Wildflowers tend to be thought of as a great blaze of colour blanketing the landscape for a few weeks each year. The reality is a $34 billion global cut flower business that craves our Australian native flowers.

West Australia is one of the plant biodiversity hot spots on earth. Other countries love our flowers so much they grow them better than we do - $400 million dollars of our native plants are grown each year, and only $85 million of those are grown in Australia.

Growing Wild is an SBS Independent production in association with Screen West Films. The program screening on SBS Television on Sunday, November 28 at 7.30pm is about West Australians trying to get a break in the lucrative yet fickle wildflower industry. It is about playing Russian roulette with the volatile Japanese flower auction houses. It is about small family business gearing up for harvest, a community's unexpected new entrepreneurial solution with a mining company, scientists patenting new colours and exporters trying to second guess Japanese fashions.

Japan is one of the biggest markets for Australian native flowers. It is a high profile, fashionable and often very fickle market. Success on the market is not only about growing flowers, it is about being able to predict fashions, survive airline disasters and getting a good day at auction.

The establishment of The Centre for Australian Plants is the first time all the scientific parties in Western Australia have got together to try and capture the genetic resource the state has to offer. The team is creating new colours of flowers and patenting the breeding rights in an attempt to harness our wildflower gene pool before it leaks out all over the world.

Australis Flowers is a family team of exporters who have become addicted to the industry. Over the season they battle with the airlines and compete with other countries growing Australian wildflowers. They must also keep a close eye on the fashion demands of the Japanese auctions if they are to succeed.

Luke and Josh Ulstrup are brothers working a small wildflower property in the south of Western Australia. They are struggling with a small business at odds with the vagaries of the weather and the forces of nature. For them growing wildflowers is a lifestyle decision.

The Billinue community has been trying to sell cut flowers for seven years. They have a new, entrepreneurial solution with their neighbours - a mineral sands mining company. This season Billinue harvested more than flowers - they collect seed to revegetate land that has been cleared for mining.

Growing Wild interweaves these stories of the Australian pioneering spirit over a magnificent wildflower season.

Sunday November 28
MASTERPIECE: Andrea Bocelli - Sacred Arias 9.30pm

Andrea Bocelli, the Tenor from Tuscany, first came to Australian television audiences notice in 1994, when SBS Television screened the annual San Remo Music Festival. He won that competition and has never looked back. His profile was lifted again in February 1997, when he was a featured artist in Pavarotti and Friends. Since that time, Andrea Bocelli has appeared at regular intervals on SBS Television: twice in 1998 in A Night in Tuscany, and in his first opera, La Boheme. In August this year, SBS Television screened the two-part interview series Andrea Bocelli - A Life In Music. After each program, audiences have wanted more.

On Sunday, November 28 at 9.30pm, SBS Television will screen Andrea Bocelli - Sacred Arias in the Masterpiece timeslot.

Filmed at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, one of the oldest musical institutions in the world, Andrea Bocelli performs a selection of sacred songs, some of which will be very familiar to viewers including three versions of Ave Maria, Panis Angelicus, Silent Night and Adeste fideles, among others.

Andrea Bocelli performs these sacred arias with the Orchestra and Chorus from the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia under the baton of Myung-Whun Chung.

This is the second time the pair have worked together. They first collaborated on a concert for the Pope and Myung-Whun Chung was full of praise for the tenor from Tuscany: "I found a young artist who was not only warm and caring, but who shared my interest in sacred music."

"All the most famous singers in our century, from Caruso to Luciano Pavarotti, have recorded sacred arias as a mark of affection for this style, for a type of music in danger of being forgotten," says Andrea Bocelli. "At the threshold of the new millennium, my desire was to sing some of the most touching and purest arias every written - arias which I have known since I was a child."

Tuesday November 30, 1999
THE CUTTING EDGE: Pinochet - The Two Faces Of Chile 8.30pm 

The arrest, in London, of General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, on 16^th October last year, came as a stunning surprise to both his friends and his foes. Pinochet - The Two Faces Of Chile, screening in The Cutting Edge on November 30, at 8.30pm shows the polarisation of Chilean society on the issue of Pinochet and his former regime.

