What I've been watching

Posting has been slow recently, but here are a few things I enjoyed and recommend, if it's available for viewing on a streaming service near you:

*  Secret Life of the Hospital:   a British one hour doco going behind the scenes of a large hospital, looking at the places other medical interest shows (real life or fictional) don't usually bother with.  I really like hospitals (and airports) for their complexity and high level of organisation, hence it was actually pretty fascinating to see how they deal with laundry (there must be a lot of money made by companies that manufacture such specialised, enormous machines) and sterilising both surgical instruments and entire wards (I liked the fumigating robot).   But the most fascinating thing of all was seeing how incredibly rough and ready a bone graft onto a spine looks.   It's basically ground up hip sockets from people who have had hip replacements (put through something that looks exactly like a hand turned meat mincer), and then the ground up bone is just poured over the titanium plates screwed into the spine and patted down.   That's what it looked like, anyway.   I am amazed at how the body recovers from surgery which can look so indelicate.  (The exposed spin looks particularly horrible - reminiscent of a split pig on a hook.)

*  Foreign Correspondent on Indonesian soccer:   who knew that, even at the completely "dry" venues (the drink on sale is iced tea) in Indonesia, soccer rioting is a continual, massive problem.   What is it about the game that causes loony, violent dedication amongst fans, anywhere in the world?   Is it the working class origins?  But of course the fans everywhere are of all levels of wealth now.  I would have guessed before seeing this show that if European venues catered to only completely sober fans, the crowd behaviour would always be good.  But no, it seems its just something about how gangs and tribalism coalesces around the game that seems to the problem.

* Umbrella Academy:   a new Netflix superhero show has started, with good reviews from the States, and we (son and me) watched the first episode last night.   I quite liked it, and will continue watching, but with a couple of reservations.  First, I find something annoying about mopey, po-faced Ellen Page.  Hard to explain what - I just tire of her looking unhappy in everything.   Second, the "conflicted family coming together for a funeral" feels remarkably thematically similar to Haunting of Hill House - even down to one sibling having written a book about her experiences and thereby annoying at least one other family member.   But it is stylishly made, I did like most of the acting, and I quite liked the set up (Armageddon is only 8 days away.)