Off-air recordings for week 13-19 July 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 13th July

Factual > Pets & Animals > Science & Nature > Documentaries

Giant Squid: Filming the Impossible - Natural World Special
BBC2, 7:40-8:25pm

The giant squid, a creature of legend and myth which even in the 21st century, has never been seen alive. But now, an international team of scientists think they have finally found their lair, one thousand metres down, off the coast of Japan.

This is the culmination of decades of research. The team deploys underwater robots and state of the art submersible vessels for a world first - to find and film the impossible.


Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media > Documentaries

Alive: Rankin Faces Death - A Culture Show Special
BBC2, 10:10-11:10pm

“What is the problem people have with death?” demands Wilko Johnson, the Dr Feelgood guitarist with terminal pancreatic cancer. “It’s our natural state! I’ve had 13 billion years of practice!”

It’s one of many nuggets of wisdom imparted to photographer Rankin as he tries to come to terms with death by creating a series of portraits of people who are staring it in the face. The documentary follows the process of meeting and shooting his subjects, many of whom are terminally ill and reflect movingly on what mortality means.

At one stage, writer Diana Athill tells him to stop worrying: “Things begin, grow, live, end. It’s the most natural thing in the world. Why be frightened of it?” Most of the people here aren’t famous like Johnson and Athill, but the film makes you wish they were.

Behind the scenes with fashion photographer Rankin as he prepares for an exhibition at Liverpool's Walker Gallery that explores the link between photography and mortality. Alive: In the Face of Death marks a radical departure from the portraits he is known for, as he focused his lens on people who had been told they only have a short time left to live, or have been forced to confront their mortality through personal or professional experience.


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Monday 14th July

Factual > Documentaries

Privacy Under Pressure
BBC Radio 4, 9:00-9:30am

In a major new series about how technology is reshaping our notions of privacy, Steve Hewlett asks what we reveal through our online behaviour and use of smart phones. He traces who analyses this behaviour, how it is used and on what terms. Are we aware of how much data we are giving away?

The programme explores how online behaviour can be tracked, monitored and exploited, from cookies to Facebook likes. It investigates whether privacy policies are of any real use or relevance. And it asks if we should all become more aware of the impact of our digital footprints.

Interviewees include representatives from social media companies, advertisers, app developers, academics and privacy campaigners.


Documentaries > Religion

Ramadan Diairies
Channel 4, 7:55-8:00pm

Every year, Britain's 2.8 million Muslims take part in Ramadan.

For one month, from dawn to dusk, they forgo food, water, smoking and swearing, in an attempt to focus on what's important, think about those who have less than them and better appreciate what they have.

Channel 4 follows and hears from a wide range of British Muslims throughout Ramadan, on how they cope with daily life and the physical and spiritual effects of fasting, as they go through it.


Documentaries

Dispatches: South Africa's Dirty Cops
Channel 4, 8:00-8:30pm

Reporter Inigo Gilmore investigates CCTV and mobile phone footage, which, critics say, show officers beating and torturing suspects. He also interviews a 14-year-old boy who alleges he was tortured at the hands of the police.

With a wave of anti-government civil protests routinely and brutally suppressed by the police, Gilmore explores the problematic relationship between those employed to serve and protect and their political masters.

He speaks to the wife of Andries Tatane, an activist whose killing by police was caught on camera, and reveals compelling new evidence of the police's role during and after the Marikana massacre when 34 miners were shot and killed by police in 2012.

Dispatches explores fears that under the African National Congress party - synonymous with Nelson Mandela and the struggle for freedom - the rainbow nation's police force have come to increasingly mirror the actions of its apartheid predecessor.


News

Panorama: Broken by Battle
BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm

As our troops in Afghanistan prepare to come home, more and more British soldiers are haunted by the trauma of over a decade of war. This Panorama special investigates the true personal cost which, until now, has remained largely hidden. The Ministry of Defence only releases the number of suicides of serving soldiers and does not track what happens to its veterans.

