Tuesday 30 July 2013

Off-air recordings for week 3-9 August 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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Monday 5th August

News

Panorama: The Brothers who Bombed Boston
BBC1, 8:30-9:00pm

On the 15th of April, in the worst terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11, two homemade bombs exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring more than 200 participants and spectators. With interviews with those who knew them, Panorama reporter Hilary Andersson explores how the two suspected bombers - brothers raised and educated in the US - became radicalised, and asks if America's war on terror has come home.

With the surviving brother due to stand trial later this year, she goes on patrol with New York Police Department's anti-terrorist squad which uses the latest technology to protect New Yorkers from future terrorist attacks. But she finds a backlash amongst many Muslims in America against law enforcement programmes they believe are designed specifically to profile, map and spy on Muslims. Panorama asks: are the authorities spying on the right people?


Factual > Health & Wellbeing > Documentaries

Long Live Britain
BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm & 10:35-11:20pm

Julia Bradbury, Phil Tufnell and Dr Phil Hammond set out to tackle one of the nation's most pressing health issues. Britain's 'secret killers' - type two diabetes, liver and heart disease - affect more than eight million people in the UK. At the nation's largest-ever combined health screening at the Rugby Football League's Magic Weekend in Manchester, 50 NHS nurses, three leading charities and a team of doctors screen hundreds of people to find out if they are at risk of developing one of these three preventable conditions, with shocking results.

Dr Phil Hammond also screens a group of famous faces to find out who might develop one of these potentially lethal conditions. And when former EastEnder Ricky Grover, actress and singer Jodie Prenger and actress and comedienne Crissy Rock make some alarming discoveries, they agree to work with Dr Phil to turn their health around. Long Live Britain follows them as they learn how these conditions are affecting their bodies - and what they can do to get their health back on track.


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Tuesday 6th August

factual > History > Documentaries

King Alfred and the Saxons
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/3 - Alfred of Wessex

Historian and broadcaster Michael Wood tells the story of King Alfred the Great, arguing that he and his descendants were England's most influential and important rulers. In the first edition, the presenter details a desperate guerrilla war in Somerset, and establishes how Alfred laid the foundations for a single kingdom of `all the English'. Filmed in locations including Reading and Rome, with contributions by leading scholars.


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Wednesday 7th August

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

The Culture Show: Venice - A Tale of Two Cities
BBC2, 10:00-10:30pm

Alastair Sooke heads to Venice with historian Bendor Grosvenor to explore the art the city has to offer, with each putting forward the case for their favourite styles and periods. Alastair is passionate about the contemporary art being exhibited at the Biennale, while Bendor prefers the work of the Renaissance masters who changed the very nature of painting, and landscape artists who dominated the 18th century.


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Thursday 8th August

Factual > Health & Wellbeing > Documentaries

The Men Who Made Us Thin
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/4

In the first of this four-part series, Jacques examines the scientific reasons why so many diets fail long-term and why - in spite of this failure - we go back to them again and again.

Travelling to the US and speaking to industry insiders, he discovers some of the secrets of the industry.  The knowledge that dieting is problematic was realised by scientists back in the 1940s and 1950s. Jacques asks whether this research influenced the modern diet industry, which often relies on returning customers who blame themselves for failure when the diet doesn't deliver a long-term solution.

Jacques speaks to a former director of Weight Watchers, who admits that customer failure was a significant factor in the company's profits: people have to keep coming back. In addition, Peretti meets other industry leaders, including Slimfast billionaire Danny Abrahams and Pierre Dukan, of the Dukan diet, to question them about the strategy behind the fortunes they’ve made.


Factual > Drugs > Health & Wellbeing > Documentaries

Legally High
Channel 4, 10:00-11:10pm

Recent years have seen a step-change in Britain's drug culture. Out go the 'old' illegal drugs - cocaine, heroin, speed - swept to one side by a younger generation who can get their hits not only more cheaply but also legally.

