Off-air recordings for week 8-14 June 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
___________________________________________
Sunday 9th

Factual > Science & Nature > Nature & Environment > Documentaries

Rise of the Continents
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm

In this first episode, geologist Prof Iain Stewart shows how the continent of Africa was formed from the wreckage of a long lost supercontinent. He discovers clues in its spectacular landmarks, mineral wealth and iconic wildlife, that help piece together the story of Africa's formation. But he also shows how this deep history has left its mark on the modern day Africa and the world.

Iain starts at Victoria Falls, with a truly spectacular leap into the water right on the lip of the 100m waterfall. Hidden within this vast cliff-face is evidence that the Falls were created by vast volcanic eruptions 180 million years ago. These eruptions marked the moment when Africa was carved from the long lost supercontinent of Pangaea and began its journey as a separate continent.

The creation of Africa had a surprising impact on evolution. Scrambling up the sides of the pyramids of Giza in Egypt, Iain finds small marine creatures that reveal that this part of Africa was once a shallow sea that formed when Africa was created. And within the arid Western Desert, he reveals 17m long skeletons of early whales buried in the sand. These skeletons reveal how land-dwelling mammals were lured back into the shallow seas created by the birth of the African continent, leading to the evolution of whales.

Going back even further in time, Iain travels to the diamond mines of Sierra Leone. These vast gravel pits once fuelled the devastating civil war here. These diamonds reveal not just the very earliest origins of the land that today makes up Africa, but how the very first continents came into existence, billions of years ago.

The final chapter takes Iain to the Serengeti Plains, where he discovers how the spectacular wildebeest migration is fuelled by a process that will eventually lead to Africa's destruction. Every year the wildebeest return to give birth in an area of unusually nutrient-rich grass. This grass grows on fertile volcanic soil and studying ash and lava from the nearby volcano reveals that beneath Africa there lies a vast mantle plume of molten rock. This volcanic upwelling is so strong that scientists predict it will one day tear the ancient continent of Africa in two.


___________________________________________
Monday 10th

Health > Medicine >

Dispatches: Diets, Drugs and Diabetes
Channel 4, 8:00-8:30pm

Dr Deborah Cohen, investigations editor at the British Medical Journal, examines a new generation of diabetes drugs that some drug companies hope could also be a magic treatment for obesity.
Millions of prescriptions of it are given out every year, but are they also associated with an increased risk of cancer? The drug companies hope to expand, but lawyers in America are bringing legal action on behalf of some people who claim that their health has suffered.
Some scientists say they've found new evidence that suggests there are cases where the risks might outweigh the benefits. Dispatches explores the argument that drug companies should be made to share all their research with the public.


News

Panorama: Blacklist Britain
BBC1, 8:30-9-00pm

For years some of the biggest names in British business subscribed to a secret blacklist containing thousands of names with the power to deny work and destroy livelihoods. From the Millennium Dome to the iconic Olympic Park, some construction firms paid for information on workers they feared could delay work and cost them money. Reporter Richard Bilton does the first television interview with one of the two people who ran the covert list. And he discovers that even though the list has now been closed down, blacklisting still appears to be alive and well in Britain.


Factual > Science & Nature > Nature & Environment > Documentaries

Precision: The Measure of All Things
Channel 4, 9:00-10:00pm

Professor Marcus du Sautoy tells the story of the metre and the second - how an astonishing journey across revolutionary France gave birth to the metre, and how scientists today are continuing to redefine the measurement of time and length, with extraordinary results.


____________________________________________
Tuesday 11th


Factual > Arts, Culture & the Media > Arts > History > Documentaries

Britain on Film
BBC4, 2:00-2:30am, 3/10 - Island Nation


In 1959 Britain's biggest cinema company, the Rank Organisation, decided to replace its newsreels with a series of short, quirky, topical documentaries that examined all aspects of life in Britain. During the 1960s - a decade that witnessed profound shifts across Britain's political, economic and cultural landscapes - many felt anxiety about the dizzying pace of change.

Look at Life reflected the increasing social and moral unease in films that tackled subjects ranging from contraception to immigration; from increasing stress at work to the preservation of the Sabbath; and from the environmental implications of waste management to the threat of nuclear weapons. Through these films, we can glimpse many of the seismic societal transformations of the Sixties developments that polarised the nation and changed life in Britain forever.

This episode focuses on the films that examine the implications of Britain's identity as an island nation, a geographical reality that has influenced not just our coastal landscape but our national psyche too. Featuring footage from well-known offshore isles like Wight and Man to the more isolated, culturally-distinctive and splendidly-idiosyncratic places like Harris and Cromer, which was inhabited year-round by just a single family of four.




Factual

Town with Nicholas Crane
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 4/4 - Enniskillen

More intimate than a city, towns are where we first learned to be urban. Harbour towns, market towns, island towns, industrial towns: collectively they bind our land together.

The most westerly town in the UK, Enniskillen is surrounded by beautiful lakes, is busy with independent shops, and attracts forward-thinking entrepreneurs. But its serene way of life is under threat - from plans for underground gas exploitation.

Geographer and adventurer Nicholas Crane journeys through the past, present, and potential future of this island town on the edge of Northern Ireland.


Crime > Documentaries

Real Crime - The Hunt for Mr Swirl
ITV1, 10:35-11:35pm

The worldwide hunt for Canadian paedophile Christopher Neil, who was found living in Thailand when officers tracked him down by restoring digitally altered pictures of his face that had been posted on the internet.


Factual > Science & Nature > Documentaries

Aristotle's Lagoon
BBC4, 10:30-11:30pm

In the 4th century BC the Greek philosopher Aristotle travelled to Lesvos, an island in the Aegean teeming, then as now, with wildlife. His fascination with what he found there, and his painstaking study of it, led to the birth of a new science - biology. Professor Armand Leroi follows in Aristotle's footsteps to discover the creatures, places and ideas that inspired the philosopher in his pioneering work.


____________________________________________
Friday 13th

Factual > History

The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England
BBC2, 9:00-10:00pm, 3/3 - Brave New World

So far in his absorbing social history series Doctor Ian Mortimer has only mentioned William Shakespeare in passing, or quoted his work to illustrate a point. Tonight he looks at the playwright and his upbringing directly as an example of this week’s stratum of Elizabethan society — the upwardly mobile middle classes.

In a sense it was neither the labourers nor the aristocrats who defined the age but the educated merchants and men of means who helped launch both Britain’s imperial ambitions and a scientific revolution. Naturally, the deadpan presenter finally visits that most Elizabethan location — the Globe theatre.

Ian Mortimer explores the world of a new and upwardly mobile section of Elizabethan society - the middle class. He visits Stratford-upon-Avon to reveal how urbanisation and education improved the lives of ordinary people and examines how the era's age of discovery helped spur a scientific revolution. Ian investigates Elizabethan theatre at Shakespeare's Globe and tells the dramatic story of how English imperial ambitions led to the threat of Spanish invasion.


____________________________________________