WEDNESDAY 22 OCTOBER 2008

WED 19:00 World News Today (b00f3p1s)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


WED 19:30 Britain from Above (b00d7ntb)
The Industrial Landscape

The story of how Britain's industrial heartlands have been transformed in the space of a single lifetime.

In 1939, the Luftwaffe secretly photographed the backbone of the British economy: the valleys of South Wales where the great coalfields powered the nation; Swindon, at the heart of Britain's railway network; and Manchester, home to the great port of Salford and the world's largest industrial estate Trafford Park.

Comparing those images with ones from 2008, the sheer scale and speed of change becomes vividly apparent. Where there were factories there are fields; mining villages no longer have mines; docks have been replaced by high-spec waterside apartments. Seen from above, it is clear that no other aspect of the nation has changed so much or so quickly. It is a story of evolution, adaptation, and in some places, extinction.


WED 20:00 Britain from Above (b00d7qhq)
Untamed Britain

Andrew Marr microlights and paraglides through the skies, getting a buzzard's eye view of the nation's untamed and untameable landscape. Along the way, he joins geologists, meteorologists, amateur photographers and festival goers to explore Britain's geology, the impact of the weather on our shores and the riches hidden beneath our feet.

Microlighting down the Great Glen Fault in the Scottish Highlands, Andrew learns about the very origins of the nation, where England and Scotland collided over 400 million years ago. In Northern Ireland, he discovers where geologists looked down from above at a river containing gold flowing through the Sperrin Mountains. While paragliding on the Welsh borders, he finds out how to read the clouds before flying over the east coast of Norfolk, where the wind's destructive powers are shown to devastating effect.

Geology and weather also affect the country's wildlife and satellite tracking demonstrates the migration of birds from Senegal and Siberia to Britain's shores. Using thermal imaging that is normally employed to search out insurgents in war zones, the shy Sika deer is tracked along the land on Lulworth Range.

He concludes his journey at the Glastonbury Festival, where for three days a miniature society flowers which is crowded, cheerful, dirty and mildly anarchic, and which has a transport system that only just works - features that sound vaguely familiar to Andrew.


WED 21:00 Wilderness Explored (b00f3p40)
Congo

The first Europeans to penetrate the vast forests of central Africa encountered an exuberance of animals, plants and minerals. Their accounts created a sensation back in their own countries, none more so than that of the gorilla, yet has this abundance of wildlife and resources been at the expense of the region's indigenous populations?


WED 22:00 Congo (b0074mr8)
The River That Swallows All Rivers

Documentary series looking at one of Africa's least explored regions. The Congo River is now so wide that animals are unable to cross it. Intelligent but aggressive chimpanzees inhabit the north side, while the more gentle bonobos - pygmy chimps - live ten miles away on the south side. As big as Wales, the Bangweulu Lake and swamps in Zambia are home to a bird as big as a man and arguably the most primitive fish in the world.


WED 22:50 Congo (b0074mrf)
Spirits of the Forest

Documentary series looking at the natural history of one of Africa's least-explored regions.

The Baka pygmies of the Congo tell of a huge dinosaur like creature with a single horn, called Mokele Mbembe that lives deep in the jungle.

This film is an adventure with the pygmies in search of the truth behind that monster. On the remarkable journey, Africa's dark heart gives up some extraordinary secrets.


WED 23:40 Congo (b0074mrn)
Footprints in the Forest

Documentary series exploring the natural history of one of Africa's least explored regions.

The Congo is home to all three of our closest relatives: gorillas, chimps and pygmy chimps, or bonobos. Could we too have originally come from these forests? And which of these apes are we most like?

Although it is a wilderness now, scientists are finding evidence of past civilizations throughout the region, proving that people were a part of the Congo's history far back into the past.


WED 00:30 Wilderness Explored (b00f3p40)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


WED 01:30 The Wild Life of Gerald Durrell (b0074s14)
Profile of the best-selling author of My Family and Other Animals. Gerald Durrell's pioneering work at Jersey Zoo contributed much to the way we treat endangered species. Contributors include David Attenborough and Desmond Morris.


WED 02:30 Travellers' Century (b00cp4nx)
Patrick Leigh Fermor

Benedict Allen follows Patrick Leigh Fermor's epic 1931 quest across Europe, tracing the inns, haystacks and castles the young adventurer stayed in as he foot-slogged his way through Holland, Germany, Hungary and Romania towards Byzantium.

With his academic career punctuated by numerous school expulsions, the young Patrick Leigh Fermor put aside his troubles and set out across Europe to reach Constantinople in Turkey. It was the original backpacker journey, but also a quest in the romantic tradition of Lord Byron - that of the man of action and the intellectual combined.

His two accounts of that journey, A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and Water, are a masterly portrait of a Europe about to be swept aside by war, and also an insight into the brilliant, classically educated mind of the author.

It is in remotest Greece that Benedict Allen finally tracks down the great man himself to discuss the nature, purpose and future of travel writing.


WED 03:30 Wilderness Explored (b00f3p40)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]