Off-air recordings for week 10-16 March 2012

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 10th March 2012

Factual; Science and Nature; Scinece and Technology

Horizon: To Infinity and Beyond
BBC4, 11:pm-12:55am

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.


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Monday 12th March 2012

Factual; Crime and Justice

Crime and Punishment
BBC1, 9:15-10:00am, 1/10

A look at crime and punishment in modern Britain. Louise Minchin is at Birmingham City Centre Police HQ and Gethin Jones is behind the bars of Bristol Prison. In diamond jubilee year, they chart the changes in crime, criminals, police and prisons over the last 60 years. They revisit dramatic landmark cases and present hard-hitting real life stories from the city streets and prison life today.



Factual

Britain's First Photo Album
BBC2, 6:30-7:00pm, 1/10 - Chelsea To Tower Bridge

Broadcaster John Sergeant follows in the footsteps of Victorian pioneer photographer Francis Frith who, in the 1860s embarked upon a monumental mission to attempt to document every city, town and village in Britain. John travels the country to discover more about this extraordinary man and his team and the unique record they left behind. John finds out what's changed, what's stayed the same and what has gone forever, and along the way he takes his own photographs inspired by the image taken by a Frith cameraman.


Today, this round-Britain trip begins in London, where John will meet the first ever lady Chelsea Pensioner, find out about the real Eliza Doolittles who inspired My Fair Lady and descend deep under Tower Bridge to witness Victorian engineering at its most impressive.



Documentaries

China: Triumph and Turmoil
Channel 4, 8:00-9:00pm, 1/3

Niall Ferguson examines China's ascendancy, and asks what the future holds for the world's most populous country and its relationship with the rest of the world.  Niall Ferguson shows how the vast apparatus of the Chinese state has always been called on to subjugate individual freedom to the higher goal of unity. Ferguson also examines how, on the other hand, centralised control produces tensions that threaten to destroy the country.



Documentaries

My Phone Sex Secrets
Channel 4, 10:00-11:05pm

As Britain experiences the worst recession since the war, over a million women are out of work. Drastic times call for drastic measures. My Phone Sex Secrets meets the women offering lip service down the line. Gone are the cliches of bored housewives earning pin money. Getting in on the act instead are all kinds of women - young and old, single and married.  My Phone Sex Secrets meets first-time recruit Rosa, who after weeks of unsuccessful job hunting, believes that phone sex will help her get back in the black. The film follows Rosa try phone sex for the very first time.  At the other end of the scale is Jenny, who, after a decade in the game, is the doyenne of dirty dialogue.  And then there's dominatrix Marnie Diamond, who wonders whether the huge pay cheque is worth the impact on other aspects of her life.



Factual

This World: Interviews Before Execution: A Chinese Talk Show
BBC2, 11:20pm-12:20am

Every Saturday night in China, millions gather around their televisions to watch Interviews Before Execution, an extraordinary talk show which interviews prisoners on death row.

In the weeks, days or even minutes before they are executed, presenter Ding Yu goes into prisons and talks to those condemned to die. Combining clips from the TV show, never-before-seen footage of China's death row and interviews with a local judge who openly questions the future of the death penalty in China, This World reveals a part of China that is generally hidden from from view.



Factual; Documentaries

Storyville: Who Is Gorky? An Abstract Life
BBC4, 10:00-11:00pm

In a personal journey into a family tragedy, filmmaker Cosima Spender explores how she and her relatives have been shaped by her grandfather - the pioneering Abstract Expressionist painter, Arshile Gorky. Following a series of tragedies, he committed suicide in 1947, leaving a young wife and two daughters behind. Through conversations with her grandmother, Gorky's widow, Spender tries to make sense of his creativity, the reasons for his death and the shadow it subsequently cast. The film takes the viewer through the pain and courage of the family, coming to an emotional climax in Gorky's Armenian birthplace.