The new drugs are legal to buy because they're sold as research chemicals and labelled 'not for human consumption'.

This hard-hitting observational documentary - directed by triple BAFTA-award winner Dan Reed - takes a trip into a murky world where underground chemists invent new drugs faster than the government can legislate against them.


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Friday 9th August

Factual > News > Current Affairs > Documentaries

How to get a Council House
4Seven, 9:00-10:00pm

How do councils cope with a lack of properties and a surplus of people in need of homes with affordable rent?  With 1.8 million people on England's social housing list, this series looks at how Tower Hamlets and Manchester councils are dealing with the problems caused by a lack of affordable homes.


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Thursday 25 July 2013

Off-air recordings for week 27 July - 2 August 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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Sunday 28th July

Factual > History > Documentaries

The Mystery of Rome's X Tombs
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm

Historian Dr Michael Scott unlocks the secrets of a mysterious tomb recently discovered in one of Rome's famous catacombs. Found by accident following a roof collapse, the tombs contained over 2,000 skeletons piled on top of each other. This was quite unlike any other underground tomb seen in Rome. They are located in an area of the catacombs marked as 'X' in the Vatican's underground mapping system - hence the name The X Tombs.

Michael Scott joins Profs Dominique Castex and Philippe Blanchard, head of a team of French archaeologists with experience of investigating mass grave sites. Carbon dating the bodies suggest they died from the late 1st century AD to the early 3rd century AD, which would mean these people lived and died during Rome's golden age.

The remains of an early Medieval fresco were found on the wall sealing the tomb suggesting this could be the last resting place of a group of unknown Christian martyrs. But the bones don't show the signs of physical trauma you would expect after a violent death.

The bodies were a mixture of men and women, most of them late-teenagers and young adults. They were placed in the tombs with great care, packed in head to foot. Further clues suggest they were laid to rest after a series of mass death events. This raises the idea they may have died from disease.

The streets of Ancient Rome were like an open sewer and the famous roman baths were also a breeding ground for infection. DNA expert and palaeogeneticist Johannes Krause is called in to try to identify what disease may have killed them.

Meanwhile, the French team uncover further clues to the identity of the people. They find cultural connections with Northern Africa. Was this a wealthy immigrant community? Or a select group of Ancient Rome's elite?


Documentaries > Biography

Alan Whicker: Journeys to the End
ITV1, 10:15-11:10pm

In tribute to the veteran broadcaster who died recently this documentary looks back at the ground-breaking, 50 year career of Alan Whicker. This is the story of a TV pioneer who brought the world into our living rooms – whether he was in Venice or Palm Beach, Hong Kong or the Australian Outback, on the QE2 or Orient Express, or simply interviewing some of the planet’s most fascinating characters - from plastic surgeons to the rich and famous.

We will hear from those who worked with Alan Whicker, from those who encountered him on and off screen, and from other broadcasters who were touched and inspired by his work on revolutionary series like Tonight and Whicker’s World.


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Monday 29th July

Documentaries > News > Current Affairs

NHS Undercover
Channel 4, 8:00-9:00pm


News

Panorama - Tainted Love: Secrets of the Dating Game
BBC1, 8:30-9:00pm

Panorama exposes the tricks of the UK's online dating industry, worth millions of pounds a year. Reporter Fiona Walker investigates how some unscrupulous dating websites are preying on those looking for love and searching for their perfect partner. She reveals a world where millions of photos and private details are taken from social media sites without people's consent and reused to set up fake profiles of imaginary potential partners to tempt the lovelorn. Celebrities, politicians and even children are among those whose personal information has been targeted. Whistleblowers reveal how they create fake profiles and adopt multiple personas to reel in those looking for love - all to boost profits.


