Off-air recordings for week 20-26 February 2010

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

Saturday 20th

Channel 4 - Waking the Baby Mammoth - "A team of scientists investigate the carcass of a one-month-old mammoth who was alive 40,000 years ago in the hope of finding out more about the creature's life and times."

Sunday 21st

BBC2 - Gardeners' World: A Year At Greenacre - "In 2009 Gardeners' World left its Warwickshire home to move to a brand new garden. Greenacre was the programme's first inner city garden and for presenter Toby Buckland that meant the challenge of creating a stunning garden from a former playing field.
Twelve months on and Toby's garden is taking shape. With new projects planned for 2010 it's time for Toby to reflect on the incredible journey the garden has made.
Toby looks back at his favourite moments during Greenacre's first year - from the creation of a stunning twilight border to tips on encouraging wildlife and the first successes of the vegetable gardens."

BBC2 - Natural World: A Highland Haven - "This stunningly beautiful film reveals the unique wildlife of the Scottish Highlands, seen through the eyes of filmmaker Fergus Beeley.
Based for a year at Loch Maree and the surrounding hills in Scotland's far north-west, Beeley presents his personal view of the shy animals whose lives are ruled by the rains. He follows the fortunes of rare black-throated divers and white-tailed sea eagles, which both breed there, while capturing the red deer and salmon whose lives also revolve around the loch.
With an evocative score provided by local musician Phil Cunningham, this enchanting film captures the magic of a very special place."

Monday 22nd

BBC1 - Panorama: Dying for a Biscuit - "If consumers knew that buying their favourite chocolate bar contributed to the extinction of the orangutan and fuelled global warming, would they still treat themselves?
The UK consumes huge amounts of palm oil, an ingredient found in scores of products including biscuits, fish fingers, cosmetics and toiletries. Reporter Raphael Rowe journeys into the rainforest of Borneo, where he uncovers evidence of palm oil companies cutting down trees illegally and developing plantations on protected land, the deforestation releasing huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the global environment.
As the forest disappears, at a rate of two football pitches every minute, so too does the habitat of man's closest cousins, the critically endangered orangutan."

Wednesday 23rd

BBC2 - Natural World: A Killer Whale Called Luna - "This is the emotional story of one young killer whale's quest for companionship after he was separated from his family. Luna was just two years old when, alone and confused, he found himself on the rugged, wild coast of Vancouver Island.
Following his tumultuous life, the film records the human friendships he developed and the trouble this led him into. From death threats, to numerous capture attempts by the government, the film-makers watched as people tried to determine his fate.
Luna shows us how quickly our lives can once again cross with the natural world."

BBC1 - The Day The Immigrants Left - "
Evan Davis presents a programme exploring the effects of immigration in the UK by focusing on Wisbech, a town in Cambridgeshire.
Since 2004 this once prosperous market town has received up to 9,000 immigrants seeking work - the majority from Eastern Europe. But with nearly 2,000 locals unemployed and claiming benefits, many of them blame the foreign workers for their predicament.
To test if the town needs so many foreign workers, immigrant employees are temporarily removed from their jobs, and the work given to the local unemployed. Now the town's British workers have a chance to prove they can do it.
Eleven British unemployed workers are recruited to go into a range of different Wisbech workplaces including a potato company, an asparagus farm, an Indian restaurant and a building site run by a local landlord.
Moving beyond the workplace, Evan Davis investigates how the town's local public services, such as schools and the NHS, are coping with the demands of the new arrivals.
As the British unemployed workers get to grips with their new jobs, this documentary examines the facts and dispels the myths around the subject of immigration."

