Off-air recordings 5-18 September 2009

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

Wednesday 9th

BBC4 - Jonathan Meades - Off Kilter - 1 of 3 - "Jonathan Meades takes a quixotic tour of Scotland, a country which has intrigued him since he first encountered lists of towns only known from football coupons. Architecture critic Meades celebrates Aberdeen, the granite city full of 'brand new' 300 year old buildings."

Saturday 12th

BBC2 - The Last Nazis - 1 of 3 - "In the autumn of 1941, a young Austrian doctor called Aribert Heim was assigned to the Mauthausen Concentration Camp. In just six weeks, he murdered hundreds of inmates by carrying out horrific and needless experiments.
His 'procedures' included injecting poison directly into the hearts of his patients, often timing them to see how long it took them to die. He would amputate limbs without reason, and without anaesthetic, and would even keep mementos of his victims, using skin as a lamp shade, and a skull as a paperweight.
He evaded capture and has never answered for his crimes - but now 60 years on and with Heim well into his 90s, fresh evidence has emerged suggesting that he might still be alive.
This film follows Dr Efraim Zuroff in his international manhunt for one of the world's most wanted Nazi war criminals.
With Heim's horrific crimes soon to be consigned to history forever, this Nazi hunt will be the last of its kind and the clock is ticking for Zuroff to bring his target to justice. "

Monday 14th

BBC4 - Thatcher and the Scots - "Is Margaret Thatcher the mother of the Scottish Parliament? BBC World Affairs Correspondent Allan Little looks back at the tumultuous Thatcher years, and assesses the effect they had on Scotland.
The programme also examines the personal, human relationship between Margaret Thatcher and Scotland. Why did she become the subject of so much bile? And what does that say about the Scots and their attitudes?
With superb archive film and in-depth interviews with two of her Scottish Secretaries, her political opponents, leading historians and those who lived through and reported on the Thatcher years, the programme is the definitive account of the effect Thatcherism had on Scotland."

BBC4 - The Scots: Natural Born Sinners - "Denis Lawson narrates a lighthearted documentary about the effect of Calvinism on the Scottish psyche, in which a cast of well-known Scots ruminate on growing up under Calvin's shadow.
Artist Jack Vettriano relishes memories of his Methil childhood, while Kirsty Wark is thankful for her mother's no-nonsense Presbyterian influence. Footballer-turned-pundit Pat Nevin reflects with Dougie Donnelly on the inability of the Calvinist Scot to celebrate their achievements, and against the backdrop of his Highland constituency, MP Charles Kennedy reflects on how Calvin's culture of disapproval affected the Gaelic community.
Bill Drummond of the band KLF visits the Dumfries and Galloway of his childhood where his father was a Church of Scotland minister, novelist A L Kennedy talks of doom and damnation, and Andrew Marr praises the Calvinist legacy of education."

BBC4 - Dinner with Portillo: Why Should We Care about Scottish Independence? - "By his own admission, Michael Portillo finds it difficult to get worked up either way about Scottish independence. But is he, and the English, too complacent? Would England suffer a crisis of identity without Scotland and could Scotland cope on its own? Should Scottish demands for independence be taken seriously? These are some of the questions that Michael Portillo and guests chew over in this edition of Dinner With Portillo.
At the table are columnist and broadcaster Rod Liddle, Scottish historian Michael Fry, former First Minister of Scotland Henry McLeish, broadcaster and writer Hardeep Singh Kohli, Vernon Bogdanor, Professor of Government at the University of Oxford, Tom Clougherty, Executive Director of the Adam Smith Institute, and Timothy Garton Ash, Professor of European Studies at the University of Oxford."

BBC4 - Napoli: City of the Damned - Storyville - "When we think of devastated cities in WW2 Naples is often forgotten, but when it was liberated by the Allies it was on its last legs, with 200,000 homeless and no power, transport, food or running water.
The Allies quickly brought food to the starving population and medicine to the sick, but the introduction of many troops and lots of supplies led to the creation of a huge black market involving almost the entire population. One third of women became prostitutes as Naples became a kind of Sodom and Gomorrah, a city of vice, crime and chaos where everything that could be sold and stolen was sold and stolen.
Perplexingly, the Americans decided to introduce Italo-American criminals into positions of power in southern Italy, such as Vito Genovese, a gangster escaping a murder rap in New York. Genovese began setting up a crime empire in Naples - after Mussolini had effectively suppressed organised crime in Italy, the Allies brought it back.
When WW2 ended, alarmed and surprised by Soviet support for the Italian communist parties, the Allies responded with their own propaganda. Combined with the Marshall Plan, this became a massive covert effort by the Americans to swing the elections towards the parties of the right. The Catholic Church helped them, with priests telling congregations that they would go to hell if they didn't vote Christian Democrat.
After great political and ideological struggle in which the Cold War was waged by proxy for the first time, the 1948 elections were won by the Christian Democrats, a result that may not have been truly fair.
The CIA were pleased with the result and partially credited it to their own operations. They recommended that the US should continue with the covert manipulation of political outcomes in foreign countries."

Wednesday 16th

BBC4 - Talking Landscapes - The Weald - "Aubrey Manning sets out to uncover the history of Britain's ever-changing landscape. This edition focuses on the Weald, investigating why so much woodland has survived here when so much ancient forest has been felled elsewhere. A trip to the Mary Rose and Nelson's Victory reveals the full story of the Weald and its valuable timber."

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* This applies to staff members 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.