TV Times - 5 -11 January 2008

This week's Pick tells the story of how a quick-witted Russian early warning expert was largely responsible for averting nuclear armageddon in 1983.

Submitted by Lone Wolf on January 4, 2008

Other highlights of the weeks political viewing include documentaries on pay differentials and the effect on human and animal health of intensive farming methods.

Pick of the Week :rb:
Saturday 5 January - 7.30 - 9pm - Channel 4 - 1983: The Brink of Apocalypse
Tuesday 8 November 1983 is now recognised as one of the most dangerous moments in the history of the Cold War, when a series of actions nearly led to the Third World War. Senior figures in the Soviet Union -ageing members of the pre-glasnost politburo -were convinced they were about to come under attack from the West, when a NATO war game got out of hand and threatened a paranoid KGB; the Russians were in the process of launching a full scale nuclear retaliatory attack. A Russian early warning officer, Stanislav Petrov, thankfully chose to override a computer telling him that nuclear missiles had been launched. This documentary-drama features interviews with senior figures from the US, Nato and the former USSR.

Tuesday 8 January - 9 - 10.30pm - BBC2 - This World: The Boys from Baghdad High
This documentary, filmed by the boys themselves in their last year of school, show how these four classmates from differing backgrounds (Kurdish, Christian, Shia and mixed Sunni-Shia) interact and attempt to live as normal a teenage life as possible. We only occasionally see them despairing at the chaos surrounding them which will also affect their long term decisions; the most important being whether or not to leave their home city.

Wednesday 9 January - 9 - 10.30pm - BBC2 - What Britain Earns
Peter and Dan Snow report on pay differentials and and on comparing people in the same pay bracket, asking if the money earned reflects the true value of the work that is done. Dan Snow attempts a range of jobs from leek-picking in Norfolk for the minimum wage to City trading. Evidently two thirds of people keep what they earn a secret from their partners, and rarely discuss it with friends.

Thursday 10 January - 9 - 10pm - Channel 4 - Dispatches - The Truth About Your Food
As part of Channel 4's "Big Food Fight" season, here expensive premium and ready-meals are found to be carrying misleading and incorrect nutritional information on their packaging, as well as making sweeping unsubstantiated health claims. Morgan Spurlock's full-length documentary "Super Size Me" follows.

Friday 11 January - 9 - 10.35pm - Channel 4 - Jamie's Fowl Dinners
In this documentary, Jamie Oliver gathers together consumers, producers and retailers of chicken and eggs, as well as industry experts, at a gala dinner designed to demonstrate just how the 950 million chickens produced annually in the UK live and die for our consumption.

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