The first recording today is missing about 25 minutes from the start. It’s the first episode of Earth: The Power of the Planet – Volcano. However, I’ve checked ahead, and I do have a complete recording of this programme coming up in a few days, so I’ll look at this then.
Media Centre Description: Documentary series. Dr Iain Stewart reveals the role natural forces have played in the creation of the planet Earth. The first episode discusses volcanoes. Although they are destructive, volcanoes were crucial to the development of life on our planet. Iain’s journey takes him to Ethiopia to discover lava lakes, to Iceland to scuba dive between continents, and to New Zealand to sample hot springs. But it’s not just a holiday for Dr Stewart: he has a serious point to make.
Recorded from BBC TWO on Tuesday 20th November 2007 21:22
BBC Genome: BBC TWO Tuesday 20th November 2007 21:25
I’m not having the best luck today, as the next recording is also missing the start, although this time it’s just a couple of minutes.
It’s the next episode of Spooks – Episode 7 of Series 6 – The Broadcast.
I’m not saying this programme plays to my particular preferences, but it opens with this image.
Newsreader Kate Silverton gives us the backstory. “In the past few hours, hopes have been renewed for a lasting peace in the Persian Gulf after a binding trade agreement between the United States and Iran. The BBC has learned that the ink has been put to paper on a new bilateral agreement. Signifying the confidence of all three governments, tonight’s special broadcast of Ask The Question will give a studio audience the chance to interrogate the panel, and gauge whether this deal ushers in a new dawn in Western-Iranian relations.”
So there’s a special episode of Question Time Ask the Question which will discuss the sudden change in relations between the US and Iran. Adam and Ros are posing as members of the audience.
Also there is journalist Ben Kaplan, whom Adam describes as “our hack”.
As the programme starts, Ben signals Adam with a seat number.
Adam asks the Grid to check out who it is.
Connie calls up the records. “Caroline Bell. Office manager from Crawley, no political history.”
Ben has another one. Seat C10. “Robert Styles from Birmingham. No connection to the first woman.”
There’s one more. Seat A7. We saw this man going through the metal detectors, and there was a significant close-up when he said he had a mobile phone. Plus he was smirking. “Jason Trinder from Glasgow. No connection with the other two.”
Malcolm does a visual face check and realises the photo from the records doesn’t match the man in seat A7. If Connie had been watching the feed she would have noticed that the woman didn’t match either.
But there’s no time for introspection as the man posing as Jason Trinder asks the first question. “Does Iran have a nuclear bomb?” The three people pull guns, grab other audience members and Trinder shouts “Don’t move! Do not cut transmission! Stay on air! Stay on air! Answer the question! Does Iran have a nuclear bomb? Do not cut transmission! If you cut transmission, I will shoot her.”
Harry and Hogan from the CIA arrange to meet with Iran’s Special Consul Darius Bakhshi to offer him a deal. “The PM and the President are willing to propose a full retreat from your waters, and a cessation of military operations against you. We’ll also make Iran a primary trade partner and restore full diplomatic relations with immediate effect.” “And what do you want from us?” “To denounce Hezbollah and the insurgents within Iraq. And to keep your nuclear capability quiet.” And because this programme is made specially for me, they’re having this meeting outside the Royal Albert Hall, another building I love.
There’s lots of news reports about the siege, giving me another excuse to show an aerial shot of Television Centre.
The gunmen want the bodyguards of the guests to leave. The Foreign Secretary dismisses hers. Hogan says he’ll order his to leave if some of the audience are allowed to leave, which the gunman agrees to. But Ros and Ben Kaplan are in the section that’s leaving. Ros sees an older woman on the other section, cowering. “Can you let that woman go, please, she’s old?” “Shut up and get out!” “That’s pathetic.” “For that, you can replace her.” Very smart.
But Bakhshi refuses to dismiss his men. So Adam stands up. “Please, don’t shoot her.” He exchanges a meaningful look with Bakhshi, who relents and orders his men to leave.
“Connie, the BBC website’s close to collapsing.” How dare you, Malcolm. I’m sure they would have coped, which usually means making the homepage statically rendered, and turning off user-specific customisation. On 9/11 I know that our small part of the BBC, h2g2, got almost no traffic because everyone was hitting the homepage or the news homepage.
The gunmen insist on carrying on with the programme’s format, but with their questions, the first of which is “Special Consul Bakhshi, how far progressed is Iran’s uranium enrichment programme?”
