.

Travelling across the British Isles from East Anglia to Scotland and with the help of Nobel prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney, actor Julian Glover, local historians and enthusiasts, he brings the story and language of this iconic poem to life.



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Thursday 28th February

Documentaries

Nursing the Nation
ITV1, 8:30-9:00pm, 7/7


There are more than 10,000 district nurses across the country, visiting more than 2 million people every year. For many these are the unsung heroes of the NHS. They develop relationships with patients that can last for years on end and as they see them in their own homes, they often become a huge part of their lives and cornerstones of the local community.

Nursing the Nation follows district nurses on their rounds visiting different homes across the country, creating intimate, affectionate portraits of their diverse patients and their inspiring ability to grasp life in the face of adversity.

The final episode in the series sees us in Devon, with District Matron Shiobhan who is determined to help dementia sufferers live happy, fulfilled lives at home. Shiobhan has been nursing for 25 years, specialising in cognitive impairment her job entails looking after 25 patients. She says, “People with dementia are written off, they’re written off so quickly that ‘no, they can’t cope at home, they surely can’t cope at home’.”

We join Shiobhan as she assesses 88 year-old retired nurse Louise who has been in hospital after having a fall at home. Shiobhan must determine if she is able to return home and then put a care plan in place to ensure she can cope independently. Louise has no immediate family to give her the support that she needs so Shiobhan has arranged a team of carers who will help keep her in her own home.

When Shiobhan’s working day is over she returns home to her husband and two sons. “I spend all day caring for people and then I come home and care for some more people! I think my nursing life and home life run hand in hand at this moment in time.”

Meanwhile, in Bath, District Nurse Ren is doing an annual health check on David, a patient she has been visiting for seven years. 20 years ago, whilst on holiday, David was paralysed from the neck down when he broke his neck diving into a swimming pool. Since the accident he needs round the clock assistance from a team of carers but still happily enjoys a drink at the local pub and holds down a day job.

He says, “Before my accident I always enjoyed partying, I was always a very up person, always the pint glass half full as opposed to half empty. Not a lot got me down anyway. What’s the Italian saying? La Dolce Vita, you know, life’s sweet. That’s how I feel.”

Ren leads a team of district nurses who look after 50 patients. She has been nursing for 22 years and says, “I think Dave deals with his disability absolutely fantastically, remarkably well. He’s so adjusted to dealing with it and it’s really inspiring and amazing, the things he is able to do, despite being paralysed from the neck down, the life that he is able to lead.”



Factual; Life Stories; Documentaries

Child of Our Time
BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm, 2/2


Half the couples in this ongoing series have divorced or separated since it began in 2000. Some of the children have lost a parent. So there are desperately sad stories in this edition, which documents how the families have changed over the past 13 years. Many of the youngsters have coped well with upheaval and trauma, but others haven’t.

Watching a tearful youngster trying to find the words to describe the hurt they feel is always painful. But mostly it’s the parents who do the talking and, though they’re generally proud of their kids, many have a twinge of sadness at how quickly they’ve grown up.

Professor Robert Winston looks at how the youngsters have coped with changes in their families, as well as finding out about the hopes and expectations their parents hold for them. The presenter asks whether the 12-year study of the children's lives has been able to identify key moments that have shaped their personalities, as well as pondering how insightful the archive will be in terms of where they want to go next.



Factual; Science and Nature; Nature and Environment

Winterwatch: 1963 - The Big Freeze
BBC2, 11:20pm-12:20am

Chris Packham introduces a classic documentary from the BBC's archive, which takes a look at the worst winter of the 20th century in 1963. He also explores what we now know about how this big freeze affected Britain's wildlife, and how it would cope if we experienced another equally bad winter.


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Friday 1st March

Factual > Science & Nature > Nature & Environment > Factual > Travel

Wild Arabia
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 2/3 - The Jewel of Arabia

In a remote corner of southern Arabia one mountain range holds a remarkable secret. Swept by the annual Indian Ocean monsoon, the Dhofar mountains become a magical lost world of waterfalls and cloud forests filled with chameleons and honey-badgers. Off-shore rare whales have not bred with any others for over 60 thousand years and green sea turtles come ashore in their thousands, shadowed by egg-stealing foxes. Heat-seeking cameras reveal, for the first time ever, striped hyenas doing battle with Arabian wolves. While local researchers come face to face with the incredibly rare Arabian leopard.


