Off-air recordings for week 1-7 December 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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Sunday 2nd December

Factual; Documentaries

Solar Mamas
BBC4, 6/8 - Why Poverty? season


Solar Mamas follows the remarkable story of Rafea, a mother-of-four from Jordan who challenges the status quo of her traditional marriage by travelling to India to train as a solar engineer for six months. Along with 27 other mothers and grandmothers from poor communities around the world - many of whom are illiterate - she will learn the skills needed to bring electricity and light back to her village.

For Rafea, it is a life changing journey. As the second wife of a Bedouin living in a remote part of the Jordanian desert, she has had limited opportunities in life. Now she has been selected to attend the Barefoot College in India run by the inimitable Roy Bunker. Alongside women from Kenya, Burkina Faso and Colombia and across cultural and language divides, Rafea needs to get to grips with electrical components, circuit boards and soldering. Her new knowledge will see her do things she never imagined, but it will also have an unanticipated effect on her relationship with her patriarchal husband.

Addressing themes of education, gender equality, environmental sustainability and development, the documentary takes an inspiring and compelling look at poverty - and the ways women around the world are working to pull themselves out of the poverty trap.


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Monday 3rd December

News

Panorama: How Safe Is Your Hospital?
BBC1, 8:30-9:00pm


The NHS is under huge pressure with increasing demand, limited finances and facing the largest reorganization in its history. With the latest data on hospital death rates, Panorama reveals poor patient care is putting thousands of people at risk of death or serious injury every year.

Many of these problems were first highlighted five years ago during the scandal at Stafford Hospital when hundreds of people died unnecessarily. Despite assurances that it could never happen again, reporter Declan Lawn finds serious ongoing problems in trusts across the country - and a systemic failure to act on warnings that patients are being put at risk.



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Tuesday 4th December

Factual; History; Documentaries

Britain on Film
BBC4, 8:30-9:00pm, 5/5 - The Joy of Tech


Factual; Documentaries

Dark Ages: An Age of Light
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm, 2/4 - What The Barbarians Did For Us


The Dark Ages have been misunderstood. History has identified the period following the fall of the Roman Empire with a descent into barbarism - a terrible time when civilisation stopped.

Waldemar Januszczak disagrees. In this four-part series he argues that the Dark Ages were a time of great artistic achievement, with new ideas and religions provoking new artistic adventures. He embarks on a fascinating trip across Europe, Africa and Asia, visits the world's most famous collections and discovers hidden artistic gems, all to prove that the Dark Ages were actually an 'Age of Light'.

The 'Barbarians' are often blamed for the collapse of the Roman Empire, but in reality they were fascinating civilisations that produced magnificent art. Focusing on the Huns, Vandals and Goths, Waldemar follows each tribe's journey across Europe and discovers the incredible art they produced along the way.


Factual; Documentaries

The Great Land Rush

BBC4, 10:00-11:00pm, 7/8 - Why Poverty? season


75 per cent of Mali's population are farmers, but rich land-hungry nations like China and Saudi Arabia are leasing Mali's land in order to turn large areas into agri-business farms. Many Malian peasants do not welcome these efforts, seeing them as yet another manifestation of imperialism. Tackling questions such as food sovereignty, land ownership and how development is sold to Africa, Hugo Berkeley and Osvalde Lewat's film asks who owns Africa.

A BBC Storyville film, produced in partnership with the Open University, the film screens as part of Why Poverty? - when the BBC, in conjunction with more than 70 broadcasters around the world, hosts a debate about contemporary poverty. The global cross-media event sees the same eight films screened in 180 countries to explore why, in the 21st Century, a billion people still live in poverty.


Factual, Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries

Imagine... Jeanette Winterson: My Monster and Me

BBC1, 10:35-11:55pm


Nearly thirty years after her triumphant debut novel, Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson returns with Alan Yentob to the scenes of her extraordinary childhood in Lancashire. She was adopted and brought up to be a missionary by the larger-than-life Mrs Winterson. But Jeanette followed a different path: she found literature, fell in love with a girl, and escaped to university.

Following her recent memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal, Jeanette Winterson tells the story of her recent breakdown and suicide attempt, her quest to find her birth mother and how the power of books helped her to survive.



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Wednesday 5th December

factual; Documentaries

Supersized Earth
BBC1, 8:00-9:00pm, 3/3


In this final episode, Dallas examines what it takes to keep seven billion humans alive with food, energy and water. 40% of the Earth's surface is now devoted to growing food. To appreciate how we have transformed vast swathes of land to produce food, Dallas paraglides over the south coast of Spain, where what was once an arid landscape is now home to the world's largest greenhouse array.

He also rides with cowboys on Brazil's largest cattle ranch, to help herd over 125,000 cattle. He visits Lake Mead, the biggest man-made lake in the USA, to see how it has helped us transform harsh desert into the bright lights of Las Vegas. He also joins the team building a 750 mile long artificial river to transport water from south to north China.