Factual > Science & Nature > Nature & Environment > Documentaries

The Secret Life of Rockpools
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm

Paleontologist Professor Richard Fortey embarks on a quest to discover the extraordinary lives of rock pool creatures. To help explore this unusual environment he is joined by some of the UK's leading marine biologists in a dedicated laboratory at the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth. Here and on the beach in various locations around the UK, startling behaviour is revealed and new insights are given into how these animals cope with intertidal life. Many popular rock pool species have survived hundreds of millions of years of Earth's history, but humans may be their biggest challenge yet.


Factual > History > Documentaries

The Baby Born in a Concentration Camp
BBC1, 10:35-11:10pm

Anka Bergman gave birth to her baby daughter Eva in a Nazi concentration camp.

During her pregnancy, Anka witnessed the horrors of Auschwitz and endured six months of forced labour. If the Nazis found a woman was pregnant, she could be sent straight to the gas chambers. Amazingly, Anka's pregnancy went unnoticed for months.

Anka eventually gave birth - on the day she arrived at an extermination camp. Anka weighed just five stone and was on the brink of starvation; baby Eva weighed just three pounds.

Remarkably, both mother and daughter survived, and are living in Cambridge. Now they tell their story.


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Tuesday 30th July

Documentaries

Why Don't You Speak English?
Channel 4, 9:00-10:00pm, 2/2

The four immigrants are halfway through their period of learning English. After a week spent living with their British hosts, the immigrants now turn the tables as they welcome the Brits into their own homes.

The Brits are about to get a crash course in immigration - why people come here, how hard it is for them to communicate, and how isolated they can become.


Factual > Religion & Ethics > Documentaries

Kumbh Mela: The Greatest Show on Earth
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm

February 2013, Allahabad, India. Over the next 55 days, nearly a hundred million people will come here, to the Great Kumbh Mela. This incredible and awe-inspiring celebration of the world's oldest religion happens every 12 years at the place where Hindus believe two sacred rivers meet. For many Hindus this is their most important pilgrimage, and it happens at one of the most holy sites in India. Hindus come to cleanse themselves in the sacred waters of the river Ganges, to pray and emerge purified and renewed.

This follows British pilgrims as they embark on a once-in-a-lifetime spiritual journey. A journey that will take them into the heart of Hinduism - its philosophy, its beliefs and its traditions. A journey that will culminate in the largest ever gathering of humans in one place.



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

Imagine... Zaha Hadid: Who Dares Wins
BBC1, 10:35-11:50pm

Alan Yentob profiles the most successful female architect there has ever been. Born in Baghdad in 1950 and based in London, Zaha Hadid is now one of a handful of global superstar designers who have changed the way people think about the world through buildings. Yet this hasn't always been the case; Hadid once had a reputation as unbuildable, a 'paper architect' whose projects began as vivid paintings of gravity-defying shapes exploding into the void. How did this extraordinary woman - by turns charming, stubborn, visionary yet exacting - come to build the impossible? imagine... visits her buildings across the globe - from Austria to Azerbaijan - to find out, as Alan Yentob explores what makes Zaha Hadid tick.


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Wednesday 31st July

Factual > Crime > Documentaries

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

The final part of the series is called ‘The Lost Body’. This episode will focus on the dramatic revelations during the original police investigation, as the truth emerged that the Evans murder was not a one-off, and Brady and Hindley were serial killers. We reveal how during this inquiry, and the fresh investigation in 1987, all the cases bar one were resolved: Keith Bennett's body was never recovered. We explore how, as Brady and Hindley circled each other like scorpions over the years, their manipulations contributed to the agony for Keith's family. And we see also how Myra's relentless campaign to shift public opinion and win release muddied the truth.


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

Bought with Love: The Secret History of British Art Collections
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm, 3/3 - The Age of the Individual

Helen Rosslyn explores how collecting reached its maturity in the 19th century when unprecedented wealth from Britain's booming economy encouraged enlightened, philanthropic industrialists to spend their fortunes on art, and in many cases then donate their collections to the nation.

