[Editor]

Details of the work done by the British Consulate in Alicante, Spain, to help expats are revealed in a new television show to be broadcast in the next few weeks. The Our Man In … series gives a glimpse of the life of an expat including British residents at an outreach event in Torrevieja, shoppers [...]

Click to read the full news article: TV series gives a glimpse of expat life in Spain...
Please come back to discuss the story here in this thread.

 

[MaxTucker]

Looks good, thanks.

 

[tonyinspain]

Watched it last night 80% british drunks
7 british drug dealers
I british lad beat by a prostitues eastern european gang and then tazerd by the police
And 1british murderer
That says a lot for brits abroad no wonder we have a bad press
But informative all the same

 

[xabiaxica]

Watched it last night 80% british drunks
7 british drug dealers
I british lad beat by a prostitues eastern european gang and then tazerd by the police
And 1british murderer
That says a lot for brits abroad no wonder we have a bad press
But informative all the same

well it wouldn't be good tele if they just showed the people behind a desk in the consulate dishing out emergency passports, would it ?

 

[Pesky Wesky]

I haven't seen the programme as I don't get British tv and I can't watch on a computer from Spain, but it sounds like this episode was not focussing on British immigrants in Ibiza, but the holiday crowd once again.
Another programme promises consul action to help Brits who've bought illegal properties - again.
For when the programme featuring PW, andmac, xabiachica, steveinspain, trubrit going to and from work, cleaning the house, making lunch and leading an everyday life?
Where is the programme featuring Owdoggy, mrypg9, stravinsky, Alcalaina living an active, happy retirement in various parts of Spain?
Where is the programme featuring kids going to schools, private and state, and the problems and joys, the ups and downs of Spanish education?
Of course, too boring, isn't it?
But this is what real life is. Not puke your guts up Brits - nor lose your life savings Brits. I know those scenes are par of everyday life for the consuls, but there are plenty of us, the vast majority tha never have to get help from a consul, and I wish that was news too!

 

[MaidenScotland]

Watched it last night 80% british drunks
7 british drug dealers
I british lad beat by a prostitues eastern european gang and then tazerd by the police
And 1british murderer
That says a lot for brits abroad no wonder we have a bad press
But informative all the same

I british lad beat by a prostitues eastern european gang and then tazerd by the police
... hardly the lads fault,

 

[mrypg9]

I haven't seen the programme as I don't get British tv and I can't watch on a computer from Spain, but it sounds like this episode was not focussing on British immigrants in Ibiza, but the holiday crowd once again.
Another programme promises consul action to help Brits who've bought illegal properties - again.
For when the programme featuring PW, andmac, xabiachica, steveinspain, trubrit going to and from work, cleaning the house, making lunch and leading an everyday life?
Where is the programme featuring Owdoggy, mrypg9, stravinsky, Alcalaina living an active, happy retirement in various parts of Spain?
Where is the programme featuring kids going to schools, private and state, and the problems and joys, the ups and downs of Spanish education?
Of course, too boring, isn't it?
But this is what real life is. Not puke your guts up Brits - nor lose your life savings Brits. I know those scenes are par of everyday life for the consuls, but there are plenty of us, the vast majority tha never have to get help from a consul, and I wish that was news too!

You are right. People like me or Alca will only be deemed newsworthy if we run a drugs and prostitution ring (it will be noteworthy because of our 'apparent' respectability), claim we've been sexually molested and been robbed in a Benidorm hotel room next to our sleeping partners or kill our partners in a drunken or cocaine-induced rage.
The Daily Mail would be especially interested in me if I did that as they sweem currently obsessed with lesbians, for some reason beyond my fathoming.

Fact is, we are simply.....boring

 

[MaidenScotland]

For some reason the worse of Brits living in Spain is always picked up on.

Truth to be told is where ever there are crowds of young people there are problems. I actually complained to the hotel I was staying in last August about the noise and the running up and down the corridor when I was in Benidorm.. a Spanish hotel full of Spanish youth.

In the 70s and 80s a family member ran the biggest bar in Greenock which was a haven for American sailors from the Holy Loch until she banned them all because of their behaviour, drunkenness, fighting and spewing up in the streets outside the pub. The American base commander came to see her and asked for her to let them back in and that the navy would police the bar for her.


Drink, youth, fighting.. has always gone on and always will it is not just the youth of Britain.

 

[mrypg9]

For some reason the worse of Brits living in Spain is always picked up on.

Truth to be told is where ever there are crowds of young people there are problems. I actually complained to the hotel I was staying in last August about the noise and the running up and down the corridor when I was in Benidorm.. a Spanish hotel full of Spanish youth.

In the 70s and 80s a family member ran the biggest bar in Greenock which was a haven for American sailors from the Holy Loch until she banned them all because of their behaviour, drunkenness, fighting and spewing up in the streets outside the pub. The American base commander came to see her and asked for her to let them back in and that the navy would police the bar for her.


Drink, youth, fighting.. has always gone on and always will it is not just the youth of Britain.