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Wednesday 13 February 2013

Off-air recordings for week 16-22 February 2013


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


*This applies to staff members and students at the University of Gloucestershire only. Any recordings made are to be used only for educational and non-commercial purposes under the terms of the ERA Licence.
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Saturday 16th

Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries

Swinging into The Blitz: A Culture Show Special
BBC2, 6:00-7:00pm


When a handful of musical immigrants from the Caribbean islands came to Britain in the 1920s and 30s, it was the beginning of both musical and political change. Leslie Thompson, an innovative musician and trumpeter, and Ken 'Snakehips' Johnson, a brilliant dancer and charismatic band leader, pooled their talents to start the first black British swing band.

Clemency Burton-Hill reveals the untold story of the black British swing musicians of the 1930s, whose meteoric rise to fame on London's high society dance floors was cut short by unexpected tragedy at the height of the Blitz.


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Sunday 17th

Factual; Science and Nature; Documentaries

Wonders of Life
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 4/5 - Size Matters


In this episode, Brian travels around Australia to explore the physics of the size of life. Beginning with the largest organisms on our planet, a forest of giant eucalyptus trees, he then takes to the seas to get up-close with an ocean giant - the great white shark. From the safety of a steel cage Brian explains how the distinctive streamlined contours of the great white have been shaped by the physics of water.

Back on land, Brian heads out to the dry dusty outback. Here he tracks the largest living marsupial, the red kangaroo, to see how giants on land adapt to gravity. This all pervasive force influences the way in which living things move and the upper limit on how large they become.

Through the myriad species of insects in Queensland's rainforests, Brian begins his journey into the world of the small. At smaller scales, the effects of gravity are negligible and it is another force - the electrostatic force - that is dominant. This explains how flies and other insects can appear to defy gravity, using the traction of the electrostatic force to scale vertical windows.

But as life gets smaller, the very nature of the world appears to change as Brian explains with the aid of the tiny trichogramma wasp. This is one of the smallest multicellular life forms on Earth. For them, the atmosphere is a highly viscose environment - in a similar way to how we experience liquid - and so the trichogramma has to 'swim' through the air.

Even smaller still, are the thrombolites of Lake Clifton, near Perth. These mysterious growths are made up of colonies of bacteria, the smallest free-living life forms on Earth. Here, Brian finds that the size of life has a lower limit that is governed by the size of atoms and fundamental particles, which in turn are subject to the laws of physics.

The size you are not only dictates which forces of nature affect your life, it also influences your 'speed of life'. The tiny southern bent wing bat of South Australia loses heat so fast that they struggle to find enough food to stay alive. But as life gets larger, the pace of life - or metabolism - slows and this has profound consequences on life expectancy.

Brian explores this idea upon the tropical Christmas Island. This is a land of crabs of all different shapes and sizes. The largest - and most distinctive - are the giant robber crabs whose legs can span a metre. Not only are they the largest land invertebrate, they outlive their smaller cousins, some reaching well over 80 years of age. So the physics of size shapes life in many ways, not least the amount of years you get to enjoy it.


Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries

Perspectives: Looking for Lowry

ITV1, 11:15pm-12:15am


I can imagine art critics across the land gasping for oxygen throughout Perspectives, the first of ITV1’s new soft-centred arts strand, a sort-of replacement for The South Bank Show.

Why? Because it’s a documentary about LS Lowry, the British painter born in Manchester in 1887 whose huge popularity never translated into critical acclaim; it’s presented by an actor (Ian McKellen) and one of the contributors is Noel Gallagher. Yes, that Noel Gallagher, from Oasis. Can I hear Brian Sewell combusting?  For anyone who loves Lowry, tonight’s Perspectives provides a neat, simple, er, perspective, on his life, illustrated with a lot of his work, including some rather kinky and hitherto largely unseen drawings and sketches of constricted women.

There are contributions from Lowry’s friends and a mealy-mouthed offering from a Tate Gallery boss about why none of the 23 Lowrys held in its collections is currently on display. His work is a bit too “sentimental”, apparently.  Ian McKellen presents an exploration of LS Lowry, whose paintings of northern urban life are particularly loved for his trademark `matchstick men' figures. He discovers works that have never been exhibited and examines them for possible clues to Lowry's personality. The documentary also features Noel Gallagher, who claims the artist does not receive the recognition he deserves, while Jeffrey Archer explains how he came to be a Lowry collector.



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Monday 18th

News, Current Affairs

Dispatches: Britain on Benefits
Channel 4, 8:00-8:30pm


The Disability Living Allowance helps more than three million people lead useful lives. It pays for transport and carers, meaning that disabled people can work and lead independent lives.  But the benefit bill has to be cut, and the government plans to take more than half a million claimants off DLA. What will that mean for those who depend on it?  Talking to fellow Paralympians, disabled army veterans and disabled people in work, wheelchair basketball ace Ade Adepitan goes in search of answers, and asks if this hugely ambitious and expensive plan to reassess disabled people has been properly thought through.