With different taste from the British aristocracy who had dominated collecting to this point, a new breed of art buyer enriched Britain's cultural story by acquiring adventurous and often avant-garde work. Helen looks at the influence of pharmaceutical magnate Thomas Holloway, the Rothschild banking dynasty and the Welsh Davies sisters.


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Thursday 1st August

Documentaries > News > Environment > Current Affairs

Tonight: Throwaway Britain
ITV1, 9:00-10:00pm

With some recycling rates across the nation as low as 14 per cent, and more than a third of household waste ending up in landfill sites, Jonathan Maitland investigates what happens to the millions of tons of rubbish the public throws away annually, and examines ways in which people can reduce the amount they generate.


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Friday 2nd August

Documentaries > Science and Nature > Environment

What's Killing Our Honey Bees? A Horizon Special
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm

Bees may provide the soundtrack to the British summer, but they also play a hugely significant - and often underestimated - role in the life of the countryside. Bees are worth £430 million to Britain’s agriculture, and one third of what we eat is reliant on bee pollination. Yet their numbers have been falling dramatically.

This year, the EU banned the use of neonicotinoid pesticides in an attempt to reduce bee death, but the UK and US governments argued against the ban. In this film, journalist and bee enthusiast Bill Turnbull will guide us through the bewildering and conflicting science in a bid to understand what is killing our bees. Exploring the science at the heart of the bee controversy, he’ll investigate why bee numbers are falling, and ask whether pesticides really are to blame - and what other factors might be contributing to the decline.

The film focuses on two remarkable experiments that scientists are carrying out to find answers. Each involves a hive of bees where the bees have been fitted with cutting-edge tracking equipment to monitor what happens to them once they fly out of the hive. The bees carry tiny radar transponders which can then be tracked, and the idea of these experiments is to find out how the behaviour of bees is affected by two of the proposed culprits - pesticides and the varroa mite, which carries a lethal virus. In a series of hands-on experiments, Horizon reveals the surprising intelligence and detailed communication of our native bees. Bill Turnbull brings his sense of journalistic enquiry to weigh the evidence and try and


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Tuesday 16 July 2013

Off-air recording for week 20-26 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 20th July

Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media > History

David Starkey's Music and Monarchy
BBC2, 8:10-9:10pm, 1/4 - Crown of Choir

Dr David Starkey reveals how the story of British music was shaped by its monarchy. In this first episode he begins with kings who were also composers - Henry V and Henry VIII - and the golden age of English music they presided over. He discovers how the military and religious ambitions of England's monarchy made its music the envy of Europe - and then brought it to the brink of destruction - and why British music still owes a huge debt to Queen Elizabeth I.

Featuring specially recorded music performances from King's College Cambridge, Canterbury Cathedral and Eton College, and early music ensemble Alamire; and the music of Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, John Dunstable and John Dowland.

Dr Starkey reveals why Henry V took a choir with him to the Battle of Agincourt, and hears the music the king wrote to keep God on-side in his crusade against the French - rarely performed in the centuries since, and now sung by the choir at Canterbury Cathedral. He visits Eton College, founded by Henry VI, where today's choristers sing from a hand-illuminated choir-book which would have been used by their 16th-century predecessors; King's College, Cambridge, built by successive generations of monarchs and still world-famous for its choir; and the Chapel Royal at Hampton Court Palace, where Henry VIII and Elizabeth I heard works created especially for their worship by some of the greatest composers in British history.


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Monday 22nd July

Factual > Documentaries

Privacy Under Pressure
BBC Radio 4, 9:00-9:30am, 2/3

Continuing his series on the state of privacy in Britain today, Steve Hewlett looks at the impact on visual privacy of technological developments like improved CCTV cameras, advancing face recognition software, drones and Google Glass.


