Tuesday September 26, 2006

A trial for the world

Last night was the first of four programmes about the Nuremberg War Crimes trials. This program specifically went over the trial of Albert Speer who ended up with twenty years in jail and made himself into a celebrity after writing a book. The program featured interviews with the people who were involved with the trials, film footage of the event and re-enactments of the trials. It is clear to me that the many people decided Speer got away lightly with his twenty years in jail given one of his co-defendants who he got to employ slave labour from countries Germany had overrun to work in the armaments factories under Speer's control, recieved the death sentence himself. The program made much of the fact that only Speer admitted to the atrocities the regime inflicted on its own people, Jewish people and others and the fact that only he stood up to Hitler in the end refusing to flatten Germany and destroy its infrastructure ,maybe helped him avoid being given a death sentence. Either way the program is good and I learnt a lot about the trials.

Monday September 18, 2006

Restoration winner

The 2006 final of the BBC's Restoration program was on last night. The winner surprisingly for me was Chedham's Yard. This year the emphasis has been on villages and buildings were picked that were at the heart of these small communities. There were others especially in poorer parts of the country that seemed more appealing from the community and ensuring normal village life continues but that does not take anything away from the folks who have worked hard to make Chedham's yard a winner. If things follow their usual pattern the other finalists might end up getting funding from other means but with an average of two million being needed for each this is going to be tough. The other interesting this about winning this program is that they just do not get given the cash after winning - they have to show that the restoration will result in something that is sustainable after the work is completed and in the future - so the Chedham's yard folks will be even busier before they get their cash.

Friday September 15, 2006

Aberfan forty years on...

Excellent program on this disaster last night. It told the story interviewing people who survived the incident - many talking about it for the first time. The shocking engulfing of the local school by tons of waste from the local coal mine was well told. It then described the inquiry and how the village campaigned to have the other heaps of waste removed - although the government at the time had the village contribute 150,000 pounds to have this done. This amount was paid back by Tony Blair's government but as 150,000 no interest or any attempt to make the amount relate to its value today.

Wednesday August 23, 2006

Blizzard - the race to the Pole

The last part of this series is on BBC2 tonight. It features a Norwegian and British team racing to an artificial pole to reenact the race between Scott and Amundsen in the early 20th century. The two teams had the same equipment, food and tranportation as the original players of this story. It does not take long to see the Norwegian team were very much at home in this environment. The modern day teams of course have the luxury of being followed by TV crews who can summon help if things went pear shaped. It also does not take long to see why Amundsen won the race; dogs pulling sleds was always going to be easier than Man hauling where men provide the brute force to pull the sledge. The food looks terrible and Scott's team were burning more calories than they were consuming making them more vunerable to the cold and sapping their strength even further. Amundsen was also clever in making sure his team had fresh meat which was supplemented by dog meat when he reached a certain point in his journey where he slaughtered a lot of his dogs. This was part of his plan. The race could not be held in the original place as dogs are now banned from there. But a similar environment was picked to ensure it was a proper test. There was a bit of humor in the early part of the race where the Brits meaning to be kind to their dogs did not use metal retraining collars. The dogs took advantage of this and chewed through the humane replacement and ran off. The Norwegian team ended up getting to the pole and returning before the Brits even got there. Last part tonight at 9.00PM. More details on the series can be found here.

Tuesday August 01, 2006

The Penlee Disaster

22:35 tonight on BBC1 is a program titled Cruel Sea: The Penlee Disaster. I cannot believe it occured twenty five years ago. It is a real shame it is on so late and at the moment the BBC does not have it on its front page - maybe later in the day it will be - the program deserves better publicity. I remember the days after the disaster banks acted as collection points for donations to the families affected by the disaster. Here is a brief taster of the story. Twenty five years ago the Penlee lifeboat was called out to help a stricken coaster off the coast of Cornwall. In hurricane winds and sixty foot waves the crew of the Solomon Browne made an heroic attempt to rescue those on board the ill-fated Union Star. Using actual radio footage, eye-witness testimony and memories of bereaved family members this documentary tells the story of that tragic night. More can be read from the Wikipedia entry.

Thursday July 27, 2006

Restoration is back

The excellent Restoration program is back on Friday BBC2 9PM. Griff Rhys Jones leads the team travelling the UK showing us buildings and other historical sites that are nominated for possible funding to be restored. I joke with my wife that Griff Rhys Jones himself looks like he could do with some restoration with his unkept appearance. It is sad to see so many of the historical sites that unless they get attention will soon be lost forever as there is only one winner at the end of the series. Some sites after being highlighted on TV do get other funding from kind benefactors etc.

Friday June 16, 2006

Kind hearts and Coronets

Alec Guiness plays all eight members of the aristocratic D'Ascoyne family murdered by the suave Louis Mazzina in order to inherit a dukedom - avenging the wrongs against his mother who married 'beneath' herself and was cut off from the family. Ealing films Joan Grenwood is Mazzinis girlfriend and Dennis Price is excellent as Mazzini. He keeps track of the remaining family tree on the back of a picture in his flat.

He starts doing small menial jobs but works his way up -ending up working for the family firm. He gets arrested and found guilty of a death he had nothing to do with and before his execution he writes a diary of the events... He is then let off the murder and after he has left prison he then realises that he left the diary in the cell. The film stops at this point - leaving us to decide if he ends being able to get the diary before the authorities read it and re-arrest him...

