Tonight's award-winning World About Us film is a reconstruction of Thesiger's wanderings.

The film sets out to capture the spirit of the desert and its people. But many lovers of desolate places are saddened that the deserts of Arabia are changing fast. Today the silence of the sands is broken by the drilling rig, and the Bedu has lost his livelihood, for no one needs his camels.

A flower unfurls, a beautiful butterfly emerges from a chrysalis, and the whiplash tongue of a chameleon is slowed down. By using stop and slow motion camera techniques, Italian film-maker Fernando Armati reveals many secrets of nature that would normally be invisible to the naked eye.