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I must rave about a television series I've just finished watching. It's called Buildings That Shaped Britain and it was an eight-part series shown on BBC Canada. The last episode was just screened this past weekend, but it's likely that BBC Canada will repeat it (at least I hope so, as I missed the first two episodes in the series).

Anyway, it's an absolutely excellent programme on architectural history, but it was so much more than that. Beginning in the Middle Ages and coming up to the late 20th century, all the main developments were surveyed (and beautifully photographed). But what really impressed me was the way that it related these amazing buildings to wider social, cultural, economic and political contexts.

I need to figure out how to transfer these episodes from my DVR's hard disc, as I'm itching to show them to students, next time I teach. The best episodes, in my opinion, were the ones on the development of the country house in the 18th century, and the rise of industrial architecture (oh those dark Satanic mills!) in the 19th century. Fantastic (and unbelieveably interesting) stuff - I think students would enjoy these programmes, as they really brought the subject alive.

I suppose that at some point, I'll also need contact the production company that made the series, to get permission to screen it in future and thus avoid persecution by dull copyright-infringement wonks....