Thursday 24th

Channel 4 - Cutting Edge: Scams, Claims and Compensation - "Since 'No Win, No Fee' lawyers hit the high street, Britain has been swamped with adverts encouraging us to put in a claim, and talk of a growing compensation culture has hit the headlines again and again.
Have we really been convinced that where there's blame there's a claim?
Cutting Edge delves into the multi-billion-Pound world of Britain's personal injury industry to find out if Britain is developing an American-style mania for suing, or if 'No Win, No Fee' lawyers are finally giving the little man a chance to fight back.
Meeting the lawyers and local authorities working on opposing sides, and following real-life cases as they unfold, the programme looks beyond the media headlines about personal injury claims to reveal who are the real winners and losers in Britain's compensation culture."

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* 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.

Off-air recordings for week 13-19 February 2010

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

Monday 15th

Channel 4 - Dispatches: Kids Don't Count - "In 2009 more than one in five children left primary school having failed to grasp the basic maths skills required by the national curriculum. In a two-part special, Dispatches asks why and how are we failing Britain's children when it comes to maths.
Dispatches follows a class of final-year pupils at Barton Hill Primary School in Bristol as their staff adopt a radical approach to teaching, in a bid to improve the maths ability of these children before they head off to secondary school.
The problem couldn't be more urgent. Research shows that failing to grasp the fundamentals of maths at primary school leaves only a one in ten chance of catching up by the age of 16... "

BBC4 - Storyville: The Most Dangerous Man In America - "In 1971, leading Vietnam War strategist Daniel Ellsberg concluded that the war was based on decades of lies. He leaked 7,000 pages of top-secret documents to the New York Times, a daring act of conscience that led directly to Watergate, President Nixon's resignation and the end of the Vietnam War."

Tuesday 16th

More4 - True Stories: Which Way Home? - "The Oscar-nominated Which Way Home follows unaccompanied child migrants as they journey through Mexico on a freight train they call 'The Beast', hoping to reach the USA.
Rebecca Cammisa's film tracks the stories of children like Olga and Freddy, nine-year-old Hondurans who are desperately trying to reach their families in Minnesota; Jose, a ten-year-old El Salvadoran who has been abandoned by smugglers and ends up alone in a Mexican detention centre; and Kevin, a canny, streetwise 14-year-old Honduran, whose mother hopes that he will reach New York City and send money back to his family.
These are stories of hope and courage, disappointment and sorrow. They are the stories most people never hear about: the invisible ones."

Thursday 18th

Channel 4 - My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding - "
Ancient traditions meet modern fashions in an ostentatious culture clash in the world of 21st-century gypsy and traveller weddings.
Gaining rare access to this fascinating and often misunderstood community, Cutting Edge uses the prism of the weddings to reveal a culture where brides compete to have the biggest dress but having children out of wedlock is still taboo and divorce is unheard of.
Considered 'on the shelf' at 20, many girls in Gypsy and Traveller communities get married soon after their 16th birthday with the support of their family.
The weddings are visual spectacles: girls parade into church in enormous dresses that sometimes weigh more than the bride herself. Although the women look sexually provocative there is a tradition of premarital chastity that is increasingly unusual in Britain today.
This is a community that lives alongside but detached from mainstream society. It is a community of contrasts, living by centuries-old religious and cultural traditions but at the same time embracing the gaudier extremes of the celebrity- and fashion-obsessed times in which we live."


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* 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.

Off-air recordings for week 6-12 February 2010

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

Sunday 7th

BBC2 - This World: Mexico's Drug War - "Violence is running out of control in Mexico as rival drug cartels battle over the smuggling routes to America. Mexico's president has declared war on the gangsters but the only result appears to be an escalation of the killings.
Katya Adler journeys deep into the heart of a shocking conflict, uncovering the human stories behind the seemingly random and disturbing violence. She asks whether the continuing freedom of the world's most powerful drug runner, Joaquin 'Chapo' Guzman, is evidence that the Government's war is toothless."


Monday 8th

ITV1 - To Kill A Mockingbird - "Oscar-winning adaptation of Harper Lee's novel about a trial in a prejudiced Southern town in the 1930s, told through the eyes of two children whose liberal lawyer father is defending a black farm worker accused of rape. Robert Duvall makes his film debut as a mysterious neighbour."