I seem to remember that when Julius Caesar made his first foray to the coast of Britain he was deterred from landing by the presence of a horde of woad-tattooed, shaven-headed, drunk-on-mead axe-waving Brits...

Chroniclers of Duke William's victory at the Battle of Hastings described the drunken valour of the Saxons...

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose indeed.

 

[Pesky Wesky]

Drink, youth, fighting.. has always gone on and always will it is not just the youth of Britain.

True.
Unfortunately it is the youth of Britain who have made it a major export to southern Spain,Prague, holiday resorts in Turkey, Cyprus...

From mrypg9

I seem to remember that when Julius Caesar made his first foray to the coast of Britain he was deterred from landing by the presence of a horde of woad-tattooed, shaven-headed, drunk-on-mead axe-waving Brits...

Hahaha!
Some things just never change, do they?

 

[jimenato]

I'm not really trying to make any point at all when I say this but....

The only people who have every been drunk and violent in my bar have both been Spanish.

 

[MaidenScotland]

I'm not really trying to make any point at all when I say this but....

The only people who have every been drunk and violent in my bar have both been Spanish.

Lol same in my SIL watering hole.. he is a huge lad.. bald tattoos etc in fact what the press in Britain would call by his looks a thug.. yet he is the best dad in the world, he drinks not always in moderation and when in his local watering hole which is Spanish if there is trouble the proprietor ask him to turf them out but he himself is never in trouble.

Bingo.. the times I read about the Brits going to bingo and yet Novelda a very Spanish town has a huge Bingo hall, who for?

Benidorm.. I stayed in a hotel in the old town opposite the bingo hall which was mobbed every day.. who used it, well they looked Spanish to me,

 

[Alcalaina]

Well, to be fair it is a programme about the work of the British Consulate, and their time is spent sorting out people's problems, so they wouldn't be featuring boring people like us!

The Channel 4 write-up doesn't mention "a glimpse into expat life" - that was made up by the forum editor.

Our Man in... - Series 1 - Channel 4

 

[xabiaxica]

Well, to be fair it is a programme about the work of the British Consulate, and their time is spent sorting out people's problems, so they wouldn't be featuring boring people like us!

The Channel 4 write-up doesn't mention "a glimpse into expat life" - that was made up by the forum editor.

Our Man in... - Series 1 - Channel 4

I suppose the people who work in the Consulate are expats.................................

 

[MaidenScotland]

Well, to be fair it is a programme about the work of the British Consulate, and their time is spent sorting out people's problems, so they wouldn't be featuring boring people like us!

The Channel 4 write-up doesn't mention "a glimpse into expat life" - that was made up by the forum editor.

Our Man in... - Series 1 - Channel 4

And of course we don't see ... Our man in.. from other countries embassy.

 

[Pesky Wesky]

The Channel 4 write-up doesn't mention "a glimpse into expat life" - that was made up by the forum editor.

Our Man in... - Series 1 - Channel 4

This is the comment I was refering to; Channel 4 has been exonerated.

 

[bob_bob]

Lol same in my SIL watering hole.. he is a huge lad.. bald tattoos etc in fact what the press in Britain would call by his looks a thug.. yet he is the best dad in the world, he drinks not always in moderation and when in his local watering hole which is Spanish if there is trouble the proprietor ask him to turf them out but he himself is never in trouble.

Bingo.. the times I read about the Brits going to bingo and yet Novelda a very Spanish town has a huge Bingo hall, who for?

Benidorm.. I stayed in a hotel in the old town opposite the bingo hall which was mobbed every day.. who used it, well they looked Spanish to me,

You need to see the programme before belittling it really.

Yes most of the consulates work in the area covered involves punters and drugs/alcohol but most of the show actually talked about the lad badly treated by the Spanish police, a guy who's legs were crushed when hit by a car and dealing with a couple of guys in prison. Cheap booze (and cheap pills sold in Spanish bars/clubs), hundreds of thousands of young brits on holiday with cash in pocket = lots and lots of drunken youngsters.

I'm not advocating or defending the drunken behaviour but do ask if ever French, German or Scandinavian youngsters out there also end up in the cutter just as crap faced...pretty sure some do judging by what I've seen myself. When I was a lad France and Spain were dirt cheap for booze (I'm talking pennies a pint/shot) and we would get peed up and ill but what was not there forty years ago were bars offering and encouraging the consumption of suicidal amounts of affordable booze seemingly happy to have you throw up and pass out as a consequence of their wonderful hospitality. When you see film of drunken kids swaying in the streets, passed out, throwing up, etc remember to put it in perspective and think what a really small representation of the thousands of others out and about that night they really are. Want to clean up the streets? Shut the bars early, triple the prices and ban the music, all would help make for a quieter resort for sure.

Next week is about moaning old ******s by the looks of it at least one of whom thinks the Consulate staff are a bunch of malakas.

All makes good TV

 

[MaidenScotland]

You need to see the programme before belittling it really.

