Monday 2nd November
SCOTLAND’S SUPERHOSPITAL, BBC1, 9pm
Some Glasgow guide books insist upon saying we Glaswegians refer to the Underground as “the Clockwork Orange.” It might sound like a great nickname but no-one has ever called it that. Disappointingly, it’s simply “the Underground”.
Likewise with the massive new hospital in Glasgow: wags have tried to impose upon it comic names, like The Death Star, whereas the authorities insist upon calling it The Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, but to everyone else in Glasgow it’ll always be “The Southern”.
This documentary takes us inside the hospital and, perhaps in an act of diplomacy, have referred to it simply as “Scotland’s Superhospital.”
When at full capacity, and over its initial teething problems, it will serve 41% of Scotland’s population. This sympathetic two-part documentary shows the massive operation of closing four Glasgow hospitals and gradually moving the patients and equipment to the site in Govan.
While the Victorian buildings of the old Southern General may have looked picturesque from the outside, the nurses tell us that heating the wards was difficult and there was a problem with cockroaches.
On the contrary, the new site is, apparently, inspired by Glasgow’s shipbuilding history and is glassy, airy and colourful, with art on the walls and an atrium large enough to hold a jumbo jet. The nursing staff who’re interviewed are all keen on it, though often sentimentally attached, understandably, to the old hospitals where they delivered babies and saved lives.
SIMPLY NIGELLA, BBC2, 8.30pm
Imagine being able to use a BBC cookery series to get back at your ex. Nigella returns, looking more beautiful than ever, telling us of the joy of being alive and saying pointedly that she has settled into her “new” kitchen. This series is about foods which contribute to our quality of life, so she’s sharing “recipes that relax and restore, uplift and enrich.”
She is typically dramatic, enthusing about the sound of an avocado being scraped, and prepares delicious apricot almond cake and lamb ribs.
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