BBC2 - Generation Jihad - "Peter Taylor investigates the terrorist threat from young Muslim extremists radicalised on the internet.
Following the attempt to bomb an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day, this landmark series looks at the angry young men of Generation Jihad who have turned their backs on the country where they were born.
In the first episode, Peter hears from those convicted under Britain's newest anti-terror laws and investigates how some of the most notorious terrorists came to be radicalised. He finds a generation that has shed the moderate Islam their parents brought to this country, and instead have adopted a faith that they believe compels them to stand apart from Britain and its values."

Tuesday 9th

BBC4 - Getting Our Way - new 3 part series - "Getting our way is part of The Secret Life of the Government season on BBC Four. Also in this season is The Great Offices, looking into the work of Whitehall's three mightiest empires, the Treasury, the Foreign Office, and the Home Office."

More 4 - True Stories: Mafia Hunters - "This chilling film, showing in the True Stories strand, is a chilling insight into the 'Ndrangheta, the 'Cosa Nostra' of the Calabria region of Italy, told through the cat-and-mouse game in one small city between the local boss Toto Crea, the forces of law-and-order out to nail him and the corrupt officials who protect him.
The 'Ndrangheta are just as fearsome and just as feared as their Sicilian brothers but being family based, rarely admitting non-blood members, are all the harder to infiltrate or divide. But in 2000, the people of the small city of Rizziconi had had enough and through a fierce anonymous letter writing campaign, managed to get the city council dissolved by the Italian president.
In addition, the government appointed prosecutor Roberto Pennisi and Inspector Nico Morroni to look into the activities of the Crea family, an inquiry that was to take seven years before the truth was reached."

More 4 - True Stories: The Trials of Amanda Knox - "In a trial that gripped the world, American student Amanda Knox and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were eventually found guilty of the brutal murder of Knox's flatmate, British student Meredith Kercher.
Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison; she has maintained her innocence from the outset. This film, exclusive to the True Stories strand, gained intimate access to the Knox family and their friends for almost two years, beginning just after her arrest in November 2007.
It also includes extracts from letters Amanda wrote while awaiting trial and offers a unique insight into her life, getting behind the sensational headlines to answer the crucial question - who is the real Amanda Knox and was she really capable of murder?

Wednesday 10th

BBC2 - Natural World: Places of Essex - "Multi-award-winning writer Robert Macfarlane sets out on a journey to explore the unexpected landscapes and natural history of Essex, revealing that there is far more to the county than the stereotypes of white stilettos and boy racers.
Macfarlane spends a year travelling the county's strange and elemental landscapes of heavy industry, desolate beaches and wild woods. He encounters massive knot flocks over the Thames, peregrine falcons at Tilbury Power Station, water voles within sniffing distance of the municipal dump, deer rutting in earshot of the M25, barn owls, badgers and bluebells in Billericay as well as a large colony of common seals."

BBC2 - Horizon: To Infinity and Beyond - "By our third year, most of us will have learned to count. Once we know how, it seems as if there would be nothing to stop us counting forever. But, while infinity might seem like an perfectly innocent idea, keep counting and you enter a paradoxical world where nothing is as it seems.
Mathematicians have discovered there are infinitely many infinities, each one infinitely bigger than the last. And if the universe goes on forever, the consequences are even more bizarre. In an infinite universe, there are infinitely many copies of the Earth and infinitely many copies of you. Older than time, bigger than the universe and stranger than fiction. This is the story of infinity."

