Nigella

This was posted on Facebook recently...

more blogs by Robert Bovington...

"Photographs of Spain"	http://bovingtonphotosofspain.blogspot.com/
"Spanish Impressions"	http://bobbovington.blogspot.com/
"postcards from Spain"	http://bovington-posts.blogspot.com/
"you couldn't make it up!"	http://bovingtonycmitup.blogspot.com/
"bits and bobs"	http://bovingtonbitsandblogs.blogspot.com/
"Spanish Expressions"	http://spanishsayingsbovington.blogspot.com/
"Spanish Art"	http://bovingtonspanishart.blogspot.com/
"Books About Spain"	http://bovingtonbooks.blogspot.com/

Some more blogs

If you like my "A grumpy old man in Spain" blog, you may like to view some of my other blogs:-

"Photographs of Spain"	http://bovingtonphotosofspain.blogspot.com/
"Spanish Impressions"	http://bobbovington.blogspot.com/
"postcards from Spain"	http://bovington-posts.blogspot.com/
"you couldn't make it up!"	http://bovingtonycmitup.blogspot.com/
"bits and bobs"	http://bovingtonbitsandblogs.blogspot.com/
"Spanish Expressions"	http://spanishsayingsbovington.blogspot.com/
"Spanish Art"	http://bovingtonspanishart.blogspot.com/
"Books About Spain"	http://bovingtonbooks.blogspot.com/

You may also like to view my WordPress blogs:-

"Spanish Impressions"	http://bovingtoninspain.wordpress.com/
"postcards from Spain"	http://postcardsofspain.wordpress.com/
"Books About Spain"	http://bovingtonbooksaboutspain.wordpress.com/
"bits and bobs"	http://bitsandbobbovington.wordpress.com/
"Spanish Expressions"	http://spanishexpressions.wordpress.com/
"Photographs of Spain"	http://bovingtonphotosofspain.wordpress.com/
"Spanish Art"	http://bovingtonspanishart.wordpress.com/
"a grumpy old man inSpain"	http://grumpyoldbobinspain.wordpress.com/
"you couldn't make it up!"	http://bovingtonycmitup.wordpress.com/

Robert Bovington
March 2012

Television

English television gets worse and worse. Even though I can get lots of channels courtesy of my Sky digibox, I invariably find nothing on worth watching. There are very few decent comedy shows nowadays.'Not Going Out' starring Lee Mack, Tim Vine, Sally Bretton and Katy Wix is one of the few current sit-coms on British TV. I also like 'Doc Martin' and 'Outnumbered' although the latter is not as funny as it used to be in earlier series. Long gone are comedy classics like 'Only Fools and Horses'; 'Black Adder'; 'Fawlty Towers', ‘2point4 children’; ‘My Wife Next Door’; ‘Please Sir!’; ‘Three Up, Two Down’; ‘To the Manor Born’; ‘The Good Life’; ‘The Vicar of Dibley’; ‘One Foot in the Grave’; ‘Dad's Army’; ‘Yes Minister & Yes Prime Minister’; ‘Porridge’; ‘Men Behaving Badly’; 'Auf Wiedersehen, Pet'; ‘Just Good Friends’; ‘Man About the House’ and many more!

There are still good crime series 'Law and Order UK' is currently running whilst ‘Above Suspicion’; ‘Trial & Retribution’; ‘Lewis’; ‘Foyle's War’; ‘Inspector George Gently’ and ‘Whitechapel’ appear occasionally whilst there are often repeats of ‘Agatha Christie's Poirot’ and ‘A Touch of Frost’. In the past we had ‘Waking the Dead’; ‘the Prime Suspect series’; ‘Inspector Morse’; ‘Cracker’; ‘Rebus ‘; ‘Judge John Deed’; ‘Kavanagh QC’ and ‘The Bill.

But what else is there? Some football, Eastenders, Antiques Roadshow, Country File, The Apprentice (occasionally) and Question Time. 

Fortunately, I mostly only watch TV between 9pm & midnight Spanish time yet I still often end up watching Spanish TV - notably La Sexta 3. That channel shows films all day and I have seen many good films of late. Some are quite recent but they do show old films too. Last night I watched Jack Nicholson in 'The Shining' (a bit scary so my wife went to bed early) and, a couple of nights ago, I watched 'The Sting' featuring Paul Newman, Robert Redford and Robert Shaw.. A bit old but still one of my favourite films. It doesn't even matter that my Spanish is not yet good enough because I can watch the films in their original language!

Spain came second in a European quality of life survey

Extract from 'The Olive Press'... http://www.theolivepress.es/)


XPATS have every right to feel smug after Spain came second in a European quality of life index.

The uSwitch survey – which took into account living costs, spending on health and education, work/life balance and days of sunshine – left the UK firmly at the bottom of the list.

The index concluded that the Spanish" can expect to live a year longer than those in the UK, have more days off (the highest number in Europe) and enjoy cheaper booze.

However it was not all bad news for Blighty, which enjoys a higher average wage and greater investment in education than Spain.

France topped the index, with the Netherlands third."

my own thoughts...


1. I agree that Spain has a much higher quality of life than Britain.

2. The UK may invest more in education but that's because they pay school teachers too big a salary and in my experience (I was a supply teacher for 3 months before moving to Spain) many English schools are run by incompetent teaching staff.

3. France is a beautiful country but I wouldn't want to live there - too many French people.

4.Holland? it must be difficult cycling in clogs!