The first recording today starts with the end of the news.
There’s a trail for the Reading and Leeds Festival.
Then, an episode of Jackanory Junior – The Woman Who Won Things read by Sophie Okonedo.
Here’s someone else’s upload.
At the end, I noticed the executive producer credit was Kay Benbow, and the news of her death has been on Twitter today. I’m so very, very sorry.
Media Centre Description: Sophie Okonedo tells Allan Ahlberg’s story of the Gaskitt family, their cats and a very mysterious supply teacher.
Recorded from BBC ONE on Wednesday 22nd August 2007 15:23
BBC Genome: BBC ONE Wednesday 22nd August 2007 15:25
After this, there’s a trail for Do Something Different.
Then the recording stops with a minute or so of The Cramp Twins.
The next recording starts with the end of Finley the Fire Engine.
There’s a trail for Jakers!
Then, a repeat showing for Jackanory Junior – The Woman Who Won Things.
Media Centre Description: Sophie Okonedo tells Allan Ahlberg’s story of the Gaskitt family, their cats and a very mysterious supply teacher.
Recorded from CBeebies on Wednesday 22nd August 2007 17:13
BBC Genome: CBeebies Wednesday 22nd August 2007 17:15
There’s a trail for Big Fun Time. And then Sid presents a bit called Jakers Capers.
Then the recording ends with the start of Jakers!
The next recording starts with the end of Wainwright Walks.
There’s a trail for The Secret Life of the Motorway.
Then, it’s the much trailed Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive. It’s a very honest film about his life, and they way his bipolar disorder has affected him. It’s introduced by Fry himself as it was shown as part of Stephen Fry’s Weekend.
He talks to Robbie Williams about his experience with the disorder.
Another well known sufferer is Carrie Fisher.
He has a brain scan. “Is there anything you see in my brain that leads you to the view that I am bipolar?” “No.”
Professor Nick Craddock is going to assess the extent of his diagnosis, with a set of 200 questions.
He goes to his old school, from where he was expelled due to his behaviour, which included stealing. He talks to his old housemaster, Geoffrey Frowde.
He visits Pucklehurst Prison, where he was sent after being prosecuted for credit card fraud.
He talks to the mother of two children who are both diagnosed with BPD.
He speaks to Dr Kiki Chang, who diagnoses children with BPD.
He meets Rod Harvey, once the Lieutenant Commander of the Royal Yacht Britannia, whose whole life was destroyed by his BPD.
Rick Stein’s father had BDP, and killed himself.
Gaynor Thomas’s BPD was heavily amplified by her pregnancy, to such an extent that she’s decided not to have another child.
Another old friend of Fry’s Tony Slattery, talks about his experience.
Connie Perris: “When I’m very depressed, I slow down and slow down and slow down, and it gets to the point at which I’m just not moving at all. Inside my head, I can see, I can hear, but somehow I just don’t have the energy or the oomph to move forward.” She once tried to drill a hole in her head.
Stephen gets his diagnosis from Nick Craddock, who scores him 70 on a scale of 0-100.
Here’s the whole programme.
Media Centre Description: Stephen Fry explores the world of manic depression, a mental illness which affects up to 4 million people in the UK, including himself. He sets out to uncover more about a misunderstood condition which drives those who have it from extreme highs to crippling lows. Stephen describes the impact on his own life and meets up with ordinary people and celebrities such as Robbie Williams, Carrie Fisher, Tony Slattery and Rick Stein to discuss what triggers it and why it often takes years to diagnose.
Recorded from BBC FOUR on Wednesday 22nd August 2007 19:58
BBC Genome: BBC FOUR Wednesday 22nd August 2007 20:00
After this, there’s a trail for part two of this documentary (which I don’t seem to have recorded). Then the recording stops with the start of The Secret Life of the Motorway.
The next recording starts with the end of Newsnight with the end of a report looking at declining IQs.
There’s weather, and a trail for Michael Wood: The Story of India.
There’s also a Proms trail.
Then, another episode of Hyperdrive – Convoy. The HMS Camden Lock is accompanying Britain’s new super-weapon. “This baby’s so big she’ll stop all wars. Even the people it’s pointed at will feel protected by its aggression. It’s a win-win.”
Two other ships are in the convoy, and Henderson chats up the two captains, whom he’s given the CB Radio handles Sky Dancer and Fruit Smoothie. It’s a little creepy.
Vine has a new gadget, a Mouth Player that can play any flavours he wants.
Henderson has bought a new box set of Captain Helix, his favourite show.
York has perfected The Banato.
The convoy comes under attack from six Scrane ships. The two support ships are destroyed.
They capture a Scrane, and he tells them that they have a traitor on their midst.
The command crew have to go to the Detective Room where an AI will interview them. They can choose the style of detective. I like this list and I think I can name almost all of them – Ironside, Rosemary & Thyme (?), Sherlock Holmes, Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe, The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency, Inspect Morse and Columbo.
Jeffers has fun pretending to Vine that he’s the traitor.
York also does a similar thing with Henderson.
The detective software doesn’t work out who the traitor is.
The rest of the team think that Vine is being subliminally controlled by his mouth reader, so he’s put into the cube.