Thursday 11th

ITV1 - Facing The Enemy: Tonight - "Fiona Foster investigates whether meeting their victims cuts reoffending among criminals. She gets access to some of the police forces using this method, and meets those from both sides of the law who have been through this process. "

Channel 4 - Leaving Home At 8 - "Cutting Edge follows four eight-year-old girls as they adjust to a new life away from their parents and their home. Each of their parents has decided that their child will be better off boarding in a private school, in this instance Highfield, one of the best boarding schools in the UK.
But how do they cope being separated from their families at such a young age? And how in particular do the mothers deal with the difficult decision of sending their offspring away to be educated?"

BBC4 - Great Offices of State - new 3 part series - "Series in which reporter Michael Cockerell uncovers the secret world of Whitehall, showing what the trio of great offices - Home, Foreign and Treasury - are really like. In his look at the Home Office, Cockerell blends fresh access filming with unseen and rare archive and interviews with present and past home secretaries and their senior officials. Cameras follow the present incumbent Alan Johnson as he is briefed by the Home Office spin doctor about what to say to story-hungry journalists."

BBC Radio 4 - new 8 part series - Capturing America: Mark Lawson's History of Modern American Literature - "Talking to leading authors from Philip Roth and Toni Morrison to Stephen King and John Grisham, Mark Lawson tells the story of how American writing became the literary superpower of the 20th century.
Drawing on conversations with writers, including the last major interviews given by John Updike, Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut Jr, Capturing America charts how, from the Second World War to the conflict in Iraq, and from Roosevelt to Obama, novelists, playwrights and poets have tackled the big themes of modern American life: power, money, violence, sex, race, religion, depression and diversity.
Mark reveals his candidate for the title of most unfairly neglected modern American writer and will address the criticisms that contemporary American literature has suffered – too male, too big, too triumphalist. This series shows why the country's writing – like its politics – has provoked admiration, but also sometimes anger and resentment from other cultures. "

Friday 12th

Channel 4- Young, Angry and White -"In July 2009, almost a million voters chose the BNP in the EU elections. But it's not just traditional BNP voters swelling the ranks, with a recent survey finding one in 20 young people would vote BNP.
Against this backdrop, Peter Beard follows 19-year-old Kieren, who is considering joining the party.
Kieren is looking for a home in the BNP but is unsure that it represents his views. Having been a fervent nationalist from the age of 15, he is concerned that the BNP is losing its radical edge and selling out its racial policies.
His choice is made more difficult by the fact he comes from a moderate family who find many of his far-right views shocking. There is concern that the opinions and choices he is making at a young age could have serious consequences for his future.
This fascinating First Cut documentary offers an insight into a young person's attraction to a party whose policies and image continue to cause extreme controversy throughout the country."


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* 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.

Off-air recordings for week 30th Jan - 5th Feb 2010

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

Wednesday 3rd

More4 - Haiti's Killer Quake: Why It Happened - "On 12 January 2010 a massive earthquake rocked the Caribbean nation of Haiti. The ensuing devastation has created what could become the biggest humanitarian crisis of the past decade.
This timely documentary looks at what happened and why, using 3D graphics and location footage to pick apart the mechanics of the quake itself. Looking deeper into the earth's crust, the programme uncovers the immense tectonic forces that led to the quake.
In the first ten years of the 21st century earthquakes have claimed over half a million lives, all from a total of less than 15 minutes of ground movement. The programme examines these events to find out what they reveal about the Haiti quake.
But ultimately earthquakes don't kill people, buildings do. Poor construction and overcrowded cities caused the vast majority of deaths. Could Haitians have constructed buildings that would have survived the quake?
It's a question of immense importance for the whole region as geologists believe that the current quake is just one of a sequence of huge tremors that will hit the Caribbean within the next 40 years.
What's in store for the region and will geologists ever be able to predict these catastrophes?"

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* 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.