Over the course of a year, reporter Toby Harnden set out to discover how many soldiers, both former and serving, took their own lives in 2012. He talks to families who have lost their sons and ex-soldiers suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder who are desperately seeking help.


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Tuesday 15th July

Documentaries > Religion

Ramadan Diairies
Channel 4, 7:55-8:00pm


Factual > History > Documentaries

Hidden Killers of the Victorian Age
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm


Never mind today’s “squeezed middle”, spare a thought for the new urban middle classes of the 19th century. Their desire to raise their standard of living often led them to embrace the latest untried innovations and trends. The engaging Dr Suzannah Lipscomb shows just how deadly these untested products could be once introduced to the home.

It’s a litany of toxic avengers, smiting the Victorians for their aspirations: arsenic in wallpaper, lead in toys’ paint, unsafe gas and electricity. Lipscomb subjects them to scientific testing, but most shocking of all is the exhibit of a liver from a tightly corseted woman, showing the indentations where it was squashed against her ribcage.

Suzannah Lipscomb reveals the dangers created in Victorian households when owners brought the latest gadgets and conveniences into their homes. In an era with no health and safety standards, they were often turning their homes into hazardous death traps.


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Wednesday 16th May

Documentaries > Religion

Ramadan Diaries
Channel 4, 7:55-8:00pm


Documentaries > Crime

Myra Hindley: The Untold Story
Channel 5, 8:00-9:00pm, 1/3

The first film ‘The Brady Factor’ will focus on Myra Hindley’s childhood and upbringing and events that led up to her initial meeting with Ian Brady, and the start of their relationship that would quickly become sadistic.

The film has access to Myra’s unpublished autobiography and focusses on her violent upbringing, her life in Gorton and early events that she claims influenced and shaped her personality . Myra’s early loves are explored and how she was immediately bowled over by Ian when she met him at work and how her obsession with him developed.


Factual > Arts, Vulture & the Media . Documentaries

Bought with Love: The Secret History of British Art
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/3


t would be hard to imagine a world where there were no public galleries full of paintings, where the names of Leonardo and Michelangelo were hardly known, where art was considered purely decorative and artists merely craftsman – but this was Britain 400 years ago.

Since then, art has flooded to our shores and our appreciation of art and artists has been transformed.

In a new three-part series for BBC Four, art historian Helen Rosslyn traces the stories of the men and women whose enthusiasm for art, sense of adventure, and powerful wealth built Britain’s national collection and shaped the history of art of our nation.

In the first episode, Pioneers, Helen reveals the immense influence of the pioneers – the earliest 17th century adventurers in art collecting. Starting with Thomas Howard, the ‘Collector’ Earl of Arundel, Helen tells how his passion for the Old Masters of the Italian Renaissance began an unparalleled revolution in the visual arts and the appreciation of painting in Britain. The founder of a tradition that saw continental travel and collecting go hand in hand, Arundel’s influence sparked an appreciation for fine art that spread to Charles I and his entourage, The Whitehall Group. Arundel was key in encouraging Rubens and Van Dyck to England, painters who would completely revolutionise painting in the country and fire an enthusiasm for the baroque art that defined the era of Charles I.


Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media > Magazines & Reviews

The Culture Show: Maxine Peak - Performance, Protest and Peterloo
BBC2, 10:00-10:30pm

Channel 4 Dispatches examines allegations that South Africa's police have become a brutal and corrupt force.  In a Culture Show special, Miranda Sawyer meets actress Maxine Peake as she prepared for her appearance at the Manchester International Festival, where she performed Shelley's The Masque of Anarchy - written as a response to the 1819 Peterloo massacre. Peake talks about why she feels the poem is more relevant than ever and reveals the people and places that are important to her.