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Tuesday 13th March 2012

Factual; Crime and Justice

Crime and Punishment
BBC1, 9:15-10:00am, 2/10

Factual

Britain's First Photo Album
BBC1, 9:15-10:00am, 2/10


Documentaries

Horizon: Out Of Control
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm

People assume they are in control of their lives, deciding what they want and when they want it - but scientists now claim this is simply an illusion. Experiments reveal that what a person does and what they think can be very different, with the unconscious mind often influencing the decisions they make, from what they eat to who they fall in love with. Horizon reveals to what extent people really do control their own destiny.



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Wednesday 14th March 2012

Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media

Frost On Interviews
BBC4, 2:20-3.20am

Television interviews seem to have been around forever - but that's not the case. They evolved in confidence and diversity as television gradually came of age. So how did it all begin? With the help of some of its greatest exponents, Sir David Frost looks back over nearly sixty years of the television interview.

He looks at political interviews, from the earliest examples in the post-war period to the forensic questioning that we now take for granted, and celebrity interviews, from the birth of the chat show in the United States with Jack Paar and Johnny Carson to the emergence of our own peak time British performers like Sir Michael Parkinson and Sir David himself.

Melvyn Bragg, Joan Bakewell, Tony Benn, Clive Anderson, Ruby Wax, Andrew Neil, Stephen Fry, AA Gill, Alastair Campbell and Michael Parkinson all help trace the development of the television interview. What is its enduring appeal and where does the balance of power actually lie - with the interviewer or the interviewee?


Factual; Crime and Justice


Crime and Punishment
BBC1, 9:15-10:00am, 3/10


Factual

Britain's First Photo Album
BBC1, 9:15-10:00am, 3/10


Documentaries

Rights Gone Wrong?
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm

As the public anger over the deportation of radical cleric Abu Qatada and the banning of prayers before council meetings shows, few words are more controversial in Britain today than ‘Human Rights Law’ and ‘Europe’. Together they are toxic.


In this provocative film for BBC Two, Andrew Neil uses his inside knowledge of the corridors of power to ask if human rights laws are out of control. He’ll demolish some myths, discover some surprises and search for a way Britain can regain public support for a justice system that many feel shows little common sense.


Dpcumentaries

Sri Lanka's Killing Fields: War Crimes Unpunished
Channel 4, 10:55-11:55pm

Last year Channel 4 broadcast Sri Lanka's Killing Fields, a critically-acclaimed and RTS Award winning forensic investigation into the events of the last few weeks of the decades-long war between the government of Sri Lanka and the rebel forces of the Tamil Tigers (LTTE), presented by Jon Snow. It featured devastating video evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity captured on mobile phones by both victims and perpetrators - some of the most horrific footage Channel 4 has ever broadcast.


This footage featured atrocities committed on both sides but its most disturbing finding was of a series of war crimes perpetrated by victorious Sri Lankan government forces including evidence of sexual assaults on female fighters, the execution of bound prisoners and the shelling of civilians in what were supposed to be safe ‘No Fire Zones'.

Screened at the UN in Geneva and New York and also shown to politicians at the House of Commons, the European Parliament and key figures in the US Senate, Sri Lanka's Killing Fields prompted comment from leading political figures around the world, including Prime Minister David Cameron. Yet these war crimes still have yet to be properly investigated or those responsible brought to account - despite UN sources suggesting the Sri Lankan government forces killed up to 40 thousand civilians - perhaps many more in this period.

This powerful follow-up film, also presented by Jon Snow, presents damning new video evidence of war crimes including contemporaneous documents, eye-witness accounts, photographic stills and videos relating to how exactly events unfolded during the final days of the civil war. It investigates who was responsible - the results point to the highest levels of the Sri Lankan government and complicity at the top of the army.

Sri Lanka's Killing Fields: War Crimes Unpunished forensically examines four specific cases and investigates who was responsible. The cases are: the deliberate heavy shelling of civilians and a hospital in the ‘No Fire Zone'; the strategic denial of food and medicine to hundreds and thousands of trapped civilians - defying the legal obligation to allow humanitarian aid into a war zone; the killing of civilians during the ‘rescue mission' and the systematic execution of naked and bound LTTE prisoners - featuring new chilling video footage of a 12-year-old boy who has been brutally executed.