Off-air recordings for week 23-29 January 2009

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

Sunday 24th

Channel 4 - The Bible: A History - new 7 part series - "The Bible: A History tells the story of the most influential book ever written: a collection of over 60 books which tell the story of the creation of the world, the birth of mankind, the promise of a homeland for the Jewish people and the remarkable life of Jesus Christ, before culminating in a terrifying vision of the end of the world.
Since its origins thousands of years ago in the Middle East, the Bible has crossed continents, created and healed divisions and ignited controversy.
This series explores the origins, ideas and influence of seven sections of the Scriptures, tracing how they came into existence and how they have shaped the world we live in today.
Each film is written and presented by a prominent figure with a particular interest or experience relevant to the part of the Bible being examined. They offer a personal interpretation of some of the best-known aspects of this ancient book, which still guides the lives of millions of believers across the globe."

More4 - Captive for 18 Years: The Jaycee Lee Dugard Story - "In June 1991, Jaycee Lee Dugard was waiting at the bus stop on her way to school in South Lake Tahoe when a man and a woman pulled up in a grey Ford saloon, jumped out, bundled her into the car and drove off. The kidnap was witnessed by Jaycee Lee's stepfather, who chased in vain after the car.
Eighteen years later, on 24 August 2009, an investigation began that would lead to an astounding discovery: Jaycee Lee Dugard was alive and for the last 18 years had been held captive by a notorious sex offender.
Jaycee Lee had given birth to two daughters, fathered by the sex offender, Phillip Garrido. Jaycee Lee and her daughters had been kept in a maze of tents and sheds in the back garden of Garrido's home in Antioch, California.
Featuring interviews with some of those closest to the young Jaycee, including family members, classmates and her headmistress, Cutting Edge also meets the neighbours and business associates of her captor Philip Garrido, and the investigators involved in her case, to piece together one of the most incredible missing person stories of all time.
The programme includes an interview with Carl Probyn, Jaycee Lee's stepfather, who witnessed the kidnap. He was the prime suspect in the case for 18 years. His marriage to Jaycee Lee's mother broke up; his life, to all intents and purposes, was ruined.
He reveals his story from the day he saw his stepdaughter kidnapped: his anguished 911 call to the police, how the events of the day changed his life forever, and the joy and sadness that engulfed him when he heard she'd been found alive and well."

Monday 25th

BBC4 - Shooting The War - 3 part series - "‘Shooting the War’ produced by Bristol based indie Available Light, shows WW 2 in Britain and Germany as it has rarely been seen: through the lens of home movie makers. Some of these amateur film enthusiasts were soldiers who took their cameras to the front line and filmed men at war; others who stayed at home recorded everyday life on the home front. At first, they filmed the novelty of war.
But they did more. German and British home movie makers at the front lines filmed the horrors of war alongside the mundane and the monotony of life as a soldier or airman. Those who stayed at home continued to film even when death and destruction came to their own doorsteps.
These remarkable amateur films and the stories of the fighting men, women and children in them, take us into the heart of the wartime experiences of ordinary people and show us how they survived these extraordinary times."

Wednesday 27th

BBC2- Munro: Mountain Man - "Little more than 100 years ago, Scottish mountains standing at more than 3,000 feet were virtually unknown. Today they are familiar terrain to many thousands of climbers, thanks to Victorian adventurer Hugh Munro's determination to list the high peaks which now define the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.
This documentary tells the story of the magnificent peaks that bear his name and the people who have been possessed by them.
The birth of this obsession - now known as Munrobagging - is a twisting tale of intrigue, which presenter Nicholas Crane unravels high on the ridges and pinnacles of some of Scotland's most spectacular mountains."

BBC2 - Natural World: The Chimp Cam Project - "Wildlife documentary. How does a chimpanzee see the world? A research project at Edinburgh Zoo is designed to answer just that question in an innovative new way - by training chimps to use video touch screens and giving them a special chimp-proof camera.
How will they react to tools which in evolutionary terms are a few million years ahead of them? As chimp specialist Betsy Herrelko finds out, trying to communicate with chimps using video technology has its trials and tribulations as power struggles, bites and fights get in the way of the hairy chimp directors. However, by the end of the programme we are privileged to see the world's first film shot by chimpanzees."