Law and Order; Crime and Punishment; Documentaries

Her Majesty's Prison - Aylesbury
ITV1, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/2


Aylesbury Prison in Buckinghamshire, home to some of the most dangerous young criminals in Britain, has allowed an exclusive insight into life for prisoners and staff for a new documentary series on ITV- Her Majesty’s Prison: Aylesbury.  Murderers, rapists, gangsters and paedophiles are serving time here. So serious are some of their offences, that one in five is serving life or an indeterminate sentence to protect the public. What’s frightening is that the oldest prisoners are just 21.

Officers engage in a daily battle of wits, to ensure they keep control. They must also try to help rebuild the fractured lives of these young men.  Programme makers, Wild Pictures, who have won acclaim for powerful documentaries on Strangeways, Holloway and Wormwood Scrubs prisons, were given extraordinary access to film over four months, interviewing hundreds of prisoners and officers for the two part documentary.



Storyville: Google and the World Brain
BBC4, 10:00-11:30pm


Storyville: Documentary which tells the story of the most ambitious project ever conceived on the internet and the people who tried to stop it. In 1937 HG Wells predicted the creation of the 'world brain', a giant global library that contained all human knowledge which would lead to a new form of higher intelligence. 70 years later the realisation of that dream was under way, as Google scanned millions of books for its Google Books website. However, over half those books were still in copyright and authors across the world launched a campaign to stop them, climaxing in a New York courtroom in 2011.  This is a film about the dreams, dilemmas and dangers of the internet, set in spectacular locations in China, USA, Europe and Latin America.



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Tuesday 19th

factual; History; Documentaries

Britain on Film
BBC4, 2:30-3:00, End of Empire

This episode focuses on films examining the changing shape of the British Empire. At a time when many of its former colonies were achieving independence, Look at Life sent its film crews as far afield as Aden, Malaysia and Ascension Island to record the efforts made by Britain to manage the transition from imperial rule to the leadership of an emerging Commonwealth.


Factual; Documentaries

Storyville: The Pirate Bay
BBC4, 10:00-11:00pm

Storyville: Documentary telling the story of The Pirate Bay, the world's largest file sharing site which facilitates downloading of copyrighted material. The film follows the three Swedish founders of The Pirate Bay through their trial after they are taken to court by Hollywood and the entertainment industry, accused of breaking copyright law. Seeing themselves as technicians whose aim is to run the world's largest web platform, in scenes bordering on the absurdly comedic they claim that their actions are about freedom and not money. The closer the film gets to them, it becomes increasingly clear that they are rather unworldly nerds, whose social skills and ability to comprehend the analogue world, and each other, are somewhat limited.


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Wednesday 20th

Factual; Science and Nature; Nature and Environment; Documentaries

Nature's Microworlds
BBC4, 8:30-9:00pm, 5/7 - The Deep Sea

Steve Backshall takes us to a place few have ever visited - the deep sea. 99 per cent of the space on Earth inhabited by life is under the ocean and almost 90 per cent of this is deeper than a kilometre, a place of perpetual darkness and crushing pressure. Far from being lifeless, the vast inner space of our planet contains an extraordinary array of beautiful and bizarre creatures, from 40m-long jellyfish to grotesque angler fish and vampire squid. Our journey from the sunlit surface waters to the deepest reaches of the abyss reveals how life persists in such a hostile world.


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Thursday 21st

Factual; History; Documentaries

Chivalry and Betrayal: The Hundred Years War
BBC4, 10:30-11:30pm, 2/3 - Breaking the Bonds 1360-1415

England, wracked by plague and revolt, loses the upper hand until Henry V, determined to prove his right to be king, turns the tide at the battle of Agincourt.



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Thursday 7 February 2013

Off-air recordings for week 9-16 February 2013


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


*This applies to staff members and students at the University of Gloucestershire only. Any recordings made are to be used only for educational and non-commercial purposes under the terms of the ERA Licence.

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Saturday 9th February

Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Magazines and Reviews

BBC2, 5:30-6:30pm

Andrew Graham-Dixon travels to Northern Spain to visit some of the world's oldest works of art, hundreds of meters beneath the surface of the earth. In limestone caves he is astonished to find a series of vivid paintings, some of which are over 33,000 years old, which appear to link modern man to our ice age ancestors.

