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| BBC ONE Wednesday 20 August 2008 |
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There's the genuine prospect of a British gold medal success today as 19-year-old World Champion Shanaze Reade competes in the first-ever Olympic BMX cycling event. Also hoping to be among the medals will be Tim Brabants in the K1 1,000m canoeing.
In the men's 200m will anyone be able to stop Jamaica's Usain Bolt having a clear run on gold? And will the USA's decision to call up a couple of big-name NBA stars, including Kobe Bryant of the LA Lakers, be enough to see them to glory in the basketball?
Comprehensive details of the BBC's Olympics 2008 coverage can be found in BBC Programme Information's separate Olympic section.
SB4
The new Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, undertakes a surprising international investigation into his family roots, as the series continues.
Boris's paternal grandparents had significant roles in his upbringing. He knows that his grandfather, "Johnny", was the son of a Turkish journalist and politician who was ultimately kidnapped and lynched in the early Twenties. But, he knows little about his life, reputation and the circumstances of his death.
Boris's half-French grandmother, "Granny Butter", had always claimed to be of posh stock. Although suspicious of this claim, Boris and his siblings remember Granny Butter teaching them to eat crisps with a knife and fork.
Boris sets out to find out more about his roots in Turkey, and the experiences of his great-grandfather, whose vocations were so similar to his own. He encounters the ongoing effects of the political climate of his great-grandfather's era in contemporary Turkey, and discovers personal details about his life and death. Returning to Western Europe, Boris sets off in search of the truth about Granny Butter's background, and follows an intriguing family trail that reveals she was far, far posher than even she imagined.
The series continues with Jerry Springer, Esther Rantzen, David Suchet, Ainsley Harriott, Jodie Kidd and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen.
JP2
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| BBC TWO Wednesday 20 August 2008 |
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It is March 2003 and Iraq has been invaded, as Alex Holmes's compelling chronicle of the rise and fall of Saddam Hussein concludes.
As President Bush declares "the day of liberation is near" for the people of Iraq, Saddam instructs his daughters, grandchildren and wife, Sajida, to flee the country to safety in Syria, with only his loyal sons, Uday and Qusay, and eldest grandson, Mustapha, remaining.
For his own safety, Saddam goes into hiding near the town of Tikrit, off the banks of the Tigris River, where he lived as a child. As coalition forces flood Iraq and Baghdad in their search for the former President, Saddam continues to lead his people from virtual isolation in his desolate hut. He makes crude tapes decrying the invaders and imploring the Iraqi people to rise up and defend their sovereignty, then has them delivered to radio broadcasters by his bodyguard.
Uday, Qusay and Mustapha take refuge at a relative's house in Baghdad, and it isn't long before disloyalty leads to their location being revealed to US officials. A lengthy gun-fight between them and an army battalion kills the young men and leaves their father in shock and their mother watching reports of their death on television, utterly devastated.
In the dead of night, and evading the coalition patrol, an emotional Saddam visits his sons' graves near Tikrit, and lays Iraqi flags atop the soil as a mark of respect.
Saddam learns of the $25m price put on his head and the net begins to close in on his secluded hiding place. When the army discovers it, even the last throes of loyalty from his bodyguard cannot prevent him from being found in a make-shift underground hole. Hauled out, dignity in tatters and held to the ground, he declares: "I am the President of Iraq, and I am willing to negotiate."
House Of Saddam stars Igal Naor as Saddam Hussein, Philip Arditti as Uday Hussein, Mounir Margoum as Qusay Hussein and Shohreh Aghdashloo as Sajida.
NF/LH2
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| BBC FOUR Wednesday 20 August 2008 |
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Blood
And Guts – A History Of Surgery Ep
1/5
Wednesday 20 August
9.00-10.00pm BBC FOUR
Feature
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Michael Mosley demonstrates
how the first lobotomies were
performed Today, surgery saves hundreds of thousands of lives a year. But getting to this position has not been a simple story of selfless men working tirelessly in the pursuit of medical advancement. It is also a bloodstained tale of blunders, arrogance, mishaps and mistakes. The road to surgical advance has been paved by heroes. However, it has also been littered with lobotomised patients, grave-robbing and neo-Nazis.
Blood And Guts – A History Of Surgery explores how brilliant surgical breakthroughs, sometimes humorous, often tragic, shaped the evolution of modern medicine.
Presented by the medically trained Michael Mosley (multi-award-winning journalist and science reporter for BBC One's The One Show), the series brings the past to life through demonstrations, interviews and challenging experiments.
Each week, Michael tackles a different branch of surgery to reveal how it developed. In the first episode, he investigates the story of brain surgery – the most complex organ.
One hundred years ago, cutting into the brain was a terrifying prospect for both patient and surgeon. Harvey Cushing, the so-called "father of neurosurgery" revolutionised brain surgery. Before him, it was little more than bloody butchery which killed around 70 per cent of patients. Michael travels to Yale University to see Cushing's archive: a collection of over 1,000 perfectly preserved human brains.
The infamous Walter Freeman was responsible for the lobotomisation of thousands of individuals. His brutal operations – often using ice picks driven into the brain through the eye socket – left many patients with life-long psychiatric problems. Michael meets one of Freeman's victims, 59-year-old Howard Dully, who was lobotomised at the age of 12.
Michael also takes part in a "mind control" experiment at University College London to help surgeons map the brain. Using "transcranial magnetic stimulation" or TMS, the experiment asks how it will affect Michael's ability to perform even the most simple of tasks.
Finally, the film shows an extraordinary operation on 28-year-old florist Kathryn, who has a malformed blood vessel in her brain. Incredibly, Kathryn must remain fully conscious as her brain is operated on – to ensure no damage is caused. This remarkable operation would have been impossible without some of the pioneering surgeons of the past.
LG
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