Religion > Beliefs

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

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

Taliban Child Fighters
Channel 4, 8:00-8:30pm

More than 200 children convicted of fighting for the Taliban are currently being held in special prisons across Afghanistan. Their crimes include the laying of improvised explosive devices, ambush and the preparation of suicide missions. Dispatches has had unique access to meet the captured child fighters, to document their experiences and tell their stories.

Fifteen-year-old Hanan comes from a line of guerrilla soldiers; his father fought for the Taliban, his grandfather for the Mujahadeen. He took up arms after his father was killed in a NATO air strike and, as a young teenager, Hanan went on to command his own cell of child combatants.

He is serving a two-year sentence after surrendering during a shoot-out with government forces. Like many of these children Hanan has had little formal education, and has only been schooled in a madrasa. Despite attempts made within the prison to provide learning and change his mindset, Hanan is unrepentant.

As well as visiting two of these prisons, award winning film-maker Najibullah Quraishi travels to an orphanage in Helmand province. Here he meets 10-year-old Neaz who was seized by the Taliban to perform a special mission, after his entire family was killed in a NATO bombing raid.

Neaz describes how the Taliban members who abducted him tried to persuade him to become a suicide bomber, but he escaped during the night, walked toward the nearest town and handed himself in to police.

Children of the Taliban offers a unique perspective on the ongoing conflict and raises important questions about the legacy of western intervention in Afghanistan.

After 12 years of bitter fighting and with the insurgents proving a resilient enemy, when NATO pulls out are we leaving behind another traumatised generation destined to continue the conflict?


Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media > Arts > Life Stories > Documentaries

The Richard Burton Diaries
BBC4, 10:30-11:00pm

Richard Burton's talent, presence and unforgettable voice made him a superstar of stage and screen. The Welsh actor was equally famous for his hellraising, womanising private life and his two marriages to Elizabeth Taylor. Now private diaries he wrote at the height of his fame have been published in their entirety for the first time and present a unique opportunity to reassess the man behind the myth.



Factual > Life Stories > Documentaries

Elizabeth Taylor: England's Other Elizabeth
BBC4, 11:00-11:55pm

Profile drawn from Elizabeth Taylor's visit to Britain in 2000, during which she received her damehood from the Queen. Hollywood's last great star talks for the first time in years about her career, her life, and the challenges of the future.

From her early days as a child star in Lassie Come Home and National Velvet to becoming the century's biggest star of all - in Cleopatra - her life, her loves and her work have all been lived to an intensity no other star can match.

Joined by Shirley MacLaine, Rod Steiger, and Angela Lansbury, Taylor remembers the glory days of working with Richard Burton, Montgomery Clift, Rock Hudson, James Dean and Paul Newman; how filming never stopped regardless of what life threw at her; the pain and pleasure of two Oscars - one for a film she can hardly bear to remember; and, not least, the feelings she has for Britain where she was born and how it was her English accent that launched on the way to stardom at the very beginning.


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Tuesday 23rd July

Religion > Beliefs

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


Language > Documentaries

Why Don't You Speak English?
Channel 4, 9:00-10:00pm

First-generation immigrants are taught English by an ordinary British family, for one week, and in the family's own home.  There are almost one million immigrants living in the UK who don't speak very good English. This two-part series follows four first-generation immigrants as they try to learn the language for the first time.


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Wednesday 24th July

Religion > Beliefs

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


Criminology > Serial Killers > Psychology

Myra Hindley: The Untold Story
Channel 5, 8:00-9:00pm, 2/3 - The Ones the got Away

The stories of Brady and Hindley's five known murder victims and the accounts of the children who got away - most notably David Smith, who was groomed as Brady's next acolyte. The film reveals the meticulous planning that preceded the murders, the bizarre details of the crimes and Brady's fascination with Hitler, Saddleworth Moor and the Marquis de Sade.



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

Bought With Love: The Secret History of British Art Collections
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm, 2/3

Art historian Helen Rosslyn traces the stories of the people whose enthusiasm for art, sense of adventure and wealth built Britain's national collection and shaped the history of art of the nation.


