TUESDAY 04 DECEMBER 2012

TUE 19:00 World News Today (b01p64kb)
The latest national and international news, exploring the day's events from a global perspective.


TUE 19:30 Great British Railway Journeys (b00q2pg7)
Series 1

Settle to Garsdale

Michael Portillo takes to the tracks with a copy of George Bradshaw's Victorian Railway Guidebook. In a series of four epic journeys, he travels the length and breadth of the country to see how the railways changed us, and what remains of Bradshaw's Britain.

Michael's second epic journey takes him north, from Preston to Scotland, on one of the first railways to cross the border. On this second leg, he returns to the historic Settle-Carlisle line to find out what has happened to it since he helped save it in the 1980s. Along the way, he explores the magnificent Ribblehead viaduct, finds out about the navvies who helped to build it and catches a steam train along the line.


TUE 20:00 Canal Walks with Julia Bradbury (b011g6dw)
The Llangollen Canal

Seasoned stomper Julia Bradbury dons her walking boots once again to explore her own British backyard, travelling along the country's network of canals and their accompanying towpath trails. This sees her navigating Highland glens, rolling countryside and river valleys, as well as our industrial heartlands, following these magical waterways as they cut a sedate path through some of the country's finest scenery.

Julia's final walk takes her to north Wales, where 200 years ago the great engineer Thomas Telford had to overcome seemingly impossible challenges in order to access the valuable slate industries of Snowdonia. In doing so, he created a masterpiece of 19th-century engineering - an aqueduct 126 feet high and spanning 1,000 feet across the Vale of Llangollen. To find out why it has become a world heritage site, Julia follows the cut of the Llangollen Canal, starting at the picturesque Horseshoe Falls. Her six-mile walk takes her along the winding Dee Valley, ending on the aqueduct that Telford described as 'a stream through the skies'.


TUE 20:30 Britain on Film (b01p65b7)
Series 1

The Joy of Tech

Throughout the 1960s, the Rank Organisation produced hundreds of short, quirky documentaries that examined all aspects of life in Britain. Shot on high-quality colour film stock, they were screened in cinemas, but until now very little of the footage has been shown on television. This series draws on this unique archive to offer illuminating and often surprising insights into a pivotal decade in modern British history.

This episode looks at the extraordinary advances in technology during a period when automatic washing machines were transforming life in the home, computers were about to revolutionise the workplace and nuclear power was promising to change the world.


TUE 21:00 The Dark Ages: An Age of Light (b01p65b9)
What the Barbarians Did for Us

The Dark Ages have been misunderstood. History has identified the period following the fall of the Roman Empire with a descent into barbarism - a terrible time when civilisation stopped.

Waldemar Januszczak disagrees. In this four-part series, he argues that the Dark Ages were a time of great artistic achievement, with new ideas and religions provoking new artistic adventures. He embarks on a fascinating trip across Europe, Africa and Asia, visits the world's most famous collections and discovers hidden artistic gems, all to prove that the Dark Ages were actually an 'Age of Light'.

The 'Barbarians' are often blamed for the collapse of the Roman Empire, but in reality they were fascinating civilisations that produced magnificent art. Focusing on the Huns, Vandals and Goths, Waldemar follows each tribe's journey across Europe and discovers the incredible art they produced along the way.


TUE 22:00 Why Poverty? (p010jx6v)
The Great Land Rush

75 per cent of Mali's population are farmers, but rich land-hungry nations like China and Saudi Arabia are leasing Mali's land in order to turn large areas into agri-business farms. Many Malian peasants do not welcome these efforts, seeing them as yet another manifestation of imperialism. Tackling questions such as food sovereignty, land ownership and how development is sold to Africa, Hugo Berkeley and Osvalde Lewat's film asks who owns Africa.

A BBC Storyville film, produced in partnership with the Open University, the film screens as part of Why Poverty? - when the BBC, in conjunction with more than 70 broadcasters around the world, hosts a debate about contemporary poverty. The global cross-media event sees the same eight films screened in 180 countries to explore why, in the 21st Century, a billion people still live in poverty.


TUE 23:00 The Killing (b01p6pg0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 22:00 on Saturday]


TUE 00:00 Timeshift (b019c85h)
Series 11

The Rules of Drinking

Timeshift digs into the archive to discover the unwritten rules that have governed the way we drink in Britain.

In the pubs and working men's clubs of the 40s and 50s there were strict customs governing who stood where. To be invited to sup at the bar was a rite of passage for many young men, and it took years for women to be accepted into these bastions of masculinity. As the country prospered and foreign travel became widely available, so new drinking habits were introduced as we discovered wine and, even more exotically, cocktails.

People began to drink at home as well as at work, where journalists typified a tradition of the liquid lunch. Advertising played its part as lager was first sold as a woman's drink and then the drink of choice for young men with a bit of disposable income. The rules changed and changed again, but they were always there - unwritten and unspoken, yet underwriting our complicated relationship with drinking.


TUE 01:00 Canal Walks with Julia Bradbury (b011g6dw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 today]


TUE 01:30 Britain on Film (b01p65b7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 today]


TUE 02:00 The Dark Ages: An Age of Light (b01p65b9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]