HOSPITAL, BBC2, 9pm
I DIDN’T really want to watch this. It’s a new series of the documentary that takes us inside London’s hospitals, but haven’t we seen enough horror in the news lately without wanting to nudge our way behind the hospital screens to see more?
This opening episode features some of the casualties from the Westminster terror attack, and the cameras run behind the doctors and nurses as they launch the hospital’s major incident plan – something London hospitals have sadly seen too much of this summer, and yet the medics always cope admirably. That probably explains the success of this series: beneath the trauma and horror is something uplifting. We should thank our lucky stars for the NHS.
I say I didn’t want to watch it – and I haven’t yet. The BBC have made other episodes available, but not tonight’s. I assume this is because of the sensitive nature of the material.
TROUBLE IN POUNDLAND, STV, 9pm
POUNDLAND says it’s the biggest pound shop chain in Britain, with 840 shops – and Brexit is about to upset everything.
They’ve allowed the cameras in for the past year so we can see how the staff are fretting, but are the shoppers worried?
We see how the wider market affects your little local pound shop. The price of cocoa has been rising, and so Toblerone bars have shrunk. Poundland sells 11 million bars each year – it’s one of the luxury items that pull the punters in – but now those gaps between the chocolatey triangles are widening, and customers aren’t happy. Resorting to reductions, one manager sets up baskets of items for 5p each. “The customers are just taking anything that’s there,” he says in wonder.
It’s a light-hearted look at Brexit and austerity shopping, but in such a rich country should we be poking through 5p bargain bins for our dinner?
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