Britain from the Air

What an fascinating programme BBC showed this evening! The first episode of "Britain from the air" - (click the link here) with Andrew Marr, gave a fascinating insight into transport movements across Britain.

From the Dover Coastguard spotter plane keeping an eye on the busiest shipping lanes in the world to the GPS traces of 380 black taxis overlaid like glow worm traces on the London street map; from air traffic control overseeing the seven and a half thousand aircraft travelling across our skies to our over stretched and creaking Victorian railway system, the road and building development squeezing it on all sides and preventing any further growth in capacity.

Marr also looked at the 18,000,000 bathtubs worth of water, pumped daily through pipes which would, if laid end to end circle the world ten times. As well as twelve million gallons of waste generated by the residents of North London and processed by the sewage treatment plant at Beckton, and 109 square miles of British land set aside for land fill, with tens of millions of tons of new waste adding to the problem each year.

Tonight was one of those rare moments of revelation in television. A truly interesting and informative documentary, which clearly took ages to piece together.

Well done BBC - I'm really looking forward to next Sunday's episode.