Back in London, the British Museum is staging one of its most ambitious exhibitions yet, Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind. Andrew gets a behind-the-scenes preview of the extraordinary highlights and discovers that the world's first commissioned artists were producing highly sophisticated work tens of thousands of years before he previously imagined.  The programme includes contributions from the British Museum's director, Neil MacGregor, and artist Antony Gormley.


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Sunday 10th February

Factual; Science and Nature; 

BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 3/5 - Endless Forms Most Beautiful

In this episode Brian Cox visits South East Asia's 'Ring of Fire'. In the world's most volcanic region he explores the thin line that separates the living from the dead and poses that most enduring of questions: what is life? The traditional answer is one that invokes the supernatural, as seen at the annual Day of the Dead celebrations in the Philippine highlands. Brian sets out to offer an alternative answer: one bound up in the flow of energy through the universe.

On the edge of Taal Volcano lake, Brian demonstrates how the first spark of life may have arisen. Here, heat energy from the inner Earth forces its way to the surface and changes its chemistry, just as it did in our planet's infancy. It is now believed that these chemical changes set up a source of energy from which life first emerged.

Today, virtually all derives its energy from the Sun. But there's a paradox to this as according to the laws of physics energy can neither be created nor destroyed. So life doesn't 'use' energy up. It can't remove it from the universe. So how does energy enable living things to live?

Brian reveals life to be a conduit through which energy in the universe passes, just one part in a process that governs the lifecycle of the entire Universe. By diverting energy in the cosmos living things are able to grow and thrive.

But whilst the flow of energy can explain living things, it can't explain how life has endured for more than three billion years. So Brian meets an animal in the Borneo rainforest that holds the key to how life persists - the orangutan. Ninety seven per cent of our DNA is shared with orangutans. That shared heritage reveals a profound conclusion: that DNA is a record of the evolution of life on Earth, one that connects us to everything alive today and that has ever lived.

So life isn't really a thing. It's a chemical process, a way of tapping into the energy flowing through the Universe and transmitting it from generation to generation through the elegant chemistry of DNA. Far from demanding a mystical explanation, the emergence of life might be an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics.


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Monday 11th February

News

Channel 4, 8:00-9:00pm

As the government unveils plans to increase the number of children each nursery staff member is allowed to look after, Dispatches investigates whether parents can really trust their child's nursery.  The programme goes undercover to expose the shortcoming that means some prospective parents are not able to see a comprehensive history of previous complaints, and hears from parents badly let down by those who are supposed to care for their children.


Factual; Science and Nature

BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/3

Penguins as they have never been seen before. From the freezing Antarctic to the scorching tropics, 50 spy cameras capture unique footage of three extraordinary species.  Emperor penguins cross a treacherous frozen sea to reach their breeding grounds, and on the way one becomes lost in a blizzard. Once there, the females flipper flight over the males and those that succeed 'waddle walk' with their partners. They must lay their eggs without touching the ice, but it is the males that face the greatest challenge - overwintering alone in the coldest place on earth.

Rockhoppers brave the world's stormiest seas, only to come ashore and face a daunting assault up a 300-foot cliff, hopping most of the way up. Having laid their eggs, these plucky birds face airborne attacks from skuas and vultures.  Humboldts are a strange tropical penguin that has rarely been filmed. To reach their desert nests they negotiate 20,000 predatory sea lions, dodge vampire bats and battle half a million sharp-beaked seabirds. The hard work for all the penguins finally pays off when their tiny, vulnerable chicks begin to hatch. Among the spy cameras capturing unique behaviour is a technological first - robotic penguins with cameras for eyes.


Factual; Documentaries

BBC4, 10:00-11:00pm

Storyville: Documentary which follows the journey of a group of scientists and artists as they venture by ship into one of the last uncharted territories on earth. Now global warming is melting the ice, an unexplored fjord system in north-east Greenland has opened for a few weeks each year. The explorers set sail on an Arctic journey where they encounter a polar bear, Stone Age playgrounds and an entirely new species. Awe, curiosity and humour bond the scientists and artists as they contemplate a landscape untouched by humanity. As the boat slips further away civilisation, the crew have a disturbing encounter which underlines the destructive impact of mankind.  Epic, breath-taking and awe-inspiring, this documentary depicts both the wild beauty of the Earth and man's own transitory role in evolution. 


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Tuesday 12th February

Factual; Science and Nature; Nature and the Environment

BBC4, 8:00-9:00pm, 3/3 - Freeze in Time

It is estimated that 99 per cent of species have become extinct and there have been times when life's hold on Earth has been so precarious it seems it hangs on by a thread.

