GOOD TV

[Tripps]

Secret lives of cats on BBC2 tonight at 9.00pm should be informative. I heard a plug for it on the radio this afternoon. Seems they don't live up to their stereotype, and don't kill as much wildlife as you would imagine. However, I don't think they fully took into account that most domestic Toms are well fed, and neutered.

[Stanley]

Not a bad programme and quite surprising for the owners. I liked the way some cats raided other cat's food via the cat flaps!

[PanBiker]

The recordings from their collars are on tonight.

[rossylass]

Oooh. Will be able to watch it on my new catch up tv thingy!!

[Nolic]

The White Queen was poor and fell into the same trap as The Tudors - wrong ages/images of the central characters and too much of the soft porn in order to sell abroad. The guy who played Cromwell in The Tudors played Warwick the Kingmaker in this. I wonder if Phillipa Gregory is disappointed? Nolic

[Stanley]

I watched it and I agree with you Comrade. High quality of locations and photography and a wonderful story but spoiled by making it 'commercial'. These days this seems to be regular doses of fifty shades of grey....

[Pluggy]

I thought Horizon, last night would have got a mention here since its subject matter has been discussed on OGFB.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... ergy_Rush/

[Stanley]

I watched it but wondered afterwards what I'd learned that was new. My bottom line on it is that it is seen as a quick fix for the energy problem. The most interesting question asked during the programme was whether we'd be better served if the investment went into other technologies. Problem is of course that private investment has to have a quick return. This is why development of far better long-term solutions like fusion and large scale tidal resources are starved of investment.

[Stanley]

Really enjoyed Kate Humble and the primitive shepherds last night. Lovely people leading the simplest lives and suffering terrible conditions but it brought tears to my eyes.

[Stanley]

Dispatches on C4 last night reporting on the Lawrence affair and the SDS. Good investigative reporting. Not made quite clear wh had the original scoop, I have an idea it was the Manchester Guardian.

[Stanley]

Good Horizon programme last night about Black Holes. Strange things.... and it turns out they aren't black!

[David Whipp]

Watched this with Tom. Surprising how much the thinking about black holes has developed.

One aspect of the programme which Tom picked up on was the noise included in the animations of gas clouds spiralling around black holes. Tom commented that it undermined the realism as there are no sound waves in a vacuum. But when we thought about it, the density of the molecules in the zone where their collisions create unimaginable x-ray emissions is great enough for sound energy as well. Are we right?

[Stanley]

I suspect that in a system as violently chaotic and powerful as that round a black hole almost anything is possible!

[Stanley]

Not TV, Mick Jagger talking to John Humphrys at Glastonbury on R4 Today..... Brilliant!

[Stanley]

Interesting Dispatches programme on the Duchy of Cornwall last night but spoilt slightly by trivialising the subject. They run like an onshore Starbucks!

[Big Kev]

New series of Luther started on BBC1 last night.

[Stanley]

I tried it but a bit too much angst for me, watched the bus programme on BBC2 instead. Noted the other day that a new series of 'New Tricks' is coming. Good, I like it.

[Tizer]

This is not about good TV but good radio, in more ways than one and I didn't know where to post it...Melvyn Bragg's programme this morning on Radio 4 is available to download - it'll interest Panbiker if no-one else!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0368knw

`The Invention of Radio' - Duration 43 minutes, first broadcast: Thursday 04 July 2013
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the invention of radio. In the early 1860s the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell derived four equations which together describe the behaviour of electricity and magnetism. They predicted the existence of a previously unknown phenomenon: electromagnetic waves. These waves were first observed in the early 1880s, and over the next two decades a succession of scientists and engineers built increasingly elaborate devices to produce and detect them. Eventually this gave birth to a new technology: radio. The Italian Guglielmo Marconi is commonly described as the father of radio - but many other figures were involved in its development, and it was not him but a Canadian, Reginald Fessenden, who first succeeded in transmitting speech over the airwaves.

With:
Simon Schaffer, Professor of the History of Science at the University of Cambridge
Elizabeth Bruton, Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Leeds
John Liffen, Curator of Communications at the Science Museum, London
Producer: Thomas Morris.

[PanBiker]

Stanley gave me the heads up about this in one of the admin threads this morning, looking forward to hearing it.

[Stanley]

I look forwards to Thursday each week because 'In Our Time' is such a delight. Apart from the high quality of the information I love the way the various experts interact with and support each other. No arguments about individual views, just reinforcement and an overview of the latest knowledge and theories. A wonderful programme that leaves me thinking there are still good people in the world. Why oh why can't we run governance like this! Ian will enjoy it.....

[PanBiker]

I did, listened to it last night from a download. Could not get the BBC Radio Player to play for the repeat, missing plug-in probably. Anyaway, a good listen. A lot of heroes mentioned in the story and rightly so. Hardly anyone in it for profit until of course Mr Marconi came along and pulled all the ideas together into a commercial concept. Microphone and thermionic valve sealed the deal a little later. A good joint effort, and look what we have now!

[Stanley]

Ian, it reminded me of the flak that Arkwright got over his patents when he developed the water-spinning frame. He was accused of stealing all his ideas but James Watt (who was not a natural ally of Arkwright because at one point he had pirated the idea of metal spinning dished ends for his big bobbins after seeing Boulton and Watt making candle-stick bottoms at their Soho works in Birmingham) defended him saying that "The credit was that he made it work". Watt himself was under pressure over his steam engine patents at the time so he would say that wouldn't he. Marconi did the same thing, he saw what was out there and made it work.

[Stanley]

I'd recorded Ken Loach's Spirit of 45 and watched it last night. Depressing to see how the achievements of that era have been whittled away.

[Stanley]

Watched Philippa Gregory's programme on her book 'The White Queen' last night. First of two programmes and far better than the syrupy version they have filmed for the series. Clear explanation and I have a better handle on the history now.

[Nolic]

I agree Comrade. I wonder of Richard of York will come out of it as well as he does in her books. Nolic