Ana, still holed up in an MI5 safe house, suddenly rushes to the toilet to vomit. Hmm. I wonder why.
Earlier in the day, Adam contacts Ben Kaplan to ask him to cover the programme, and write a piece that frames the story in the way they want. “I’m disgusted by this attempt to compromise my journalistic integrity.” “You’ll find a way to live with it.” “I want something in return.” He hands Adam a photo – it’s the woman from Yalta talking to a man we’ve not seen before. “What’s this?” asks Adam. “Just something I’ve been working on. Why? D’you know her?” “No, but I can ask around.”
Later in the day, Bakhshi is playing hardball with Harry and Hogan. “My government is ready to listen to your proposal. There is, however, a condition. There are currently, as you know, six permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. We would like there to be a seventh.” “You got to be kidding me. You seriously think I’d get that through?” “It is a necessary sign of faith in us.” Hogan says it’s impossible. It looks like the broadcast won’t happen.
Ros meets with her Yalta contact. “The US is offering an olive branch. They know what they’re dealing with and they’re scared. They’ll offer Iran a place at the top table if they keep their mouths shut about the triggers.” “America has returned to the negotiating table?” “It’s not a negotiation now, it’s a direct deal. They’ve capitulated, just as Yalta wanted.” “So we just need Tehran to accept the offer?” “Which may not be easy. Bakhshi’s asking for too much.” “Then use what else you have on him. Isn’t there a reason he might play ball, sitting in a safe house somewhere in London right now?” The Yalta agent takes the opportunity to drop a listening bug into Ros’s pocket, although how an experienced spy like Ros didn’t spot that I don’t know.
Back on the grid, Adam asks Ros if she knows who the woman in Ben’s picture is. She says no, and says she’ll show it to Harry.
She doesn’t show it to Harry, she just keeps it in her bag. Instead, she suggests to Harry that they can get Bakhshi to agree if they use Ana as a reward. “Give her a new life, far away from here which only Bakhshi would know about. Tehran and Adam would think she was dead. She stays safe and in Bakhshi’s reach. Could just be the carrot we need.”
Ros then goes to offer the deal to Ana. She’s worried about what would happen to her if she’s taken back to Tehran. “Do you know what they do to adulteresses in Tehran? To Western whores?”
Meanwhile, Harry is offering the deal to Bakhshi.
Ana says she needs something from Ros. It’s a pregnancy test, and it shows she’s pregnant. “Do you know whose it is?” “My husband’s. He wants a child so much.” “Let’s keep it to ourselves until everything is sorted out.”
Back at the siege and the Foreign Secretary has to answer questions about how long the talks have been happening. She’s been well briefed. She’s played by Angela Bruce, another of those faces I love to see pop up in shows.
Harry orders Connie to cut the transmission. “If you cut transmission, he’ll kill someone. We’ll have British blood on our hands.” But they do it. I’ve just noticed that Connie is using an Apple iMac. They look lovely on screen, but I’ve always figured MI5 to be more a Windows type of place. I bet Microsoft will supply specially hardened versions of the OS to security services. Somehow that doesn’t seem like the kind of thing Apple would be interested in doing.
The gunman gets a phone call, someone telling him the TV broadcast has been cut. He orders the moderator to phone technical services to restore the feed, but Malcolm intercepts the feed so he can talk to him, telling him to stall for time. They discover that one of the security guards at the studio was actually an MI5 agent under deep cover, so they try to track where he went when he left the studio.
They stall for a time, but the gunman gets impatient, and threatens to kill someone in the audience. Adam steps up and tries to stall more. “Listen, mate, I’m ex-army. I know these people are born liars, but you do that, you lose me and half the country who agree with you!” “Well, then you call them and you tell them to put that feed right back on!”
The gunman is still impatient. “Stop pissing us around and flick the switch. Flick the switch! Do it now!” Connie grabs the phone from Malcolm. “Hello. This is the Head of Technical Services. I’m afraid when an emergency cut in transmission occurs, there are several security procedures that need to be cleared. We need a little more time.”
They’ve identified where the security guard went, where he is presumably watching TV, so their plan is to restore the transmission only to that house. This seems to involve fiddling around with a telephone junction box. I’ve no idea how they think this should work, and honestly, I don’t think the writers do either. But it works, and the man inside the house gets the programme back, and calls the gunman in the studio to let him know. Just before ten armed men storm the house and drag him out.
