Today’s first recording starts with a trail for Raven and a promo for the CBBC website.
Then, another repeat of M.I. High – Fit Up.
Media Centre Description: Children’s spy drama with high school kids Blane, Daisy and Rose. The teenage spies are stretched to the limit when a strange sleeping sickness hits Britain’s kids.
Recorded from BBC ONE on Monday 4th February 2008 16:58
BBC Genome: BBC ONE Monday 4th February 2008 17:00
After this there’s a promo for the M.I. High website.
Then there’s a the start of Newsround during which the recording stops.
The next recording starts with the end of Beat The Boss.
There’s a promo for the CBBC Website.
Then, a new episode of M.I. High – Big Sister.
Felicity Montagu guest stars as Mary Taylor, Minister for Schools, who is launching an initiative to tech children manners.
She’s having cameras installed everywhere to monitor the children, which makes it hard for the team to go into the MI9 base. So Blane does the old photo in front of the camera trick.
The school is having an event where the children host Senior Citizens. Mr Flatley has high hopes. “Well, at least the Minister’s idea for Senior Citizens Week was a good one, I suppose.” “Yes, perhaps it will teach them a little dignity and decorum.” Then the find the kids racing with the OAPs. Who are all enjoying it.
Daisy and her friends are giving one lady a makeover. “Oh, don’t hold back now, girls. I used to be a bit of a wild child in my day.” “Really? But you’re so ancient.” “Kids today. Oh, you’ve got old people all wrong. I remember when it was all late nights, parties, rock and roll.” “You were into rock and roll?” “I still am, thank you. The good thing about having a walking stick, I can fight my way to the front at Crush concerts.” “You like Crush?” “Age is nothing but a state of mind.”
Another OAP does a rap for Fifty Pence and his friends. He’s Mr Bleaze, who was Headmaster of the school when Mr Flatley was a pupil.
A security guard takes CCTV tapes from the school to a house nearby, where Garden Gnomes keep a lookout for children.
He delivers the tapes to the woman who lives there. “Time the world saw how horrible and contaminating children really are. And soon they’ll all be gone.”
Next day there’s a big news story about how the senior citizens were mistreated by the children by selectively editing the footage.
The Minister responds to the story. “I think what Mr. Flatley is trying to say is that we all saw the shocking footage on the news this morning. Clearly, much stronger measures are needed to teach our children some manners. And not just at this school, at every school in the country.” “Are you saying that every school in the country is as bad as this one?” “We will solve this crisis. We will save our children from themselves.”
Blane sees the Minister give money to the security guard who had the tapes, so he follows her back to the house with the garden gnomes. He and Stew kick a ball into the garden so he has an excuse to go into the garden, where he plants a camera in the wall of the house, but has to escape when the front garden is electrified.
The camera shows the Minister is the woman who got the tapes, and she’s scrubbing her arms obsessively. “Make the children all vanish, Mr Bear. Just make them all vanish.” “Did she just talk to the bear? She’s totally lost it.” “Unless she’s allergic to kids.”
The news shows the minister making an announcement. “In 45 minutes, Parliament will vote to give me emergency powers to deal with a bad manners epidemic which is sweeping Britain. These children need help before it’s too late.”
Rose finds out that Minister Mary Taylor went to St Hopes. There’s a picture of her with the old headmaster. He tells Rose that Mary left when she was 12 to go to University. “A quiet girl. Never messed around with the other kids.”
Mr Flatley announces the special treat for the children. A two week adventure holiday on an island. But Daisy and Blane find her real plans in her house – the island is a prison, and is intended to keep the children there until they are 18.
Daisy confronts the minister with the documents they’ve found. She asks if she’s allergic to children. And when she reveals herself to be a child, the minister suddenly needs her inhaler.
The Minister takes the keys to the bus and tries to drive the kids away, but the senior citizens stage a blockade, joined by My Flatley.
Rose speaks to the Minister. “You never really spent much time with other kids, did you?” “I’m allergic. I have allergies.” “Right. Only. You’re not scratching now. And you’re on a bus with lots of kids.” “So I am.” “Maybe you’ve just been shut away for so long that you thought you were allergic. Your parents. They never let you have friends. You spent all your time studying.” “Oh, they just wanted me to do well. It-it was always just me and Mr Bear.”
