30/01/2018 London News

bring in cloud and rain from the

West. Back to you, Jane. Thank you.

Good afternoon, I'm Asad Ahmad.

A primary school in West London

is to become the first in England

to move to a four-and-a-half day

week in a bid to save money.

St Mary's Catholic Primary

in Isleworth will stop its classes

every Friday at lunchtime.

Here's our education

reporter, Marc Ashdown.

Now we all know the school day

finishes at about 3.30pm,

but here things could be

about to change.

Under enormous pressure

with their budget, the governors

have put forward a proposal

for a four-and-a-half day week.

So, every Friday, classes

would finish at 12.45,

they would then lay on private

classes run by providers

which parents

would have to pay for,

but that would only accommodate

about 150 of the 400 pupils

here.

For the rest of the parents,

they have been told to make plans

for their own childcare

as of September.

The lack of consideration

for working parents is quite

striking to myself and a lot

of the other parents.

So at the moment, that is the main

problem, that both the cost for some

parents and also the logistics

of actually who is going to pick up

the child if both parents work?

In a letter to parents

the school explains that

over the past five

years it made a raft of savings.

A number of teaching

posts have been unfilled

and some music classes

have

been cancelled and a fund was set up

to parents could contribute

to basics like colours

pencils and glue sticks.

No one from the school wanted

to talk to us today.

The local council says

they are working with the school

at a difficult time.

The Government also told us,

the Department for Education,

they trust schools to organise

their own school weeks,

the school days to maintain the best

educational standards.

But this is perhaps a sign

of the times with heads

across London saying

they are squeezed in their budgets.

Will they, more of them,

consider drastic measures?

Police investigating the murder

of a man in Hackney have released

CCTV footage of two men

they want to trace.

It shows them walking

in the area around the time

Daniel Frederick was stabbed.

The 34-year-old was attacked

on Shakespeare Walk.

Two people have

already been arrested.

A council leader who suggested rough

sleepers in Windsor be moved-on

ahead of the royal

wedding has survived

a vote of no-confidence.

Conservative, Simon Dudley,

said beggars could present the town

in a "sadly unfavourable light"

when Prince Harry marries

Meghan Markle in May.

He drew criticism from

the Prime Minister, but last night

he survived a motion accusing him

of bringing the authority

into disrepute .

The first public consultation has

started into the expansion

of Heathrow Airport.

The airport's owner have put forward

a number of ideas for how

the project could be carried out.

Now to enter a world

of microscopic patterns.

You can't see these

with the naked eye -

this is only possible using powerful

tools and technologies.

It's also what happens

when artists and scientists

at the Francis Crick Institute

in King's Cross join together.

Wendy Hurrell has

been to have a look.

Trick patterns abound.

I'm listening

to a poem inspired by human DNA. It

is part of an exhibition at the

Francis Crick Institute which is a

place full of laboratories that are

studying how and why diseases happen

in the human body. Some of the

patterns the scientists find are

very beautiful. Almost like works of

art themselves. I suppose it makes

sense to take that one step further.

And to explain more is the curator.

We are looking at skin cell, I

think, here.

We are. As you come

into the exhibition you will be

encouraged to think about the cells

inside your body. We are looking at

the patterns of the surface of the

skin and here we are looking at the

cells underneath the skin. Some

scientists did visit studios which

was fascinating for them. Got to see

the process as the artist developed

their process and the prototypes.

There was a lovely exchange between

the artists and the scientists in

this project.

By using art and

creativity in this way, it will help

us to see things that normally are

too small. Take this little fella.

This is part of a worm that's one

millimetre long. And it is your

life's work, mate, to study such

little things! Tell me what we are

looking at.

We are looking at the

earliest stages in the development

of the worm.

You took it a stage

further with a workshop for local

people.

My lab and I designed a

workshop for students to inspire

them with the core ideas and

development like breaking uformity,

acquiring identity and it was really

nice to see how many core concepts

showed up in the video.

From worms

to fruit flies. One of our artists,

Helen is here. Tell us what this?

This is a fly brain, the

transformations of the fly and the

patterns of the visual circuit over

time.

So the patterns that the

scientists have found and that the

artists have reponded to are ones

that you will find in your own body

as well. It is a fascinating

exhibition. It opens on Thursday and

it is free.

To mark two years since the death

of South London legend David Bowie,

BBC World Service Radio has

commissioned a play about his final

few weeks and the making

of his last album, Blackstar.

Comedian and impressionist Jon

Culshaw plays Bowie in the drama,

which was recorded in Acton.

I spoke to Jon earlier

and asked him about how he got

Bowie's London accent just right.

Yes, the South London

sort of reference gets

you to the initial zone,

but then you've really got to just

listen and listen and listen

and the first clip that I looked

at out of David Bowie's many

interviews was the one

where he gives this wonderful piece

of wisdom and he says if you feel

safe in the area you're

working in, you're probably not

working in the right area.

Always go a little further

into the water than you feel

you're capable of being.

Go a little bit out of the depth

and when you feel your feet aren't

quite touching the bottom then

you're just in the right place to do

something exciting and that was.

To hear that clip first,

was rather fortuitous because that's

how it feels to take on the role

of the great David Bowie

in a drama like this.

As well as taking on the role

and getting into his voice,

you very much had to get his mind

and his head and how

he was thinking.

Yeah.

How do you even go about doing that

when sadly the man is dead?

There is so much wonderful material

to look at and there

is the incredible back catalogue

of music and many things to read.

You just have to absorb

it all and just get

into that rhythm of thought.

Get into that rhythm

of his amazing creativity.

Brilliance in the blink of an eye,

that's David Bowie.

Let's just say a producer watching

you today, says I know what,

I want to do a drama

about so and so.

Jon's the man.

Who would you like

that so and so to be?

Who is the one person that

you think ah this is the next

person I'd like to be?

George Michael perhaps.

Ah, that's a good one.

That's a good one.

I love the way that whenever

he would describe something,

his brows would go like,

very thoughtful and very considered,

a wonderful, charming,

amiable, warm chap.

And you can hear Jon Culshaw

in the The Final Take:

Bowie in the Studio,

on BBC World Service Radio

on the BBC iPlayer Radio.

Now let us check on

the weather with Kate.

Good afternoon. Well, we had a

beautiful, but cold start this

morning. Temperatures overnight in

stark contrast to the night before

down at zero. So we had a bit of

frost first thing, but clear skies,

so a beautiful sunrise. High cloud

with hazy sunshine. The spring

flowers really enjoying the sunshine

and they will continue to this

afternoon. We are hanging on to the

sunshine and it is staying dry as

well. We may get high cloud. The

sunshine hazy here and there, but

the gentle wind. Temperatures

getting up to seven or eight

Celsius. In the sunshine, it is not

feeling too bad. Overnight, starting

off cold under clear skies, but the

cloud increases from the west. With

it outbreaks of rain. Things turning

murky for a time. The wind

strengthens as well as we head

through the early hours of tomorrow

morning. The minimum temperature

dropping down to four or five

Celsius. As you head into tomorrow

morning, yes, we've got rain. A

little bit damp first thing, but it

will start to clear. Some really

nice sunny spells through the

afternoon. Quity and that's going to

make things feel cool. A chilly

night Wednesday and into Thursday.

Should stay dry. Lots of sunshine, a

north-westerly so feeling cooler.

That's it. We're back at 6.30pm.

Have a very good afternoon.

Bye-bye.