Despite pressure from human rights groups and the report by a UN-appointed panel of experts which called for a thorough international investigation into alleged violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, the Sri Lankan government's internal inquiry, ‘The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission' published in December last year, failed to conduct any kind of rigorous investigation into the allegations of war crimes. It specifically denied that any civilians were knowingly targeted with heavy artillery. Sri Lanka's Killing Fields: War Crimes Unpunished explores the reasons behind the apparent international inaction at the time, in calling the government of Sri Lanka to account.

Sri Lanka's Killing Fields: War Crimes Unpunished presents shocking new video footage and evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity which trace ultimate responsibility up the highest echelons of the chain of command. This film asks questions of those who still hold the reins of power in Sri Lanka - President Rajapaksa, commander in chief and his brother Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaska - and two former army chiefs who have landed prime diplomatic posts since the war ended and immunity from prosecution.

With the England cricket team set to tour Sri Lanka once again this month and Sri Lanka now confirmed as the venue for the next commonwealth heads of government meeting in 2013, this film is a stark reminder of the terrible suffering of a people who have been failed and forgotten by the international community.


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Thursday 15th March 2012

Factual; Crime and Justice
Crime and Punishment
BBC1, 9:15-10:00am, 4/10


Factual

Britain's First Photo Album
BBC1, 9:15-10:00am, 4/10


News; Documentaries

Our Kids' Rotten Teeth: Tonight
ITV1, 7:30-8:00pm

Fiona Foster investigates why childhood tooth decay is still such a problem and what can be done to eradicate it. A third of youngsters in the UK suffer from poor dental health by the time they start primary school and every year tens of thousands have teeth so rotten that they need hospital operations to remove them.


Documentaries; Arts, Culture and the Media

The Hidden Art of Islam
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm

Rageh Omaar finds out why, if human depiction is the source of such controversy in Islamic art, it can be found in many of the artworks on show at a British Museum exhibition.



Documentaries
Our Man in... Tenerife
Channel 4, 10:00-11:05pm, 3/3

In Tenerife, consul Maria Leng helps Liverpudlian military veteran Steven get home to the UK. Vice-consul Helen supports the only British woman in prison on the island.  Meanwhile, the consulate in Barcelona deals with the victims of a street robbery. And homeless ex-salesman Nigel and his beach buddy Des need help after sharing a bottle of vodka and two cartons of wine.


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Friday 16th March 2012

Factual; Crime and Justice

Crime and Punishment
BBC1, 9:15-10:00am, 5/10



Factual

Britain's First Photo Album
BBC1, 9:15-10:00am, 5/10

Arts, Culture and the Media

The Culture Show
BBC2, 7:00-8:00pm

 Alastair Sooke meets sculptor Anthony Caro as he prepares for a retrospective exhibition at Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, and Andrew Graham-Dixon interviews Sarah Rose, an avid collector of Vorticist artist David Bomberg's work. Alan Bissett is joined by fellow writer Irvine Welsh, who discusses punk literature and his new novel Skagboys, which is a prequel to Trainspotting. Arlene Phillips offers an insight into the theatrical experience of Reasons to Dance, and singer-songwriter Kevin Rowland chats to Mark Kermode about the return of Dexys Midnight Runners.


Documentaries

Reverse Missionaries
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm

Reverse Missionary follows three young Christian missionaries from Malawi, India and Jamaica as they travel to different parts of Britain, in a new three-part series.


Reversing the paths taken by three 19th-century British missionaries who exported Christianity around the world, they arrive in 21st-century Britain to discover the historical roots of their faith and pursue their own missionary agenda in the UK.

While they stay in Britain the modern-day missionaries engage in their own missionary work. But as the visitors learn more about life in an increasingly secular Britain they have to contemplate some of the social issues that the church grapples with today.