Pinochet - The Two Faces Of Chile covers all aspects of the Pinochet dispute, and uses interviews with citizens on the left and right of politics. On the left, the victims of torture; the relatives of the disappeared and those seeking justice are voiced:

"For years, after what I experienced passing through Pinochet's torture chambers, I and others came out with an extraordinary sense of shame. We felt ashamed of being part of the human race. We never imagined that human beings could commit such atrocities against other people," recalls one torture victim.

"Women were beaten up and many of us were sexually assaulted by one, two, three...by many soldiers. We were subjected to mock executions by firing squad. We were hanged by the hands and beaten, especially in the genitals...we were given electric shocks in the genitals. We weren't asked many questions, we were just beaten up," recounts a woman tortured by Pinochet's regime.

Throughout the documentary, one Chilean cabbie gives a commentary on Pinochet's regime:

"They began to fight the poor. They'd kill you for being ugly, small, fat, for any reason...there were 50,000 paid informants to tell them who was and who wasn't communist or socialist and who supported or was against the military. They proclaimed themselves saviour of the country but that was no salvation. It was sad...I wouldn't wish living through 1973 on anyone."

On the right, Pinochet - The Two Faces Of Chile examines the prayer meetings organised for Pinochet, and talks with groups who believe the General was practically kidnapped by the British and the Spaniards:

"You're taking this stand against Pinochet because of what you couldn't do against Franco. You resent Franco and you're using Pinochet to get even. Let's not forget the 80 million victims of communism in Europe," argues a Pinochet supporter.

"Does Pinochet have to be put on trial? It hurts me, and it has been hard for me to reach this conclusion, but he should be put on trial if he is at fault. What is not clear to me is whether he's actually at fault or if others were at fault and he never found out. That's the question being asked by many Chileans who are very grateful to the military government," concludes another supporter.

Wednesday December 1, 1999
** HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK **
SPECIAL: Chrissy 8.30pm 

As the eldest of a family of four pretty girls growing up in the suburbs of Perth, Christy May Napier was always a little bit different. A diabetic who ran away from home as a teenager, Chrissy (as she is better known) has led a hard life. At 17 she was raped, later requiring a hysterectomy which robbed her of her dream of motherhood. Her depression and disappointment then led to self-mutilation and her life changed forever what at the age of 18 she was diagnosed with HIV.

This moving special documentary based on the final years of Chrissy's life is screening on SBS on World AIDS Day.

Chrissy kept her HIV positive status a secret from her family for 8 years and filmmaker Jacqui North, Chrissy's best friend, began filming the year following the revelation of her secret to her family.

Chrissy lives in a block of flats run by the Bobby Goldsmith Foundation in Darlinghurst, Sydney which serves as a residence for people in an advanced stage of the virus. Facing the prospect of her death from AIDS, Chrissy is nevertheless surrounded by a rock solid support network.

Sister Margaret is a supportive nun and Em is the care and support worker - they have a profound and important role to play in these final days of Chrissy's life and are brought together by the filmmaker to show the inner city HIV microcosm where countless stories like Chrissy's are lived daily.

Above all though, Chrissy tells the story of five women from the one family who are taken on an incredible journey of learning together. It is an inspirational look at a very close-knit family who, in dealing with their grief at Chrissy's impending death, are also learning the value of tolerance, understanding and acceptance.

Jacqui North accompanies Chrissy as she revisits her mother and four sisters. Her mother Barbara lives with her partner in tropical surrounds in the Gold Coast hinterland. She has been given a hard time by Chrissy through the years, but this is her final chance to mother her daughter and say her goodbyes.

Adele is a successful swimsuit model and beauty queen who calls the Gold Coast home. Tall, blonde and leggy, she has come a long way since the days when she innocently and ignorantly thought that AIDS was just a "poofs' disease which you brought upon yourself."