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Thursday 25th July

Religion > Beliefs

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


Law > Documentaries

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

On this evidence (and The Briefs is all about evidence) the clients of Manchester-based Tuckers are a rum bunch. Once again, ITV’s cameras have had impressive access to the busiest legal aid law firm in Britain, whose lawyers defend clients accused of all manner of offences. Some 70 per cent of their business is repeat, which means the firm has the air of a dysfunctional family.

One staffer reminisces about how innocent a man accused of armed robbery looked when he first came to them as a little lad; he’s now on his 36th matter with Tuckers. No matter how many police documentaries you’ve seen, the angle here is different.

There’s something about the relaxed consultation between brief and accused, often discussing serious and violent crimes, which is a real shocker. “If you brandish an axe in a public place,” one legal adviser coolly tells her client, “that would contravene conditions of your ASBO.”


Criminology > Documentaries

Catching a Killer: Crocodile Tears
Channel 4, 10:00-11:00pm

documentary looks beyond fake tears to reveal stories of deception and betrayal, when people who have feigned innocence or made public appeals for information - often on camera - committed the crime themselves.

The programme re-examines the Philpott case, in which Mick and his wife Mairead, who took part in a press conference after their house fire killed six children, were finally convicted of their manslaughter in April 2013, along with their best friend Paul Mosley.

The film contains interviews with Paul Mosley's brother Bryan, Darshna Soni, who covered the story for Channel 4 News, Mick Philpott's former partner of several years and 'star' witness to his trial Heather Keogh.


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Friday 26th July

Religion > Beliefs

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


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Tuesday 9 July 2013

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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Tuesday 2 July 2013

Off-air recordings for week 6-12 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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Sunday 7th July

Factual > Science & Nature > Documentaries

Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life
BBC4, 7:00-8:00pm

David Attenborough asks three key questions: how and why did Darwin come up with his theory of evolution? Why do we think he was right? And why is it more important now than ever before?

David starts his journey in Darwin's home at Down House in Kent, where Darwin worried and puzzled over the origins of life. He goes back to his roots in Leicestershire, where he hunted for fossils as a child and where another schoolboy unearthed a significant find in the 1950s, and he revisits Cambridge University, where both he and Darwin studied and where many years later the DNA double helix was discovered, providing the foundations for genetics.

At the end of his journey in the Natural History Museum in London, David concludes that Darwin's great insight revolutionised the way in which we see the world. We now understand why there are so many different species, and why they are distributed in the way they are. But above all, Darwin has shown us that we are not set apart from the natural world, and do not have dominion over it. We are subject to its laws and processes, as are all other animals on earth to which, indeed, we are related.


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

Timeshift: Between the Lines - Railways in Fiction and Film
BBC4, 8:00-9:00pm

Novelist Andrew Martin presents a documentary examining how the train and the railways came to shape the work of writers and film-makers.

Lovers parting at the station, runaway carriages and secret assignations in confined compartments - railways have long been a staple of romance, mystery and period drama. But at the beginning of the railway age, locomotives were seen as frightening and unnatural. Wordsworth decried the destruction of the countryside, while Dickens wrote about locomotives as murderous brutes, bent on the destruction of mere humans. Hardly surprising, as he had been involved in a horrific railway accident himself.

Martin traces how trains gradually began to be accepted - Holmes and Watson were frequent passengers - until by the time of The Railway Children they were something to be loved, a symbol of innocence and Englishness. He shows how trains made for unforgettable cinema in The 39 Steps and Brief Encounter, and how when the railways fell out of favour after the 1950s, their plight was highlighted in the films of John Betjeman.

Finally, Martin asks whether, in the 21st century, Britain's railways can still stir and inspire artists.


Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media > Life Stories > Documentaries

Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm

Alice Walker made history as the first black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her groundbreaking novel The Color Purple, in 1983. It was transformed into a Hollywood movie nominated for 11 Oscars and more recently to a successful Broadway musical. This film follows this extraordinary woman's journey from her birth in a shack in the cotton fields of Georgia to her recognition as a key writer of the 20th century.

The Color Purple's theme of triumph against the odds is not that different from Alice's own experience. Her early life unfolded in the midst of violent racism and poverty during some of the most turbulent years of profound social and political upheaval in North American history. Her writing was a vital voice at a time when the personal became the political.

Featuring interviews with Steven Spielberg and Quincy Jones, this is a penetrating insight into the life and work of an artist, a self-confessed renegade and passionate human rights activist.



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Monday 8th July

Religion > Documentaries

A Very British Ramadan
Channel 4, 8:00-8:30pm

Rashid Khan - former professional rugby league player and star of the award-winning Make Bradford British - travels across Britain, exploring the physical, logistical and spiritual preparations for the holy month of Ramadan.

A Very British Ramadan is the first programme in 4Ramadan, a season of programmes reflecting what life is like for Britain's Muslim population who observe this religious festival.

From dawn to dusk Muslims around the world do not eat, drink, smoke or engage in sexual relations, in an attempt to focus on what's important, think about those who have less than them and better appreciate all that they have.

But during Ramadan, life also has to carry on as normal, often working in mentally and physically demanding environments and raising families.

Channel 4 follows and hears from a 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.


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Tuesday 9th July

Religion > Diaries > Factual

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

Nightly short films follow British Muslims as they observe Ramadan. Ramadan Diaries meets a cross-section of society - from doctors to radio djs, parents and children - to understand what Ramadan means to them. The films delve beyond the physical trial of fasting over Ramadan and seek to discover how the fast impacts at a deeper, spiritual level.

Using documentary footage, plus self-shot videos from participants, the films immerse the viewer in the world of fasting and give them an insight into what Ramadan is, as well as what it means to be Muslim in Britain today. The diaries cover a spectrum of everyday life and interesting characters, featuring a wide range of Muslims from across Britain, including some well-known faces.


Factual > Law > Crime > Documentaries

The Murder Trial
Channel 4, 9:00-11:10pm

After three years of negotiation, the Scottish High Court gave permission for this extraordinary and unique access: to film the case of a man accused of murdering his wife.

Her body has never been found, there is no weapon or crime scene, and her husband appears to have a cast iron alibi for the day she disappeared.

For the first time ever, remotely operated cameras have been placed inside a British criminal court to capture a murder trial in its entirety for this feature-length documentary.

Recorded over six weeks, this film shows the process of justice in a Scottish High Court like never before. With over 70 witnesses and 104 pieces of evidence, the complex case is dissected first by the Prosecution QC Alex Prentice and then the Defence QC John Scott.

The victim in the case is Arlene Fraser and her family have been waiting over 14 years for justice. Nat Fraser was first brought to trial in 2003 for the murder of his wife: he was found guilty.

But Fraser argued that the trial was a miscarriage of justice and challenged the verdict in the highest courts in the land. The case became a cause célèbre. Eventually, after years of protesting his innocence, the conviction was quashed in 2011.

In April 2012, Nat Fraser was sent back to the High Court in Edinburgh for a fresh trial, 14 years after his wife's disappearance. A new jury was sworn in to hear all the evidence against him. Would they find him innocent or convict him of murder?


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Wednesday 10th July

Factual > Health & Wellbeing > Sport > Football > Documentaries

Football's Suicide Secret
BBC3, 12:30-1:30am

Since the tragic suicide of Gary Speed in 2011, football has had to face up to a stigma in the game - mental illness. But is there a still taboo in the game? Footballer and chairman of the PFA Clarke Carlisle investigates depression - and even suicide - in British football and speaks to young players, managers and Gary Speed's family to find out why footballers are suffering in silence.