Media Centre Description: Children’s spy drama with high school kids Blane, Daisy and Rose. The spies investigate when a child-hating MP threatens to send Britain’s kids to a remote island.
Recorded from CBBC Channel on Monday 4th February 2008 17:30
BBC Genome: CBBC Channel Monday 4th February 2008 17:30
The next recording is another episode of The Simpsons – 22 Short Films about Springfield. This is another that I’ve looked at on a tape. It’s meme-tastic. “Steamed Hams” and “Aurora Borealis. At this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the country, localized entirely within your kitchen.”
Media Centre Description: The lives of Springfield residents are highlighted in a series of interconnecting vignettes.
Recorded from Channel 4 on Monday 4th February 2008 18:00
The next recording starts with the end of Panorama.
There’s a trail for The Ten O’Clock News.
Then, there’s a slightly customised version of a BBC One ident for the next programme.
It’s the first episode of Life in Cold Blood – The Cold Blooded Truth in which David Attenborough looks at reptiles and amphibians.
We meets some diving iguanas.
With Side Blotch Lizards he notes how the most successful males are the ones that stake a claim on the warmest rocks. “But is it the males themselves or their assets that the females are interested in? To find out let’s move their hot rocks and give them to a subordinate male. The females quickly recognize that a more desirable residence has appeared in the world. And the sex-starved wimp suddenly finds himself amazingly popular.” A bit of Attenborough shade there.
There’s the lizards who have only, within the last 20 years, started eating the fruit of the Dead Horse Arum, a plant which, according to Attenborough, smells as bad as it sounds. “They do take a bit of swallowing but the seeds passing through a lizard’s gut not only survive but germinate even more easily. As a result the arums which were rather scarce here 20 years ago have suddenly become abundant all over the island.”
Tortoises who fight. “The males begin to fight, jousting like medieval knights using a projection on the front of the shell like a lance. The technique is to get the spike under your opponent and then flip him over onto his back.”
He finds a South African Armadillo Lizard.
Inevitably, there’s lizard nookie.
The South American Waxy Monkey Frog.
Poison Arrow Frogs spend a lot of their time fighting.
A python eats a whole deer.
The North American Painted Turtle, which actually freezes during winter, and thaws out in spring.
The Crocodiles which court by blowing bubbles at each other.
In the final ‘making of’ section, Attenborough revisits Madagascar, which he visited early in his career, and talks about one particular species he was never able to find – a pygmy chameleon. This time, with the help of a local expert, he finds them – a tiny chameleon sleeping on the end of the stick he’s holding. “I never knew they were as small as this. That is absolutely extraordinary. It’s about the size of a blue bottle. A blow fly.” Attenborough is almost on the verge of teats as he says “It’s wonderful. I am astonished. That is the most marvellous thing I’ve seen for a very very long time.”
Media Centre Description: David Attenborough reveals the surprising truth about the cold-blooded lives of reptiles and amphibians. These animals are as dramatic in combat, as colourful in their communication and as tender in their parental care as any other animals. Join giant courting crocodiles, jousting tortoises and bright red sumo-wrestling frogs in their sophisticated, solar-powered lives.
Recorded from BBC ONE on Monday 4th February 2008 20:58
BBC Genome: BBC ONE Monday 4th February 2008 21:00
After this there’s a trail for Tropic of Capricorn.
There’s also a trail for Holby City.
Then the recording stops with the start of the Ten O’Clock News
The last recording today starts with the end of Newsnight.
There’s weather, and a trail for Tropic of Capricorn plus a promo for the BBC News website.
Then, a repeat of Jim Al-Khalili’s documentary Atom – The Illusion of Reality
Media Centre Description: The final part of Professor Jim Al-Khalili’s documentary series about the basic building block of our universe, the atom. He explores how studying the atom forced us to rethink the nature of reality itself, discovers how there might be parallel universes in which different versions of us exist and finds out that ’empty’ space isn’t empty at all. Al-Khalili shows how the world we think we know turns out to be a tiny sliver of an infinitely weirder universe than which we could have conceived.
Recorded from BBC TWO on Monday 4th February 2008 23:18
BBC Genome: BBC TWO Monday 4th February 2008 23:20
After this, there’s a trail for The Choir: Boys Don’t Sing.
There’s also a promo for BBC Asian Network.
Plus the Terry Wogan Radio 2 promo.
Then the recording stops just as BBC 2 joins BBC News 24.