BBC2 - Tsunami: Five Years On - "The Boxing Day tsunami of 2004 was just the beginning, for those who survived. A massive earthquake caused a tidal wave that killed a quarter of a million people, but many millions more found their lives changed forever. This documentary tells the powerful story of how the survivors have tried to rebuild their lives; such as the mother in Thailand who is fighting property developers to protect the memory of her drowned daughter."

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* 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.

Off-air recordings for week 16-22 January 2010

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


Saturday 16th


BBC 2 - The Legacy of Lawrence of Arabia - "In the First World War, T.E Lawrence helped to unite feuding Arab tribes into a formidable guerrilla army which helped to topple the Ottoman Empire. But today Lawrence has an extraordinary new relevance. His experiences of defeating a foreign military occupation, and of leading an insurgency, have led to him being held up as the man who cracked fighting in the Middle East... Drawing a comparison between Lawrence's experience and today, Rory explains how Lawrence came to the conclusion that foreign military interventions in the Middle East are fundamentally unworkable. He concludes, 'Looking at Iraq and Afghanistan today I believe very strongly that Lawrence's message would not have been do it better, do it more sensitively, but don't do it at all.'."



Monday 18th



BBC 2 - A History of the World: A Culture Show Special - "A special edition of The Culture Show marking the start of a landmark project in which the BBC and the British Museum focus on the span of human history through one hundred objects held at the museum.
This programme, presented by Mishal Husain from the British Museum, profiles all the elements of the project which includes one hundred programmes on Radio 4, a massive online factor, as well as programmes on CBBC and coverage from the BBC right across the country.
It examines in detail some of the objects featured on the British Museum's list. Sir David Attenborough examines the oldest object on the list, a stone hand axe almost two million years old; while Mishal Husain finds out more about the famous statue of Ramessess II.
Matthew Collings looks at a number of objects that illustrate the role of royalty through the course of human history, including a macabre depiction in stone of a Mayan blood-letting ceremony from 1300 years ago."


Tuesday 19th


BBC 2 - Obama and Me - "It has been quite a year for America's first black president.
Promising change and appealing for unity, Barack Obama won his way into two wars and the worst recession since the 1930s. But his freshman year soon became a bitter battle over cash, colour and capitalism.
Across the USA, This World has followed the lives of ordinary Americans, among them a reformed gangster and the wife of a US air force captain.
They voted for Obama and had high hopes for his presidency; but how have their lives been changed in Obama's first year? Can the president deliver on the huge promise of his candidacy, or will their hopes be dashed?
One year on, they give their verdict. "


BBC 2 - How Earth Made Us - new 5 part series - "Iain Stewart tells the epic story of how the planet has shaped our history. With spectacular images, surprising stories and a compelling narrative, the series discovers the central role played in human history by four different planetary forces.
In this first episode Iain explores the relationship between the deep Earth and the development of human civilisation. He visits an extraordinary crystal cave in Mexico, drops down a hole in the Iranian desert and crawls through seven-thousand-year-old tunnels in Israel.
His exploration reveals that throughout history, our ancestors were strangely drawn to fault line, areas which connect the surface with the deep interior of the planet. These fault lines gave access to important resources, but also brought with them great danger."


Wednesday 20th


BBC 2 - Obama's First year: Reality Bites - "Gavin Esler presents a Newsnight special looking back at the drama and battles of Barack Obama's first year in office. Can the new president live up to his promise to bring change to America and to the world?"


Thursday 21st


BBC 4 - Time - "Series in which Michio Kaku goes on an extraordinary exploration of the world in search of time.
In the opening part he asks whether time comes from within our minds and bodies or from outside? He travels to Los Angeles to find fish with an extraordinarily precise sense of time, and meets a family whose body clocks force them to wake at 4am every day.
Michio undergoes a brain scan that reveals an area of the brain devoted to detecting the passing of time. But can this sense be altered by fear - an experiment where people free-fall 100-feet backwards is undertaken to find out. Michio also meets a man who, with no memory and no sense of time, is unable to lead a normal life."