Back in the studio, now reassured that he’s broadcasting to the nation, he asks Bakhshi “How developed is your nuclear programme?” Bakhshi looks at Adam, who gives a slight nod. “Our programme is fully developed.” “Enough for a nuclear weapon?” “Yes.” It’s slightly annoying me that whenever the gunman says “Special Consul” he pronounces it “console”. I wonder if that’s an acting choice.
Harry is watching the broadcast with the rogue MI5 agent who was in the house. “It appears you’ve achieved what you wanted. World war, probably. Three years ago you disappeared off the intelligence radar. Where have you been? Come on, John. You’ve won. The whole world is watching this. At least fill me in.” Then the man spills everything. He infiltrated Yalta three years ago. Harry says he’s never heard of them. “They’re pushing this bogus peace deal, pushing Iran to the top table. They had to be stopped. This was the only way. I don’t trust anyone, Pearce. Not newspaper editors, not politicians, not intelligence officials. You could all be Yalta. But I do trust Paul Mills and his crazy racist gang of thugs. I trust the British people. And I trust what I see with my own eyes.”
Ben Kaplan is still in the studio, and Jo makes contact. Adam gets a message to Connie to send Ben up on the lighting rig to drop a light on the gunman. Ben’s reluctant so Connie texts him. I guess it’s fraught, as she manages to misspell the word “screwing”.
Adam and Ros play for time, he arguing for the racists, she for the opposition, as Ben moves a light into place over the gunman, who is now preparing to murder Bakhshi live on TV (he thinks).
Ben gets the light in the right place. Adam signals to Malcolm to drop the light, and in the ensuing chaos, he and Ros manage to disarm the other two racists, so there’s a stand-off. “Put the gun down. We can do a deal.” “It’s too late. The whole world knows the truth.” “I don’t think so. The ratings for the broadcast weren’t quite as high as you might have hoped.” “What do you mean?” “We didn’t reinstate the feed. So, whatever you do, we’ll cover it up. No-one will ever know. You’ve lost, Paul.”
He still tries to kill Bakhshi, but Ros shoots him. Adam offers his hand to Bakhshi, and pulls him to his feet. But in true movie form, the gunman isn’t quite dead, and shoots Bakhshi, before Adam puts three more bullets into him. Connie says “He’s been shot in the stomach. We don’t know if he’ll live.”
Ben is reluctant to sit on the huge story he’s witnessed. But he’s not allowed to leave immediately. Ros takes him back to the studio, and also hands back the picture of Ms Yalta saying it came up blank.
Harry arrives at the studio and tells the audience (and Ben) what’s going to happen. “I’d like to thank you on behalf of the British Government for your bravery throughout this terrible ordeal. The world outside does not yet know that the siege has ended. And it cannot know until we have agreed what happened here tonight. I have a job offer for you. As of this moment, you are all invited to become employees of Her Majesty’s Intelligence Service. You will return to your normal lives, but will remain in our employ until the day you die. You will experience huge pressure to tell what you know. But no-one must know what was said in here tonight. On the back of the paperwork there is a copy of the Official Secrets Act. No-one leaves until both the terms of the contract and the Secrets Act have been agreed to. We are in no rush. But there can be no refusals. We’re all spies now.”
Before he leaves, Ben speaks to Harry and shows him the picture of Yalta woman. “Do you know her?” “No.” “When I was following Mills and his clan, they made regular contact with this thug and he led me to her. But I can’t get a thing on her.” Harry asks “Can I keep this?” “Yeah.”
As Bakhshi is being wheeled out, he asks Harry if Ana is safe. He tells him she is, so now Adam knows Ana is not dead. He’s not happy about it. “Where is she?!” “She’s safe.” “Safe? Yalta infiltrated the security services. How do you know she’s safe?” “The transit’s on its way. Ana will be out of the country within the hour, and I forbid either of you from getting involved.” But Ros remembers that her Yalta contact knew all about Ana at the safe house. When Harry leaves she tells Adam “She’s at 26, Fournier Street. I’m coming with you.”
There’s a very tense race against time. Ana’s transit arrives, but Jo doesn’t know that someone called the Grid to cancel the transit team. Connie calls Ros to ask if they cancelled it. I don’t know why she didn’t call Jo first, except to increase the jeopardy, and it certainly increases. Adam is racing to the house, Jo finally gets a call to warn her, she grabs Ana to get her away, the evil drivers start shooting, and Adam arrives at top speed, ploughing into both men.
