Off-air recordings for week 19-25 January 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 19th January

Science and Nature; Documentaries

Is Our Weather Getting Worse?
More4, 10:00-11:05pm

In Britain we love to moan about the weather. And over the past decade we have experienced some extraordinary weather conditions, with 2012 no exception. It has led many people to wonder if our weather really is getting worse. The year started with storms and gale-force winds tearing across much of the UK, before our driest spring in a century left 35 million people in the UK suffering from drought.

In Aberdeen in March, temperatures soared to 23 degrees Celsius. But within four weeks, everything had changed. April 15 marked the beginning of our wettest summer on record. Towns such as Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire were flooded not once, but twice, and by the end of August 4000 homes across Britain had been devastated by floods. But the strange events of 2012 are only part of the story. For the past decade, our weather has been so erratic that government scientists have begun to use words like 'unprecedented' and 'extraordinary'. This programme gets to the truth of our extraordinary decade of extreme weather.

Blending dramatic archive footage, expert insight and cutting-edge graphics, the film investigates the most severe weather events to have struck Britain in recent memory and puts them into the wider context of climate change. Are the strange events of 2012 a one-off or an ominous sign of climate change in action? How does the changing global climate affect the British weather and what can we expect in the future? Is our weather getting worse?


Science and Nature; Documentaries

The Year Britain Froze
More4, 11:05pm-12:10am

Britain's roads were in chaos; planes were strewn over runways as airports ground to a halt; thousands of cars were abandoned; trains and passengers froze overnight; ambulance services had their busiest day ever; and lives were lost as a deadly freeze gripped the country. All over Britain people suffered inconvenience, hardship and danger. There were heroic rescues, tales of human tragedy and heartwarming stories of survival against the odds. This film tells the story of the extreme weather of 2010 and explores the science behind why Britain came to a frozen halt. This was not just bad weather. This was the coldest December since records began, in the year Britain froze.


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Monday 21st January

News

Panorama: Immigration Undercover
BBC1, 8:30-9:00pm

More than half a million foreign migrants are estimated to be hiding from the authorities in the UK. Some are failed asylum seekers who live in graveyards and abandoned garages or 'disappear' within their own communities. They include bogus students planning to work illegally and others who have crossed the Channel hidden in the back of a lorry. Many of those without papers turn to a life of criminality involving drugs, violence and prostitution - and with money Panorama has discovered they can come and go on an illegal travel network which smuggles them OUT of the UK as well as in. Reporter Paul Kenyon goes undercover with this new type of smuggling gang - charging £1,500 a time - to help illegals out of the UK right under the nose of the British authorities.


Science and Nature; Documentaries

Jaguars: Born Free: A Natural World Special
BBC2, 9:30-10:30pm

In this Natural World special, three tiny orphaned jaguar cubs are discovered in a Brazilian forest. A family decide to take the place of their mother and train them to become wild again. Over two years they must learn to climb trees, swim, and hunt for their dinner. If they can be successfully released, it will give new hope to these rare animals. Narrated by Zoe Wanamaker.


Factual; Documentaries

Crazy for Party Drugs
BBC3, 9:00-10:00pm

Britain's drug culture is changing - fast. Cocaine and ecstasy are out and mephedrone, ketamine and GHB are in. Shot in Leeds over the biggest party weekend of the year - Halloween and Bonfire Night - this film gets under the skin of the new party drugs. We follow Holly, Tony and Oliver from the dancefloor to the morning after and, with unique access to the first specialist 'club drug clinic' outside London, we find out what happens to those who want to keep going even when the party's over. 

Factaul; Documentaries

Harry Belafonte: Sing Your Song
BBC4, 10:00-10:00pm

Storyville: Wonderfully archived and told with a remarkable sense of intimacy, visual style and musical panache, this inspiring biographical documentary surveys the life and times of singer/actor/activist Harry Belafonte. From his rise to fame as a singer and his experiences touring a segregated country to his provocative crossover into Hollywood, Belafonte's groundbreaking career personifies the American civil rights movement and impacted many other social justice movements. The film reveals Belafonte as a tenacious hands-on activist who worked intimately with Dr Martin Luther King Jr, mobilised celebrities for social justice, participated in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and took action to counter gang violence, prisons and the incarceration of youth.



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Tuesday 22nd January

Factual; History; Documentaries

Britain on Film
BBC4, 2:00-2:30am

Throughout the 1960s, the Rank Organisation produced hundreds of short, quirky documentaries that examined all aspects of life in Britain. Shot on high-quality colour film stock, they were screened in cinemas, but until now very little of the footage has been shown on television. This series draws on this unique archive to offer illuminating and often surprising insights into a pivotal decade in modern British history.


This episode examines Look at Life's coverage of what was the most important political conflict of the era - the Cold War. With international tensions rising, the series recorded the enormous anti-nuclear protests in London; the experiences of British forces stationed in Berlin; and visited Eastern Europe, to observe everyday life for the people living behind the Iron Curtain.



Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries

Art Deco Icons
BBC4, 2:30-3:00am

David Heathcote goes to spend the weekend at Casa Del Rio - a remarkable Art Deco fantasy house hidden away in rural Devon. He uncovers the story of Walter Price, a baker from Devon who went to visit California in the 1930s and who was so impressed by Pickfair - the glamorous residence of Hollywood stars Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford - that he decided to create his own Deco mansion back in the Devon countryside, complete with marble staircase built to look like a piano keyboard.


Heathcote explores the house that was the perfect glamorous weekend retreat for Price and his friends and plays with some of the many Deco gadgets that brought glamour into so many people's lives in the 1930s - a perfect toaster, a Bakelite radio and even a cocktail shaker.