BBC 4 - Chemistry - a Volatile History - "Series in which Jim Al-Khalili traces the story of how the elements, the building blocks that make up our entire world, were discovered and mapped. He follows in the footsteps of the pioneers who cracked their secrets and created the new science of chemistry. The belief that were only four elements - earth, fire, air and water - persisted until the 19th Century. Al-Khalili looks at the alchemists who began questioning this, revealing the red herrings and rivalries which dogged progress."

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* 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.

Off-air recordings for week 9-15 January 2010

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

Monday 11th

BBC 2 - The British Family - 1/4 'Marriage' - "Kirsty Young begins a history of how British families have changed since the Second World War by looking at marriage.
Using vibrant archive footage and bittersweet interviews, she examines how, from the 1940s to the late 1960s, marriage was transformed from a sometimes stifling institution into a more equal relationship. She discovers that although many marriages are now happier, the growing tide of divorce continues unstemmed."

Tuesday 12th

BBC 2 - Simon Schama on Obama's America - 2-parts - "Simon Schama considers potential strategies for Obama's inherited conflict in Afghanistan and asks whether President Obama will act decisively to rein in Wall Street."

BBC 4 - The Diary of Anne Frank - 5 part dramatisation - "The rights to The Diary Of Anne Frank rarely become available. The BBC and Darlow Smithson Productions have worked closely with the Anne Frank-Fonds, the charitable foundation promoting social and cultural projects in the spirit of Anne Frank, to ensure complete authenticity for the drama."

BBC 4- Lost Kingdoms of Africa - 4 part series (Missed part 1) - "Four-part series in which British art historian Dr Gus Casely-Hayford explores the pre-colonial history of some of Africa's most important kingdoms.The African continent is home to nearly a billion people. It has an incredible diversity of communities and cultures, yet we know less of its history than almost anywhere else on earth.But that is beginning to change. In the last few decades researchers and archaeologists have begun to uncover a range of histories as impressive and extraordinary as anywhere else in the world.The series reveals that Africa's stories are preserved for us in its treasures, statues and ancient buildings - in the culture, art and legends of the people.The first episode looks at Nubia, in what is now northern Sudan, a kingdom that dominated a vast area of the eastern Sahara for thousands of years. Its people were described as barbarians and mercenaries, and yet Nubia has left us with some of the most spectacular monuments in the world.Casely-Hayford traces the origins of this fascinating kingdom back to 10,000 BC. He explores how it developed and what happened to it and its people, discovering that its kings once ruled Ancient Egypt and that it was defeated not by its rivals but by its environment."

Wednesday 13th

BBC 2 - Horizon - Why Do Viruses Kill? - "Just months ago, the world stood in fear of an emerging new disease that threatened to kill millions. A new flu variant H1N1 had arrived. In the UK alone, 65,000 deaths were predicted. Yet to date, these dire warnings have not materialised.
If this latest pandemic has taught anything, it is just how little is understood about the invisible world of viruses. But that has not stopped scientists trying.
Horizon follows the leading researchers from across the world, who are attempting to unravel the many secrets of viruses to understand when and why they kill."

Thursday 14th

BBC 2 - Jimmy's Global Harvest 2/4 - "Jimmy Doherty sets out to discover if the world's farmers will be able to feed us in the future.
Demand for food is expected to double within the next 40 years. Yet we can only grow food on four per cent of the earth's surface, the climate is changing and resources like water and fuel are under threat. Jimmy meets the men and women who claim to have new techniques and new technologies that will help meet these challenges."