This series focuses on the survivors - the old-timers - whose biographies stretch back millions of years and who show how it is possible to survive a mass extinction event which wipes out nearly all of its neighbours. The Natural History Museum's Professor Richard Fortey discovers what allows the very few to carry on going - perhaps not for ever, but certainly far beyond the life expectancy of normal species. What makes a survivor when all around drop like flies? Professor Fortey travels across the globe to find the survivors of the most dramatic of these obstacles - the mass extinction events.

In episode three, Fortey looks at the Ice Age. 2.8 million years ago - triggered by slight changes in the Earth's orbit around the sun and shifts in its ocean currents - the world began to cool. Within a few thousand years much of the planet was shrouded in a dense cloak of ice that would come and go until only 10,000 years ago. We call this age of ice - the Pleistocene Age - and it transformed the hierarchy of nature. This is the story of how a few specialist species that evolved to live in the biting cold survived into the present day. 


Documentaries

BBC1, 10:35-11:25pm

In the past three years more than £13 million worth of metal has been stolen from Britain’s railway network. Cables, wiring and the rails themselves are removed by thieves who take advantage of the relative accessibility of the metal and the high prices it will fetch. (Thanks to Chinese demand, prices have risen 500 per cent in a decade.) Cameras follow British Transport Police in Yorkshire as they try to catch the criminals. We also see the effects of other thefts — from manhole covers to war memorials and churches.

Documentary showing the British Transport Police's fight back against a new crime wave - metal theft - which sees gangs across Britain tearing apart the country's infrastructure, stripping metal from railways, power stations, churches and war memorials. The film reveals the consequences of these actions - from the risk of electrocution to thieves to the emotional distress experienced by victims.


Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries

BBC2, 11:2pm-12:20am 

Abraham Lincoln is one of the most iconic figures in American history. Justin Webb, the BBC's former North American editor, explores the enduring myth of the president who helped to shape the American Dream. Featuring interviews with Steven Spielberg, Daniel Day-Lewis and Alastair Campbell, Justin examines the hold Lincoln continues to have and why people still believe America is the Land of the Free.


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Wednesday 13th February

Factual; Science and Nature; Nature and Environment

BBC4, 8:30-9:00pm, 4/7 - Yellowstone

In the spectacular Yellowstone where wolves, bears, coyotes, bison and elk roam vast grasslands, wetlands and forests, Steve Backshall looks for the answer to a puzzle. Wolves and beavers have little to do with each other so why, when wolves were returned after an absence of 70 years, did the beaver population increase? The revelation is as magical as it is surprising.


Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries

BBC2, 10:00-10:30pm

Andrew Graham-Dixon explores the work of 17th century Spanish baroque painter Bartholome Esteban Murillo, as an exhibiton focusing on the profound influence of his close friend and patron Justino de Neve opens at the Dulwich Picture Gallery.  Alan Yentob meets Jonathan Miller as the veteran opera and theatre director returns to British theatre after a six year break to stage Northern Broadsides production of Rutherford and Son - Githa Sowerby's powerful 1912 play about class, capitalism and gender. In a break from rehearsals, Miller reveals what it took to lure him out of retirement.

Internationally renowned architect Peter Zumthor has just been awarded Britain's highest architectural accolade, the Royal Gold Medal. Tom Dyckhoff travels to Switzerland to talk to this master of understatement about his quiet approach to design. Mark Kermode meets Bill Murray to talk about his latest film 'Hyde Park on Hudson'.  All this and a performance from electronic music duo and BBC Sound of 2013, shortlisted artists AlunaGeorge recorded at the Hayward Gallery ahead of the opening of 'Light Show' which features the art of James Turrell and Dan Flavin amongst others.


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Thursday 14th February

History; Documentaries

BBC4, 11:00pm-12:00am, 1-3

One hundred years is, of course, an approximation, as this war between England and France, longest of the Middle Ages, lasted from 1337 to 1453, by which time the people who’d begun the hostilities were long dead. It gave England such victories as Agincourt, made the reputations of Edward III and Henry V – and would give Shakespeare plenty of material. It also provided France with a national heroine in Joan of Arc.

But even now the jury is out as to its causes and outcome. Unstuffy historian Janina Ramirez (presenter of BBC4’s recent Illuminations) guides us through the saga of kings, knights, bloody battles and cultural triumphs in the first of three ravishingly shot films. 

Dr Janina Ramirez explores the lengthy conflict between England and France in the 14th and 15th centuries. She begins by examining how Edward III led a crushing English victory at the Battle of Crecy in 1346, focusing on the role played by low-born archers, before moving on to the Black Prince's campaign of terror.


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