Factual > Science > Documentaries

Horizon: the Truth about Personality
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm

“As you get older, are things better, the same or worse than you thought they would be?” It’s a simple enough question, but it turns out to be a killer in its way. Michael Mosley learns that having positive beliefs about ageing, as revealed via questions like this, has been shown to give people an improvement in life-expectancy of, on average – and this is the staggering bit – seven-and-a-half years.

It’s one of many eye-opening findings here. Mosley has become TV’s wellbeing guru via brilliant programmes on dieting and exercise, but he is habitually anxious, negative and stressed: can the latest science help? It’s almost as interesting to see the magical home movies of Mosley as a child. Then, at least, he was happy.

Michael Mosley explores the latest research in genetics and neuroscience to find out what factors shape people's personalities and whether they can be changed. Michael tries two techniques in an attempt to make him worry less and become more of an optimist - with surprising results.


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

Who Were the Greeks?
BBC2, 11:20pm-12:20am, 2/2

Classicist Dr Michael Scott, explores the legacies of the Ancient Greeks, what they have given us today, and asks why these legacies have lasted through time.

Democracy, art, architecture, philosophy, science, sport, theatre - all can be traced back to ancient Greece. Travelling across the ancient Greek world, from Athens to Olympia, Macedon, Turkey and Sicily, Michael discovers why the ancient Greeks were so successful, why their culture and way of life spread across continents and through time and why they still have such a powerful hold over our imaginations today.



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Thursday 11th July

Factual > Crime > Documentaries

Brady and Hindley: Possession
ITV1, 9:00-10:00pm

This landmark documentary on the fiftieth anniversary of the first of the Moors murders raises new questions about a case which remains open and whose impact continues to be felt.

Produced by Wild Pictures (makers of recent, acclaimed ITV factual series Her Majesty’s Prison: Aylesbury) the film features first hand accounts from key figures and photographs taken by the killers to offer a fresh insight into the horrific crimes committed by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady.   They were sentenced to life in prison in 1966 for the murders of Lesley Ann Downey, 10, John Kilbride, 12, and Edward Evans, 17. In the mid-eighties they admitted that they had also killed Keith Bennett, 12, and Pauline Reade, 16.

The film includes a recording of Myra Hindley describing the killing that led to her capture, the trial of the century and reflecting on her crimes.

The recording, made for Myra Hindley biographer Duncan Staff, a consultant and contributor for the film, provides an insight into the calculated nature of the killings. She revealed to Staff how all the Moors murderers' burial sites were 'marked' using photographs, with Hindley and/or Brady posing by the graves.

In the film we hear from a child who was taken to Saddleworth moor by Brady and Hindley but came back alive. Speaking for the first time on television, Carol Waterhouse, a neighbour of Hindley's, describes how she and her brother were taken for a picnic there and tricked into posing in the area where Keith Bennett is believed to be buried.

“They seemed very nice. Friendly, not like other adults,” says Carol.

The film raises new questions about these grave-marking images. Experts tell the documentary they believe a set of photographs taken by Hindley and Brady - and handed to Staff - might be grave markers on a separate site away from Saddleworth Moor. Britain's leading forensic archaeologist, Professor John Hunter, is seen searching the site with body dogs....


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Friday 12th July

Documentaries >

World's Busiest.... Train Station
Channel 5, 8:00-9:00pm, 1/4

The series is a four-part co-production with GroupM Entertainment documenting the story of the busiest places on earth; from airports and train stations to hotels and border crossings.

The show combines technology and engineering with human stories to showcase the challenges and  logistics that being the ‘world’s busiest’ brings.

Each episode focuses on a different location. The first centres around the World’s Busiest Border Crossing (San Ysidro between Mexico and the US), the second is the World’s Busiest Airport (Hong Kong International), episode three travels to the World’s Busiest Train Station (Shinjuku Station in Tokyo) and the concluding programme takes a trip to the World’s Busiest Hotel (Venetian/Palazzo Las Vegas).


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