Channel 4 - Kevin McCloud: Slumming It - 2-parts - "As part of Channel 4's Indian Winter season, Kevin McCloud discovers a world of curious juxtapositions in one of the most extreme urban environments on earth: Dharavi, Mumbai.
Having heard bigwig architects, planners and even Prince Charles claiming that Dharavi has the answers to some of the biggest problems facing our Western cities, Kevin embarks on a journey to lift the lid on this place himself. With a million people crammed into one square mile, Dharavi is one of the most densely populated places on earth. It is also one of Asia's biggest slums.
As a way of experiencing the good and bad of Dharavi first hand, Kevin decides to live, work, sleep, eat and wash there, and he's terrified at the prospect of doing so. In the first programme, as Kevin enters Dharavi he finds open sewers, rats and hazardous chemicals everywhere. However, he also discovers that it is a highly organised place with thousands of tiny industries.
To understand Dharavi, Kevin fully immerses himself in the environment, living and working with the locals, sampling life in the pottery area and discovering the extraordinary sense of spirit and community despite the hardships. He explores this industrious square mile, meeting bakers, cobblers and suitcase manufacturers, all thriving as part of the 15,000 one-room industries contained in this slum. But, despite the area's apparent successes, Kevin finds Dharavi is to be redeveloped and razed to the ground."

ITV 1 - Real Crime with Mark Austin: Tobin - Portrait of a Serial Killer - "As Peter Tobin faces sentencing for the murder of Dinah McNicol, Mark Austin speaks to criminologists, psychologists and those who have come face-to-face with the man to deduce whether Tobin is Britain's worst serial killer. The programme examines Tobin's past to see what drove the man to become a monster, talking to his two ex-wives and the women he befriended in the months before he killed Angelika Kluk. It also explores the first crime he was convicted of - the double rape of two young girls in 1993."

Friday 15th

BBC 4 - The Secret of Life of Chaos - "Chaos theory has a bad name, conjuring up images of unpredictable weather, economic crashes and science gone wrong. But there is a fascinating and hidden side to Chaos, one that scientists are only now beginning to understand.
It turns out that chaos theory answers a question that mankind has asked for millennia - how did we get here?
In this documentary, Professor Jim Al-Khalili sets out to uncover one of the great mysteries of science - how does a universe that starts off as dust end up with intelligent life? How does order emerge from disorder?
It's a mindbending, counterintuitive and for many people a deeply troubling idea. But Professor Al-Khalili reveals the science behind much of beauty and structure in the natural world and discovers that far from it being magic or an act of God, it is in fact an intrinsic part of the laws of physics. Amazingly, it turns out that the mathematics of chaos can explain how and why the universe creates exquisite order and pattern.
And the best thing is that one doesn't need to be a scientist to understand it. The natural world is full of awe-inspiring examples of the way nature transforms simplicity into complexity. From trees to clouds to humans - after watching this film you'll never be able to look at the world in the same way again."

BBC 2- Empire of the Seas: How The Navy Forged the Modern World - new 4 parts - " Historian Dan Snow charts the defining role the Royal Navy played in Britain's struggle for modernity - a grand tale of the twists and turns which thrust the people of the British Isles into an indelible relationship with the sea and ships.
Heart of Oak opens with a dramatic retelling of 16th and 17th-century history. Victory over the Armada proved a turning point in the nation's story as tiny, impoverished England was transformed into a seafaring nation, one whose future wealth and power lay on the oceans. The ruthless exploits of Elizabethan seafaring heroes like Francis Drake created a potent new sense of national identity that combined patriotism and Protestantism with private profiteering.
At sea and on land, Snow shows how Navy became an indispensable tool of state, weaving the stories of characters like Drake, God's Republican Warrior at sea Robert Blake, and Samuel Pepys, administrator par excellence, who laid the foundations for Britain's modern civil service.
With access to the modern Navy and reconstructed ships of the time, Snow recounts the Navy's metamorphosis from a rabble of West Country freebooters to the most complex industrial enterprise on earth."

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* 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.