Friday May 19, 2006

Another good Timewatch program tonight

Looks like Timewatch have potential good show tonight on BB2 9PM. I quote from their newsletter:

The Princess Spy - heroic, glamorous, highly principled... and forgotten. This film tells the remarkable story of Noor Inayat Khan - a pacifist Indian princess who for four months in 1943, was London's most important agent in Nazi-occupied Paris.

When Noor was dropped into France, the average life expectancy of a radio operator was six weeks. Against all the odds she continued to broadcast for nearly three times that period. Her story is one of courage beyond heroism, and her capture and escape could have been penned by Hollywood.

The truth behind her eventual betrayal is so shameful it was erased from the records. Get ready to salute one of the greatest of our forgotten heroes.

On a less serious note the second part of a Doctor Who show is on Saturday featuring the tin men - Cybermen.

Friday May 12, 2006

TimeWatch this week

This weeks program (9pm, Friday 12 May, BBC TWO) should be very good. I quote from their newsletter:

San Francisco's Great Quake

In the early hours of Wednesday April 18 1906, America's greatest 
ever natural disaster struck San Francisco. In just a couple of minutes, 
miles of land were liquefied, swallowing up men, women and children. 
But worse was to come - a terrifying wall of fire which destroyed 
everything in its path. Told through the words and images 
of those who were there, Timewatch marks the centenary
of the San Francisco Earthquake.

Friday April 14, 2006

Doctor Who is back.

The new series of Doctor Who starts tomorrow 7.15pm, Saturday 15 April, BBC One. It will be interesting to see how the latest personality develops over the series as David Tennant has taken over the role.

Friday March 03, 2006

The Last Stand...

Channel4 in the UK showed a film last night for the first time about Hitler's last days in the bunker in Berlin. We recorded the second half as it went on past our bedtime which I guess we will watch tonight. It is a German production and I know it created a lot of controversy when it was made and shown there. But the bit we have seen was very well done and we the whole film was preceeded by an interview with a secretary who was in the bunker but survived. Reminds me of this excellent book covering the same events.

Wednesday February 22, 2006

The Apprentice

The second series of the The Apprentice is on TV tonight. I know its reality TV but it is quite interesting. Last years winner Tim Campbell was featured in a program last Sunday charting his first year working for Alan Sugar. He previously worked on London Underground.

Tuesday February 14, 2006

A Touch of Frost

A very good detective series initially based upon the books by R D Wingfield but as they have run out of books new screen stories are being written. The two main characters are the excellent David Jason as Detective Inspector Jack" Frost and his boss Bruce Alexander as Superintendent Norman "Hornrimmed Harry" Mullett. The series started with the loss of his wife to cancer and there is at least one more tragedy for Frost to endure , which I will leave as a secret. He often seems to be given the rubbish sidekicks as if Mullet is trying to persuade him to leave. He is an unconventional police officer hates paperwork ( perhaps they all do?) and perhaps takes chances that the Crown Prosecution Service would go mad at him for doing. He also is an understanding sort of bloke who looks after people who are in difficult situations. His trademark cars have been a tatty blue Volvo estate and a blue Ford Sierra. He is always loosing valuable notes he makes for himself ( to get or instance the washine machine fixed) and does not eat healthy food or have a very active healthy lifestyle. The episodes last two hours and often have multiple stories in them.

He was awarded the George Cross for bravery, but was perhaps embarrassed by the award. Mullet wanted to capitalise on the award but Frost never let him to do. George Toolan a detective sergeant who is also in most of the shows played by John Lyons and perhaps Frost's favourite constable in some of the shows is the pretty Hazel Wallace played by Caroline Harker.

Thursday February 09, 2006

Most of the Universe is missing

Tonight's Horizon program on BBC2 features the research work being conducted to understand what makes up the universe, especially around the areas of Dark Energy and Dark Matter.

Much of the research shown on this programme will utilise computing power from Sun. Indeed, the programme will feature impressive computer simulations of the Universe developed by Professor Carlos Frent of Durham University, on a Sun Grid Compute.

If you ever wondered what is possible on our products, watch the programme....

Tuesday January 31, 2006

Morse's sidekick earns his stripes

Watched a recording of a pilot of what is going to become a new detective series last night. The program had Lewis from the Inspector Morse series as its main character. He is now an Inspector himself. The program is based in Oxford and a jet lagged Lewis nearly gets run over by a Red Jaguar just like the one his boss used to drive in the original series.There are any throw backs to the Morse programs which is ok as this program had the blessing of John Thaw's wife - he played Morse and Colin Dexter who wrote the books the original series was based upon. Sadly Thaw was to die soon after the Morsecharacter was killed off in the last of the series. This story has Lewis return to Oxford after two years abroad having lost his wife in a hit and run incident. He soon becomes involved in solving a series of murders with his own sidekick a startlingly intelligent sergeant who seems to know everything about nothing. The plot is weak but the shots of Oxford are wonderful to see even if they were taken at a time of the day when there is no sign of the usual endless traffic jams that plague the city. Even a visit to a supermarket shows the store being ridiculously empty. So expect more of these in the future not a patch on the Morse series but to their credit thats not what the producters tried to create.