Higher channels

John Davies selects radio and television programmes of use to THES readers. (All times pm unless stated.) Pick of the week

Do today's English undergraduates need introducing to Coleridge or Joyce? If so, this is the week to get them tuned in to Radios 3 and 4. Every one of James Joyce's Dubliners is being read or dramatised over eight days on Radio 4 - from the first, A Mother (Saturday 3.0), to the last, The Dead, a week later. Trinity College Dublin's Joyce expert David Norris gives a background briefing in Mr Joyce's Looking Glass (Saturday 2.30). Meanwhile, on Radio 3, Sunday Feature: Kubla Coleridge (5.45) examines that poem with Richard Holmes, Lewis Wolpert and others. Holmes's new biography of Coleridge's later years is considered in Thursday's Nightwaves (10.45 R3), and all week from Monday (9.15 R3) Postscript assesses the impact of Coleridge's and Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads.

Also this week

FRIDAY October 9

Nairobi: True Terror (10.40 ITV). Eyewitness accounts and footage of the Nairobi bombings.

SATURDAY October 10

Chris Patten's East and West (7.15 BBC2). Asks how the West should deal with China.

Cold War (8.05 BBC2). The Berlin blockade.

SUNDAY October 11

The Natural World: South Georgia (5.50 BBC2). The cycle of life on an island with over 10 million seabirds and much else. First of series.

The Clintons - A Marriage of Power (8.0 C4). Three-parter on America's first couple.

The Nazis - A Warning from History (9.0 BBC2). Episode four of repeat series (whose historical adviser was Ian Kershaw) looks at how Poland was treated.

The Ascent of Man (12 midnight UK Horizons). In "The Ladder of Creation" Jacob Bronowski's masterly series reaches Darwin, while on Tuesday Darwin: The Legacy (7.0 same channel) looks at the great man's impact. Also, Blue Skies (Saturday 10.10 R3) continues Steve Jones's exploration of Darwin's ideas, and Evolution After Darwin - The Monkey Puzzle (Wednesday 9.0 R4) examines human ancestry.

MONDAY October 12

Local Heroes (8.0 BBC2) focuses on unsung female inventors and scientists such as Mary Waller, Elizabeth Dakin and Margaret Lindsay Huggins.

Miranda's Chest (9.0 C4). First of three programmes for National Breast Cancer Awareness Week.

TUESDAY October 13 The Gene Hunters (8.0 National Geographic). Repeat of C4 programme about the Human Genome Diversity Project and the ethical questions raised by the "genetic gold rush" for indigenous peoples' DNA.

Timewatch (9.0 BBC2). "The Pilgrim Obsession" tells the real story of the Pilgrim Fathers.

Escape: Fire (10.50 BBC1, 11.20 Wales and N. Ireland). Series about how technology has developed to cope with man-made disasters. This week: fire-fighting.

QED: Betsy and Bongo (9.30 BBC1, 10.00 Wales and N. Ireland, 9.30 Wednesday in Scotland). Animal IVF expert Betsy Dresser of New Orleans's Audubon Institute on a small Kenyan deer in danger of extinction.

WEDNESDAY October 14

Tomorrow's World (7.30 BBC1) includes a report from Papworth Hospital, Cambridge, on a new surgical technique for treating coronary heart disease.

University Challenge (8.0 BBC2). Magdalen Oxford takes on KCL medical school.

THURSDAY October 15

Law in Action (4.0 R4). The legal aftermath of air disasters; and what it means to commit perjury.

Horizon: Mosquito (9.25 BBC2). How mosquitoes are fighting back against attempts to eradicate them.

Too Little, Too Late (8.0 R4). Industrial diseases and how we have failed to cope with them.

Late Review (11.15 BBC2). Tom Paulin is once again among the reviewers.

To make and retain recorded radio or TVprogrammes for educational use your institution must have an Education Recording Agency licence. The ERA can be contacted on 0171 837 3222. John Davies can be contacted at Davieses@aol.com