But when Henderson is watching his Captain Helix DVDs, the Captain says the line “Yes, robot, we have triumphed once again thanks to hope and courage, which combine to form the still stronger force of horridge” looking straight into the camera on the last word, causing Henderson to suddenly zone out and start mumbling the word Horridge.
He stuns all the crew he meets on the way to the bridge, and sends a message to the Scrane to summon them. Teal begs him not to kill her, and this breaks the spell slightly. He asks her to take the gun, set it to kill and kill him. But then she asks him what she means to him, and they start bickering long enough for the Scrane to arrive and disarm her.
“How are you controlling me?” Henderson asks. And across the bridge, Captain Helix stands up. “Yes, Michael Henderson. Look upon the face of your master.” His monologue about his plan is quite something.
My real name is Scrane Orovik. You see, 30 years ago, I learned of top-secret British plans for a super weapon. I knew we must have it. So, in a series of painful operations, I transformed my handsome Scrane face into the hideous human visage you now see. I began a career as a human actor. Oh, the years of struggle. A touring play about a middle-aged novelist. My one man, Little Dorrit. Until finally, I was allowed to create a special vehicle for my unique talents. Captain Helix.
At this point, we chose an impressionable, unhappy human child and used the program to control his mind. Since the age of 13, you have responded to my subliminal messages. Messages we update each time you buy a new box set. Thus, he has actually paid for his own demise. I made you join Space Force. I made you volunteer for this mission. I made you give away your position. And you would have let me board on the first attack if you watched season three in the correct order. Yes, it hurts, doesn’t it? To know it’s all your fault.
He orders Henderson to order the gun to fire into Earth’s sun.
Then he orders Henderson to kill his friends. “Oh, you’re trying to fight it, aren’t you? But you can’t. You must do what Captain Helix wants you to.” Henderson agrees. “Yes, I must.” Then he shoots all the Scrane on the bridge. Teal says “Oh, Commander, that was majestic. How did you do it?” “Well, I just did what Captain Helix would want me to. Not him, the one I grew up with.” I found this moment quite moving, a nod towards the heroes we have as children. Well done, Hyperdrive.
There’s even a moving farewell, as Henderson asks the Scrane to do Captain Helix just one last time.
Henderson has to face the Space Marshall. “Henderson, come straight to Earth.” “For my Court Martial?” “For the parade, you’re our hero, man. Saving the world from that Scrane gun.” “No, hang on. That was actually…” “A Scrane gun. Those evil, evil Scrane, making such a horrific weapon.”
That’s a good episode to end on.
Media Centre Description: Sci-fi comedy set in 2151 that follows spaceship HMS Camden Lock as it goes about protecting British interests in a changing galaxy. Entrusted with leading the convoy guarding Britain’s new super-weapon, the Camden Lock’s position is betrayed. There is a traitor aboard and all the officers are under suspicion. There is desperate race against time to find the mole before Earth is destroyed. Only Vine’s new gadget offers any respite from the mounting tension.
Recorded from BBC TWO on Wednesday 22nd August 2007 23:18
BBC Genome: BBC TWO Wednesday 22nd August 2007 23:20
After this, there’s a new trail for The Restaurant.
The next recording starts with the end of a documentary about Rover cars. And there’s another trailer for Secret Life of a Manic Depressive.
Then, the second part of Secret Life of the Motorway – The Honeymoon Period. This repeat has signing for the hard of hearing.
Rachel Cooke talks about the excitement of motorway trips. as a child. “My mother made pockets, which she put on the back seat, the back of the front seats, and they were filled with all kind of toys and books and stuff, and it was all part of this incredibly elaborate preparation for this epic journey, when really you were probably only going to the Lake District.”
Suzanne Greaves: “Part of the excitement of travelling on a motorway was the geography was different. So you suddenly saw hills or very flat areas of land, you saw bits of seaside that you’d only seen on your school atlas before. You heard these regional accents, which made something about the foreignness, but also the availability of travelling for these bits of the country, and seeing people in those environments. So things I had read about suddenly were there.”
There’s the I-Spy On The Motorway.
Victor Middleton: “As soon as motorways released this demand and the ability to travel inland, then a huge shift essentially to self -catering types of accommodation took place. So caravans, B&Bs, making it possible for people to travel when they wanted, how they wanted to take their luggage, to have entirely their own convenience choice of times. It changed a very old-fashioned model of holidays into something that fitted with the way people see their needs in the present day.”
Coral Hamilton extols the virtues of caravanning.
Service Stations became a destination in themselves.
Postcard collector Martin Parr reads some sent from Service Stations.
Joan Lissamer explains the confusion cause by Watford Gap services. “People got confused with that because they thought that was about 10 miles from London, you see, and they used to say, oh, we haven’t got that far to go. You know, when you tell them it’s 74 miles or 75 miles, they’d go mad.”
The unbelievable glamour that was Charles Forte’s first service station at Newport Pagnell. I think that particular shade of yellow no longer exists, it could only be made in the 60s and 70s. Hemel was replete with the same type of architecture.
