Burn It
| Use attributes for filter ! | |
| First episode date | February 9, 2003 |
|---|---|
| Final episode date | November 10, 2003 |
| Written by | Matt Greenhalgh |
| Networks | BBC |
| BBC Three | |
| Date of Reg. | |
| Date of Upd. | |
| ID | 1491997 |
About Burn It
Drama following the lives of three twenty-somethings in Salford.
Family seeks answers after Israel kidnap live-stream horror
... No-one does come out of the house shown, but Nir says that later the attackers threw flaming tyres into the house to Burn It down...
Cost of living: GP concerns over rise in signs of malnutrition
... " Cost of living, lockdowns - these can all exacerbate behaviours which tend to result in increased calorie consumption without the physical activity you need to Burn It off...
Eating disorder survivor finds menu calories triggering
... The Welsh government is considering similar rules to tackle obesity in a Ms Wynne, 32, from Cardiff, said at her worst she was setting " really strict targets on how many calories I d have in a day, how much fat I d have in a day, how many steps I d do to Burn It off"...
How Margaret Thatcher's secret Brahms phone was invented
... Burn It...
The Christmas tree made of knives, bullets and cigarette lighters
... Sustainable alternatives include growing your own tree (holly, apple and Japanese Maple are recommended), renting one or just making sure you Burn It, plant it or give it to your local council s when you re done...
Mexico's naked Zapata painting causes protests
... They shouted Burn It, Burn It , arguing that the painting, which shows Zapata in high heels and a pink hat naked on an aroused horse is offensive...
The incinerator and ski slope waste treatment
... It s pretty much the only fuel where the people actually pay you to Burn It, says Peter Jones, of the environmental consultancy, Eunomia...
Replica Mayflower ship being built to be burned
...A group of volunteers have built a life-size replica of the Mayflower - but only so they can Burn It down for charity...
How Margaret Thatcher's secret Brahms phone was invented
Today, apps sell themselves on offering secure communications. But 40 Years ago, One Man was given a Secret Mission to build an encryption device to send intelligence to top officials. Now he breaks his silence over The Assignment for the First Time .
The Mission began in a Cheltenham Department Store , busy with shoppers. It was 1980 and Mike - First name Only as his identity is still Hidden - worked at nearby GCHQ. He purchased two normal briefcases.
They were taken back to his lab where he began tearing out the insides and stuffing them with the latest technology.
What emerged was given the codename Brahms. Inside the regular-looking briefcase was the UK's First portable encrypted Communications System designed to allow high-ranking officials to communicate securely.
Secure speech was not new. During World War Two, if the leaders of the US and the UK wanted to talk securely, it took a massive machine, which in London sat permanently in The Basement of another Department Store - Selfridges .
But by 1980, new technology meant a device could be made small enough to be portable, and therefore more useful in a crisis for a wider group of people.
The Brahms machine includes what looks like a normal telephone handset but with a button on One end. Press it and speech was converted into digital ones and zeroes.
A special encryption Key - held on paper tape in The Briefcase and changed Every Day - scrambled those digits. This Was then sent down a normal telephone line.
Only another briefcase with the same Key on its paper tape could unscramble The Message and convert the digits into a machine-like voice at The Other end.
Anyone intercepting that Phone line would just hear a digital hiss.
Only One person could speak at a time and it was not Fast - transmitting at 2. 4 kilobytes per second (the UK's current average broadband speed is More Than 21,000 times faster).
There was One flaw. " Ladies' voices did not come out very well, " says Mike apologetically, " because of the high-frequency. "
Yet the main customer for the machine was the UK's First female Prime Minister , Margaret Thatcher .
For The Brahms ' First foreign test by the PM, Mike was given a James Bond style assignment to deliver The Device to a castle in the Swiss Alps , where Mrs Thatcher was On Holiday .
Mike was made a temporary Queen's messenger with two seats on a flight to Geneva - One for him And One for the machine. He was told he would be met with A Man carrying a brown envelope on arrival.
As he arrived at The Castle , he was offered a gun. He declined.
The Brahms was used in the 1982 Falklands War . Mrs Thatcher used it to discuss rules of engagement with the Ministry of Defence, which led to the controversial sinking of the Argentine Navy Cruiser The General Belgrano.
Stephanie - again First name Only - was working shifts in a special 24-hour GCHQ office dealing with intelligence.
" It was very much a men's toy, " she recalls, slightly annoyed, as female workers were told not to use The Brahms .
But in the small hours of One morning, The Brahms rang. There were no men on shift.
" So, we all looked at each other and said, 'Well, there aren't any men in The Office , so One of us is going to have to answer The Phone . ' So, I went over and picked it up. "
The person on The Other end had just received a piece of intelligence that he wanted to confirm.
" We knew that every piece of information we were sending out to our chaps was significant, " she says, recalling watching the importance of their work reflected back on the TV news.
After The Invasion of the Falkland Islands, GCHQ had to Step Up quickly from having Only One or two analysts working on it to eventually producing More Than 6,000 intelligence reports during The War .
Brahms meant they could often be phoned in Fast to those who need them.
On The Brahms machine, there are instructions of what to do in The Event of an emergency. What if you were using the machine secretly somewhere like a hotel room overseas, and worried you were about to be raided and The Device captured?
Mike remembers the options well.
Switch the equipment off And Then find some way to dispose of The Key tape. " Destroy it. Burn It . In The Last instance, you could Eat It , " explains Mike with a Smile .
Source of news: bbc.com