Yes most of the consulates work in the area covered involves punters and drugs/alcohol but most of the show actually talked about the lad badly treated by the Spanish police, a guy who's legs were crushed when hit by a car and dealing with a couple of guys in prison. Cheap booze (and cheap pills sold in Spanish bars/clubs), hundreds of thousands of young brits on holiday with cash in pocket = lots and lots of drunken youngsters.

I'm not advocating or defending the drunken behaviour but do ask if ever French, German or Scandinavian youngsters out there also end up in the cutter just as crap faced...pretty sure some do judging by what I've seen myself. When I was a lad France and Spain were dirt cheap for booze (I'm talking pennies a pint/shot) and we would get peed up and ill but what was not there forty years ago were bars offering and encouraging the consumption of suicidal amounts of affordable booze seemingly happy to have you throw up and pass out as a consequence of their wonderful hospitality. When you see film of drunken kids swaying in the streets, passed out, throwing up, etc remember to put it in perspective and think what a really small representation of the thousands of others out and about that night they really are. Want to clean up the streets? Shut the bars early, triple the prices and ban the music, all would help make for a quieter resort for sure.

Next week is about moaning old ******s by the looks of it at least one of whom thinks the Consulate staff are a bunch of malakas.

All makes good TV

I never mentioned the programme in this post... I was commenting on the fact that bingo drunkenness are always associated with Brits .

 

[MaidenScotland]

You need to see the programme before belittling it really.

Yes most of the consulates work in the area covered involves punters and drugs/alcohol but most of the show actually talked about the lad badly treated by the Spanish police, a guy who's legs were crushed when hit by a car and dealing with a couple of guys in prison. Cheap booze (and cheap pills sold in Spanish bars/clubs), hundreds of thousands of young brits on holiday with cash in pocket = lots and lots of drunken youngsters.

I'm not advocating or defending the drunken behaviour but do ask if ever French, German or Scandinavian youngsters out there also end up in the cutter just as crap faced...pretty sure some do judging by what I've seen myself. When I was a lad France and Spain were dirt cheap for booze (I'm talking pennies a pint/shot) and we would get peed up and ill but what was not there forty years ago were bars offering and encouraging the consumption of suicidal amounts of affordable booze seemingly happy to have you throw up and pass out as a consequence of their wonderful hospitality. When you see film of drunken kids swaying in the streets, passed out, throwing up, etc remember to put it in perspective and think what a really small representation of the thousands of others out and about that night they really are. Want to clean up the streets? Shut the bars early, triple the prices and ban the music, all would help make for a quieter resort for sure.

Next week is about moaning old ******s by the looks of it at least one of whom thinks the Consulate staff are a bunch of malakas.

All makes good TV

mmmm just re read this post and can't seem to see why you would be quoting me, . I have defended the British youth in saying that it has always happened an it is not just the youth of Britain that does it..

 

[Pesky Wesky]

You need to see the programme before belittling it really.

Yes most of the consulates work in the area covered involves punters and drugs/alcohol but most of the show actually talked about the lad badly treated by the Spanish police, a guy who's legs were crushed when hit by a car and dealing with a couple of guys in prison. Cheap booze (and cheap pills sold in Spanish bars/clubs), hundreds of thousands of young brits on holiday with cash in pocket = lots and lots of drunken youngsters.

I'm not advocating or defending the drunken behaviour but do ask if ever French, German or Scandinavian youngsters out there also end up in the cutter just as crap faced...pretty sure some do judging by what I've seen myself. When I was a lad France and Spain were dirt cheap for booze (I'm talking pennies a pint/shot) and we would get peed up and ill but what was not there forty years ago were bars offering and encouraging the consumption of suicidal amounts of affordable booze seemingly happy to have you throw up and pass out as a consequence of their wonderful hospitality. When you see film of drunken kids swaying in the streets, passed out, throwing up, etc remember to put it in perspective and think what a really small representation of the thousands of others out and about that night they really are. Want to clean up the streets? Shut the bars early, triple the prices and ban the music, all would help make for a quieter resort for sure.

Next week is about moaning old ******s by the looks of it at least one of whom thinks the Consulate staff are a bunch of malakas.

All makes good TV

I have to disagree with you there. I lived in Colombia for 2 years and could have regularly consumed coke, but I didn't. I was also offered coke here in Madrid, but I didn't consume. I lived in an area of Madrid that was rife with prositution, but...!! I could have gone out every day of the week and puked all I wanted, but I didn't. People make their own choices.

My post anyway (although I know others have taken it up) wasn't to do with the seedier side of holidaying in Spain. I was saying that a more balanced picture could be easily put across, but doesn't interest, or at least, tv and media in general think it doesn't interest. I think a programme featuring the lives of several different people in a country, (young single 20smth traveller , 30 smth unskilled looking for work, 40 smth highly qualified divorcee looking for work, early retired couple, 60+ widower) or compare one of these groups of British immigrants in different countries every week.
Any tv producers on here just get in touch with PW for filming rights