The original Pickfair mansion in California was demolished, so Casa Del Rio remains as a rare British example of a Deco fantasy house, built at time when Britain was in love with Hollywood, Art Deco and its glamour.


Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Documentaries

Tales of Winter: The Art of Snow and Ice
BBC4, 9:00-10:30pm

Winter was not always beautiful. Until Pieter Bruegel painted Hunters in the Snow, the long bitter months had never been transformed into a thing of beauty. This documentary charts how mankind's ever-changing struggle with winter has been reflected in western art throughout the ages, resulting in images that are now amongst the greatest paintings of all time. With contributions from Grayson Perry, Will Self, Don McCullin and many others, the film takes an eclectic group of people from all walks of life out into the cold to reflect on the paintings that have come to define the art of snow and ice.


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Wednesday 23rd January

Factual; Science and Nature, Nature and Environment; Documentaries

Nature's Microworlds
BBC4, 8:30-9:00pm, 1/3 - Canada's Coastal Forests

Steve Backshall pulls apart the pieces of Canada's remarkable coastal forest to reveal why this ancient sylvan environment is not only home to some of the largest trees on Earth, but also some of the greatest aggregations of top predators in North America. He untangles the complex relationships between the seasons, the landscape and the wildlife to discover what might be fuelling this forest's prolific productivity and supporting eagles, bears and wolves. In this complex coastal system, the secret to success comes in a remarkable annual event.


Factual; Science and Nature, Nature and Environment; Documentaries

Africa
BBC1, 9:00-10:00pm, 4/6 - Cape


Southern Africa is a riot of life and colour because of two great ocean currents that sweep around the continent's Cape.
To the east, the warm Agulhas current generates clouds that roll inland to the wettest place in southern Africa. To the west is the cold Benguela current, home to more great white sharks than anywhere else. Moisture laden fog rolls inland, supporting an incredible desert garden. Where the two currents meet, the clash of warm and cold water creates one of the world's most fabulous natural spectacles - South Africa's sardine run. This is the greatest gathering of predators on the planet, including Africa's largest, the Bryde's whale.


Crime


Inside Death Row with Trevor McDonald
ITV1, 10:35-11:35pm, 1/2


There is something quite eerie and almost surreal about watching Trevor McDonald make genial chit-chat with the doomed inmates on Indiana State Maximum Security Prison’s death row. Everyone is so terribly, impeccably polite in the most incongruous of ways. One condemned man describes a fellow prisoner’s murder and mutilation of a 14-year-old girl as “uncalled-for”. This is after he attacks the murderer’s “lack of morals”.

Another man gossips quite amiably with McDonald about how his execution was commuted to a 150-year prison sentence. Another has been on death row for 18 and a half years. Why? “They said I killed three people” is his answer. Louis Theroux has done this kind of reportage before, and done it better. McDonald is too constrained by his own nice-ness, he’s not inquisitive enough. He looks terribly ill at ease, too, which is perhaps understandable; it’s a hell of a forbidding place.

The broadcaster ventures inside Indiana State Prison, meeting 12 condemned men awaiting execution and some of the other inmates in the maximum security facility. Among those Trevor talks to are Benjamin Ritchie, who murdered a policeman, and John Stephenson, who killed three people on the orders of a gang boss, while James Harrison reveals how he escaped the death penalty with only weeks to spare after accepting a deal of life inside instead. Trevor also visits the 1950s-style barber shop where all the hairdressers are convicts, including Rick Pearish who explains why they are given permission to use cut-throat razors and sharp implements.



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Thursday 24th January

Documentaries

Nursing the Nation
ITV1, 8:3-9:00pm, 4/7


When Kay is on call she can expect the phone to ring at any time. In tonight’s episode we follow her at 4am as she goes to the aid of expectant mum, Natalie, whose waters have broken. With the nearest hospital 15 miles away it is the job of Kay and her colleague Jane to help delivery the baby at home, but with Natalie’s husband, children and extended members of their family present they can only hope everything remains calm.

In Somerset District Nurse Iona attends to the needs of the elderly in her area. 72 year old Richard is one of Iona’s younger patients. He lives with his mum Doris, who at 102, is Iona’s oldest patient. Despite that she enjoys putting Iona through her paces with her feisty spirit.

Iona says, “I don’t actually consider anybody old until they’re at least 85… It’s different from being in hospital. We often go in for years and years and years, they’re just much more themselves in their own environment than they would be in a hospital ward.”

There are more than 10,000 district nurses across the country, visiting more than 2 million people every year. For many these are the unsung heroes of the NHS. They develop relationships with patients that can last for years on end and as they see them in their own homes, they often become a huge part of their lives and cornerstones of the local community.


Inside Death Row with Trevor McDonald

ITV1, 10:35-11:35pm, 1/2


Trevor McDonald’s sparse interviewing technique, mainly because it is so incongruously polite that it throws the prosaic horrors of capital punishment into stark relief.  Concluding his visit to Indiana State Prison, McDonald is led into the death chamber, where the condemned spend their final hours before the lethal injection. Later, he interviews a prisoner who slit the throats of a woman and her four-year-old daughter. “I do deserve to be executed,” says the killer during a riveting ten minutes where McDonald, a kindly stranger, just lets him talk.

The broadcaster interviews Fredrick Baer, who has been on death row at Indiana State Prison for seven years following his conviction for the murders of a woman and her four-year-old daughter. Baer talks about his abusive childhood and explains what led him to a life of crime, before Trevor visits the chamber where the condemned man will one day be executed. There's also an insight into the more privileged part of the facility, where inmates stay in a dormitory with cubicles instead of cells. There, he talks to John Serwatka, who was paid to kill two innocent strangers and will never be released.



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