Factual; History; Documentaries

Rome: A History of the Eternal City
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm, 1/3

Simon Sebag Montefiore looks at how every event in ancient Rome revolved around religion. From the foundation myth through to the deification of Emperors; nothing could happen without calling upon the Pantheon of Roman gods. Simon investigates how the Roman's worshipped and sacrificed to the gods. He discovers that sacredness defined what was Roman and it was the responsibility of every Roman to play their part in the cult. Even the ancient Roman sewer was holy ground!


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Thursday 6th December

News; Documentaries

Madeley Meets The Squatters
ITV1, 9:00-10:00pm


Today in Britain, it’s estimated there are anything between 20,000 and 50,000 people squatting. They are often portrayed as anti-social, drug-taking freeloaders, who contribute nothing to society. But is that really the case? With a new law having just come into force making squatting a criminal offence, Richard Madeley is on a mission to meet Britain’s squatters, to see what their lives are really like and find out why they squat. He also hears from landlords and even brings them face-to-face with the people occupying their property against their wishes.

Richard travels the country to meet squatters from wide-ranging backgrounds, all with a different story to tell and conflicting views on the morality of how they live. In doing so, he examines how the change in the law will impact on the current situation faced by both squatters and landlords.

Richard visits a former pub in Walthamstow, used as a squat for five years despite being surrounded by local businesses. Nigel Jenkins owns the garage opposite and explains what he has seen in the past: “Nine o’clock in the morning they are drunk out of their skulls. First thing in the morning we come in…they have used the driveway as toilets.” Despite this he admits: “Everyone sees them as an inconvenience but nobody sees the amount of trouble these people are in. What are you going to do with them? Unless you can re-house them, there’s nothing you can do with them.”

Richard heads to Bristol, where he discovers that local squatters have organised themselves into groups, with their own planning committee that meets each week to help members find new squats to live in. Richard attends one of the meetings to find out more and a squatter explains to him: “I like to think of us as urban wombles, we roam the streets that aren’t being used and we make a use of them. How can you argue the morality of that? We don’t pay rent, no, but at least people aren’t sleeping rough.”

There is a tense atmosphere when Richard introduces Dave Durant to the squatters who have occupied a property he owns in south Bristol. It’s the second time he’s had squatters in his building and with Richard as mediator he confronts the people occupying his building: “I know that the place was locked, you know that the place was locked. I know, that you must have broken into my house.” Squatter Tristan refuses to confirm how he gained access but is keen to respond: “If people are suffering they should be allowed to sleep under a roof, especially if it lies dormant like this one.” He tells Richard: ”I see it as greed. When there are five of us wandering the streets, hungry, needing somewhere to live, when he has multiple properties, I see that as greed. Until you’ve been in our position and suffered like we have, you’re going to find it hard to have a balanced view.”



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Friday 7th December

News; World Affairs

Unreported World - Egypt: Sex, Mobs and Revolution
Channel 4, 7:30-7:55pm


Unreported World examines the increase in sexual assaults and harassment in Egypt.

The programme reveals claims that young men are being paid to carry out horrendous mob attacks on women. It is claimed that this started under the Mubarak regime and it is suspected by some to still continue.

Women have been at the forefront of the Egyptian revolution but are now often fearful of taking part in the regular public demonstrations.

Sexual harassment is not a new problem in Egypt. In a 2010 United Nations survey, more than 80 per cent of women surveyed said they'd been sexually harassed.

But there are signs that the problem has got worse with the breakdown of public order since the revolution. Reports of mob sex attacks are on the increase.

Reporter Ramita Navai and director Dimitri Collingridge meet a young woman who has recently survived such an attack. Nihal was out at a protest in Tahrir Square with four other women. She managed to escape but her friend suffered an ordeal that is typical of these attacks.

She was stripped naked and dozens of men raped her with their hands. Nihal's friend sustained internal injuries and couldn't walk for a week. She has since fled Egypt. Nihal too was severely traumatised.

Nihal has become involved in Harassmap, an anti-sexual harassment movement that charts mob attacks and allows women to log sexual harassment. In the last two years the team has received more than 900 reports from women across the country.

Despite the publicity on the issue, the women themselves are worried about speaking about their personal experiences. It's a taboo subject and many of them are even afraid to tell their parents what they've suffered.

Even when women decide to go to the police, they say they rarely receive help. Twenty-one-year-old student Dina has been the victim of several assaults. She claims that on one occasion she managed to alert a nearby police officer, but that he refused to help, telling her the attack was her fault because she was wearing the wrong clothes.

The team witnesses the everyday harassment women face. As they film, a woman is chased by a group of teenagers. And as Navai and Dina walk down a busy main street, they are constantly verbally abused.

Many of the women Unreported World meets say that age, dress and looks have very little to do with becoming a target. In one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Cairo, Stable Anta, all the women are veiled and they suffer harassment similar to their more westernised counterparts downtown...


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