Marnie is married and lives in Perth. She wishes that the distance separating her from her big sister Chrissy wasn't so vast. Especially now that she is not well. But she remembers all the good times they had together and laughs. At least it stops her from crying. 

And youngest sister Bobby Leah lives and works in Brisbane. She believes that the pair of them will grow old together, and she laughs at the idea of an "old lady Chrissy" complete with Coke and cigarettes in hand. Six months after Chrissy's death she gave birth to a baby boy whom she named Christopher after her big sister.

Jacqui North's documentary combines footage shot by the filmmaker herself over a period of roughly two years as well as very high quality footage of Napier family home videos. There are pictures of the girls sunbaking in the backyard, of Chrissy performing a dance routine as a young girl and exclusive stills from the family photo album.

This is an important time for Chrissy, as she faces her greatest fear, rejection, and finds what she wants the most - unconditional love, acceptance and understanding.

Friday December 3, 1999
COOKING SERIES: Glynn Christian Tastes Royal Thailand 8.00pm 

BBC TV's busiest chef-traveller discovers and shares the secrets of Thai ingredients, recipes and culture in Glynn Christian Tastes Royal Thailand, a nine part cooking series which starts on SBS on Friday, December 3, 1999 at 8.00pm.

Glynn Christian was born in Auckland, New Zealand, and lived in the UK from 1965 to 1995. After a successful career as a film and television writer, he took to travel and travel brochure writing, during which time he began to collect his wide knowledge of the world's cookery styles. Glynn has now written over 25 food and cookery books and made over 1,000 live television broadcasts. In 1997 he produced and presented Glynn Christian Tastes Royal Thailand, which was commissioned by the BBC and has since been featured on Thai International flights.

Glyn Christian is the great, great, great, great grandson of Fletcher Christian, leader of the mutiny aboard Bounty in 1789, and the author of his ancestor's only biography Fragile Paradise, which will be re-published this year.

In this cooking series, Glynn Christian introduces the full range of Thai ingredients and cookery styles as he travels throughout Thailand. He also explores some of the country's most important traditional arts and crafts.

The culinary consultants are M. R. Thanadsri and M. L. Sirichalerm, father and son, who are closely related to HM the King. They are Thailand's best known culinary personalities on television and radio. With their help and influence, this series has a unique authenticity, both in Thailand and abroad. Thailand has no such thing as an 'authentic' recipe - but the ones we see in Glynn Christian Tastes Royal Thailand are those cooked by Thai cooks in Thailand - the people, the cooks and the Royal Family of Thailand showcase their culinary skills in private houses, cookery schools, great hotels and even a Royal palace.

Friday December 3, 1999

Transfer interrupted!

Try this quick brain-teaser:

When many of us are celebrating the start of a new millennium, 2000AD, according to the Gregorian calendar, what year will it be according to the following calendars? 

A. the Jewish calendar 

B. the Muslim calendar 

C. the Coptic calendar 

D. the Buddhist calendar 

E. the Mayan calendar 

Hint: The dates extend from the year 1420 to the year 5760. 

Guardians Of Time screening on SBS Television on Friday, December 3 at 8.30pm explores how calendars differ across countries and cultures while also looking at how New Year, when it does arrive, is celebrated. 

In France a guardian of the caesium clocks which determine time, and therefore dates, to a nanosecond, (a thousandth millionth of a second), explains how the 230 clocks around the world are synchronised. One second is now defined by nine billions beats of a caesium atom. From there the program travels to the churches of Ethiopia, the synagogues of Jerusalem, the markets of Guatemala and Afghanistan (where three different calendars are in operation), the temples of Thailand and India, and the monasteries of Tibet.

The elders of an animist tribe in Mali, who are the guardians of their society's time, explain how they decide auspicious dates by using divination. Bones and sticks are left in the dust to be disturbed by a visiting fox. The pattern of his paw marks are then read to decide when a marriage should take place, or a funeral.

Finally, turning full circle to return to France, Christians in Paris claim that the accurate date of Christ's birth was four years before it is currently celebrated. 

Answers: A 5760; B 1420; C 1716; D 2544, E 5119