BBC drama Winter/Spring 2010

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What the British can look forward to.

Hopefully some if not all of these will make it over the big pond!

I noticed Idris Elba will be starring in Luther is a dark psychological crime drama in which John Luther, a detective struggling with his own terrible demons, might just be as dangerous as the depraved murderers he hunts.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/tv/comingup/luther/

This looks interesting too The Deep is a thriller written by Simon Donald. Set far below the Arctic ice, the action follows the crew of an oceanographer's submarine as they search the final frontiers of Earth for unknown and remarkable life forms. When inexplicable circumstances cause catastrophe to strike, the crew find themselves stranded with no power, limited oxygen and no communication with the surface. And they are completely alone – or so they think...

Also another SF classic Mark Gatiss is to star in his own adaptation of HG Wells' thrilling scientific romance The First Men In The Moon alongside Rory Kinnear, in a one-off 90-minute drama for BBC Four.

It's July 1969 and, as the world waits with baited breath for news of the Apollo 11 astronauts, a young boy meets 90-year-old Julius Bedford (Rory Kinnear) who tells an extraordinary story of two men's journey to the Moon, way back in 1909.

More details here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/tv/comingup/

Want to help Haiti?

Send a donation to Medecins Sans Frontieres, aka Doctors Without Borders.

They treat trauma and they move fast and they already have teams on the ground in Haiti.

The Canadian MSF site may be found here http://www.msf.ca/donate/

The United States site is here:http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/donate/

HAITI: report from MSF
http://www.msf.ca/news-media/news/2010/01/haiti-update/
Haiti: Update

Published 13 January 2010

The first reports are now emerging from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams who were already working on medical projects Haiti. They are treating hundreds of people injured in the quake and have been setting up clinics in tents to replace their own damaged medical facilities.

The Martissant health centre in a poor area of Port-au-Prince had to be evacuated after the earthquake because it was damaged and unstable. The patients are now in tents on the grounds of the centre and the medical staff have been dealing with a flow of casualties from the town. They have already treated between 300 and 350 people, mainly for trauma injuries and fractures. Among those being treated are 50 people suffering from burns, some of them severe, frequently caused by domestic gas containers exploding in collapsing buildings. At the Pachot rehabilitation centre another 300 to 400 people have been treated. In one of MSF's administrative offices in Petionville, another neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince, a tent clinic has had at least 200 injured people. More people are getting assistance at what was the Solidarité maternity hospital, which was seriously damaged in the quake.

Senior MSF staff member Stefano Zannini was out for most of the night, trying to assess the needs in the city and looking at the state of the medical facilities. "The situation is chaotic,” he says. “I visited five medical centres, including a major hospital, and most of them were not functioning. Many are damaged and I saw a distressing number of dead bodies. Some parts of the city are without electricity and people have gathered outside, lighting fires in the street and trying to help and comfort each other. When they saw that I was from MSF they were asking for help, particularly to treat their wounded. There was strong solidarity among people in the streets."

Another MSF coordinator working in Port-au-Prince, Hans van Dillen, confirmed the city was unable to cope with the scale of the disaster. "There are hundreds of thousands of people who are sleeping in the streets because they are homeless. We see open fractures, head injuries. The problem is that we cannot forward people to proper surgery at this stage." So many of the city's medical facilities have been damaged that healthcare is severely disrupted at precisely the moment when medical needs are high.

MSF is working hard to get more staff into the country. Around 70 more are expected to arrive in the coming days. MSF is sending out a 100-bed hospital, with an inflatable surgical unit, consisting of two operating theatres and seven hospitalization tents. Nephrologists to deal with the affects of crush injuries will also be part of the team. However, transport links are difficult and it is not yet clear whether supplies and medical staff will have to go in through neighbouring Dominican Republic. MSF is concerned about the safety of some of its own team members. There are 800 staff and not all have yet been accounted for because of the poor communications and general disruption following the disaster.

Go. Donate. I recommend Greatest Needs for flexibility