Adam watches as Ana leaves for Canada.
Adam and Ros finally address the simmering sexual tension between them. For now, anyway. It’s all going to go wrong, obviously.
Media Centre Description: Drama series about the British Security Service. Knowing there is every chance Iran has gone nuclear, Harry and the CIA’s Bob Hogan work up a plan to see off any military repurcussions. The stage is set for a televised debate on a new peace deal between the US and Iran. However, through Yalta a group of white anti-Islamists learn of the broadcast, and the TV panel and audience, including Ros, Adam and journalist Ben Kaplan are held hostage in an armed siege.
Recorded from BBC THREE on Tuesday 20th November 2007 22:30
BBC Genome: BBC THREE Tuesday 20th November 2007 22:30
After this, there’s a trail for The Mighty Boosh and for Titty Bang Bang 3.
There’s also 60 Seconds of news, complete with a presenter who has laryngitis.
Then the recording stops with the start of an episode of Can Fat Teens Hunt?
The final recording today is a film I’ve read about, but never seen. I don’t think I watched it at the time I recorded it.
It’s Startup.com. It’s about two friends who form an internet startup called GovWorks who want to offer an internet portal for local governments.
Clearly, graphic design is their passion.
This film might be a bit of a time capsule for the startup scene in the late 90s.
Then again, maybe it’s just a lot of young bullshitters sitting in offices. They have a meeting with a venture capital company, and can’t even get their lawyer on the phone to look at the term sheet.
There’s a third founder who invested some money earlier and did some initial work, but now they want to buy him out.
They have a company retreat.
Lots of people in a room shouting inspirational things in Spanish.
I think Kaleil’s girlfriend has the measure. “You see a whole bunch of guys acting very grown up with their ties and their cufflinks and their little pens and their credit cards. They look so… They’re such grown up gentlemen. But you know what? They’re not.” The relationship doesn’t last the movie.
They invite the head of the company who’s their main competitor to meet them. It seems like some kind of power move.
A month later they have to watch him do a big launch online. This definitely seems to rile up the founders.
The founders are arguing about whether Kaleil needs to be hands on with the scope of their product. Tom, the other founder, would prefer he concentrates on raising the investment. “I think that my strategic input into the building of our product is important.”
It’s almost an hour into this film before we get our first look at the company’s project. This is definitely late 90s internet.
They appear to be using Ask Jeeves to power their search. But a search for “parking tickets” gives the option “By Park do you mean the Last Name Park or the First Name Park.”
Just before they go live, Tom uses the site to pay his parking ticket, and it works. “It is a cool little engine.”
There’s a bit of a montage of the press they’re getting. Kaleil even attends an event at the White House and meets President Clinton.
But then there’s a break-in, which Kaleil thinks is corporate espionage. His computer is taken, legal files are missing.
Suddenly there’s news stories about internet companies running out of money.
Arguments are starting about the technology. “I just don’t want you guys to tell us, stop doing what you’re doing, wait ten days for us to figure out what we want, so that you can rebuild something totally from scratch, based on what you are doing.”
The relationship between Tom and Kaleil is getting strained. Tom doesn’t want to step away from leading the technology.
Everyone in this film is talking all the time on their phones when driving. Tom is now in the position of negotiating a possible exit from the company.
He comes in to work, and finds a letter from Kaleil terminating his employment.
Good God, here’s Kaleil writing something in his PDA while pulling away from lights. I thought at first he was being driven but no, he’s in the driver’s seat.
Kaleil breaks the news about Tom to the company. Then he leads them in their inspiration chant.
But they still appear to be trying to be friends. “I also want you to know, despite any and all the other things that may or may not be happening, I have had a great time over the last year and I love you. I really do.” “I love you, too. I’m sorry that things are the way they are.”
Six Months Later, it’s not going well.
The “Where Are They Now?” captions made me laugh, especially the last one.
Media Centre Description: Prize-winning documentary following two high-school friends over the course of a year as they begin an internet startup, a gripping tale of big money, suspense and intrigue.
Recorded from BBC FOUR on Tuesday 20th November 2007 23:00
BBC Genome: BBC FOUR Tuesday 20th November 2007 23:00
After this there’s a trail for Brasil Brasil and for Saturday Night Classics. I spotted a young Peter Firth in there.
There’s also a trail for Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives.
Then the recording stops with the start of Legends featuring Elle Fitzgerald.
VHiStory 