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Thursday 17th May

Documentaries > Religion

Ramadan Diairies
Channel 4, 7:55-8:00pm


Factual > Law > Legal System > Crime > Documentaries

The Briefs
ITV1, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/2

“We are a vital check on the power of the state. And that does involve us taking on unpopular causes, representing all kinds of people from hardened criminals to mentally ill people, people who can’t understand the system, people who need expert legal advice and help. Otherwise they wouldn’t be able to have their say, they wouldn’t be able to get a fair trial.” – Franklin Sinclair, Tuckers Solicitors

The second series of The Briefs offers viewers an insight into British justice from the perspective of the defence.  This new two-part series again follows lawyers from a Manchester firm as they represent clients accused of crimes ranging from brandishing an axe at police officers to blackmailing and defrauding a pensioner out of their life savings.

With close-quarters access to Britain’s busiest legal aid-funded law practice, Tuckers Solicitors, this returning series shows privileged conversations between lawyer and client, and follows the cases from police station to court - and even to prison. The cameras join them at a challenging time with business dipping and with legal aid cuts looming, our lawyers take to the streets in protest.

In the first programme, the lawyers represent a man accused of violent disorder and of brandishing a knife at police in a burglary, another accused of an armed robbery with an axe at a hairdressing salon, a serial burglar accused of changing his line in crimes by causing criminal damage, and a man accused of attacking with a claw hammer another man he suspected of being a paedophile.

The cameras also follow the Tuckers team away from the office, with the wedding of legal adviser Katy Calderbank in focus as she prepares for her big day - an opportunity for staff to celebrate together.

In the second programme, they represent a man accused of stabbing another man who he says attacked him with a spade at a house party, a conman with an imaginative line in aliases who is accused of defrauding and blackmailing an elderly doctor out of his life savings, and Tuckers staff go on a march to protest against the Government’s legal aid reforms.


Factual > Housing > Documentaries

Meet the Landlords
BBC1, 10:35-11:35pm

One-off documentary exploring the sharp end of the property divide in difficult times. It reveals how many private landlords now ride the rental boom, like Jim Haliburton, who houses 800 tenants through his West Midlands property empire worth £26million. But the film also shows what life is like for the tenants - especially those struggling to cover the rent, as first-time landlord Anna finds when she tries to collect payment so she can pay her own mortgage. There is also the story of single mum Nikki, who despite her cancer diagnosis faces eviction and homelessness because her landlord has realised he can make more money by sub-dividing her home into flats. But he needs to get her out first.


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Friday 18th May

News > Science & Nature > Documentaries

Tonight: Plan Bee
ITV1, 3:00-3:30am

It is estimated that bee numbers have fallen by more than half over the past 30 years, and while experts argue about what is causing the losses, all agree that an urgent plan is needed to save them. Fiona Foster investigates the Government's decision not to support a European pesticide ban and meets those who are determined to reverse the decline of one of nature's most important insects.


Documentaries > Religion

Ramadan Diairies
Channel 4, 7:55-8:00pm


Factual > Science & Nature > Natural World > Documentaries

The Mating Game: A Natural World Special
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm

There’s a lovely scene early in this Natural World Special about how animals pair up. A male polar bear has tracked a female for weeks across the snow. She plays hard to get, quite literally giving him the run-around. But once she reckons he’s up to snuff, they begin to play, tumbling and sliding down the slopes together in a way that looks incredibly sweet and almost, yes, romantic. Later, he briefly loses intererest, so she turns
on the charm and starts adopting saucy poses, lying on her back, peering at him through her legs, and so on.

It’s hilarious, and just one example of bizarre courtship behaviour in a film that is full of irresistible moments. There are humpback whales dancing, bison fighting, flamingos mirroring and a crafty male lemur who understands the power of a touch of cologne.

David Attenborough narrates a look at the different methods animals use to attract a mate, revealing how inventive, loving and complex they can be. A female polar bear tries to revive a male's interest in her by turning cartwheels in front of him, while a bird of paradise tidies obsessively as he prepares a stage for his dance. While other lemurs are fighting for the right to breed, one sidles up to a female and wins favour by wafting his scent at her, and silverback gorilla seduction involves staring with a fixed grin.



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