Ruth Gibson talks about her time at the Terence Conran-designed Leicester Forest East services, where the restaurant was on the bridge across the motorway.
Tim Edensor remembers the heyday of hitch-hiking ushered in by the motorways.
Simon Calder: “If you were somewhere like Hendon, where people traditionally began to try to hitch onto the M1, you would find that you didn’t actually want to take that lift to Hemel Hempstead or to Tring, because quite honestly, that would only take you a few junctions along. You wanted the big one. You wanted to go to Watford Gap.” How very dare he?
Sean Street talks about the rise of the car radio. “One of the great revolutions in radio reception was the creation of the transistor. And it’s perhaps very significant that the first stretch of the M1 opens in 1959 and the first transistor radio in this country becomes available in 1960.”
Tony Blackburn on his relationship with the audience. “There are two places where you have a really intimate relation with the listener. First of all, there is that relationship with the listener who’s in the car because they’re a captive audience. The second one is anybody in prison.”
We see Russ Kane in the Capital Radio Flying Eye.
Will Self: “In this current era when there seems to be so much confusion about what Britishness is, I think that the British are the people who use the British motorways quite clearly. You could define us solely as a motorway race rather than an island race.”
I adore Lucy Pearce. Ray Pearce rhapsodises about the charms of the service station. “We normally come to this service station about two or three times a month. We like coming here because the staff make a fuss of us. There’s a disabled Loo which I can use. Lucy has a bit of exercise through the shop and through here. The food’s good and the general ambiance is nice. They are pleased to see us.” The interviewer asks “And Lucy, why do you like coming here?” “I don’t particularly.”
Martin Grant (I think it’s Grant, the signer’s elbow is in the way) gives us the dark side of the service station. “Some quite sad things go on on our sites, you know. It’s not uncommon actually for people to die on our sites. They keel over their heart attack from the stress of the journey. No, it’s a fact. But you don’t really want to get into that, do you?”
John and Christine Drewett manage the Loo of the Year awards. “I’ve been inspecting loos for the last seven years.” “And I’ve been inspecting loos and assisting John for the past two years.”
Sheryll Garret talks about the late 80s phenomenon of raves, often coordinated from service stations. “And of course as soon as a cluster of people got in cars, you’d just follow them. I think it was Heston services. We all followed someone back to a nearby village and she was actually going back to change her jumper.”
Sir Peter Hall (not that one): “The English, historically, have never had a very strong attachment to the city or the town. They’ve always had a yen for getting out to the country. Once the motorways came, it was possible to go the whole hog and do what social surveys show people really wanted to do, even in the suburbs, and that is get out altogether into the open countryside.”
The motorway also has an effect on nearby villages, once remote places, like Kington Langley, now only a few minutes from the M4. “It’s altered the whole nature of Kington Langley. Working-class people, they just cannot afford the prices of the bigger houses in the village. They’ve definitely been outpriced because people living in the village now, they use the motorway mostly to work at Bristol, Bath, Swindon, and also commute to London. When we didn’t have a motorway, we had a very, very close community. But since that has been for many years, I think it’s altered, and it’s not the same.”
The programme talks about the New Towns. No sign of Hemel, but film of Harold Macmillan visiting Stevenage (or it might be Harlow).
But New Towns were often used by commuters, like Caroline Keeling. “If you ask me to go to some of the places around where I live, I probably wouldn’t be able to do it, but ask me to take you to Oxford and you’d be fine.”
Tim Davis is giving a slightly desperate sales pitch for his business park. “Bottom line is about maximising productivity, but there’s an awful lot of research that shows that productivity in corporates is maximised through people being happy where they work and we’re trying to play our part in delivering that kind of development.” I bet he’s the type that moans when everyone wants to work remotely.
Maurice Goulding drives an Eddie Stobart lorry. “Everything you see around about you and everything that you buy in the supermarkets is brought to you on a lorry. They are the lifeline of Britain. I don’t think people do realise how important the lorries are.”
Alan McKinnon explains the importance of road transport. “because products are moved long distances by road, without road transport, the shelves run bare, the health services are severely disrupted, manufacturing grinds to a halt. Within a few days, half the cars in the country are off the road because they can’t get fuel. So altogether, life comes to an end within three or four days.”
Rachel Bowley is a shopping historian. “In the 60s, what we would now see as almost no choice at all would have seemed like an awful lot of choice. The rate of expansion has just gone on and on mushrooming for want of a better metaphor and we don’t know now where it will end.”
Bluewater typifies the mega shopping locations that only exist thanks to the motorways.
Media Centre Description: Three-part documentary which celebrates the birth of motorways and hails the achievements of those behind the ‘road revolution’. This edition explores how they have transformed where we live, work and play in Britain over the last 50 years. From early service stations to contemporary shopping centres, it’s a journey through the wonderful, and the weird, places motorways have taken us. Contributors include planner Sir Peter Hall, author Well Self, caravanners, hitchhikers and commuters.
Recorded from BBC FOUR on Thursday 23rd August 2007 02:48
BBC Genome: BBC FOUR Thursday 23rd August 2007 02:50
After this, there’s a trailer for Part 3 of this series. Then BBC Four closes down.