# TV series gives a glimpse of expat life in Spain



## Editor (Aug 20, 2009)

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.


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## MaxTucker (Mar 1, 2012)

Looks good, thanks.


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## tonyinspain (Jul 18, 2011)

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


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

tonyinspain said:


> 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
> ...


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 ?


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

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!


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## MaidenScotland (Jun 6, 2009)

tonyinspain said:


> 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
> ...




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


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Pesky Wesky said:


> 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?
> ...


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


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## MaidenScotland (Jun 6, 2009)

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.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

MaidenScotland said:


> 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.
> 
> ...


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.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

MaidenScotland said:


> 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?


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

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.


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## MaidenScotland (Jun 6, 2009)

jimenato said:


> 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,


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

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


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

Alcalaina said:


> 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.................................


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## MaidenScotland (Jun 6, 2009)

Alcalaina said:


> 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.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Alcalaina said:


> 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.


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## bob_bob (Jan 5, 2011)

MaidenScotland said:


> 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


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## MaidenScotland (Jun 6, 2009)

bob_bob said:


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


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## MaidenScotland (Jun 6, 2009)

bob_bob said:


> 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.
> 
> ...





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..


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

bob_bob said:


> 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 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


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## MaidenScotland (Jun 6, 2009)

As someone who was in the hospitality trade for years I can tell you that every nation has it fair share of drunks and drug users... 


although perhaps not so much the Germans.. you always groaned when they walked in as they didn't like spending money


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## Solwriter (Jan 10, 2012)

At this point in time, any UK made documentary which shows British youth, whether at home or abroad, will do its best to highlight drunkenness and 'the dire results of alcohol'.
It's part of one of the latest campaigns to achieve a 'popular consensus' about drinking. 
Not saying there isn't a problem. Just saying that this problem is being stressed over others, the way smoking was a few years ago.
The next step is for the tax on alcohol to rise and rise accordingly.


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## bob_bob (Jan 5, 2011)

MaidenScotland said:


> 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..


Quoted you? Nope, not you at all, refering if anything to Pesky who's not seen the show ?

Regarding coke etc, put a bunch of kids who are away from home, money in pocket, offer cheap alcohol or drugs and *some *will take them. Coke is available anywhere these days but not many take it whether here or Spain or Columbia. Walk down 'club street' in any resort in Spain/Greece/Cyprus et al and the bars and clubs are set up to target youngsters and get them to spend as much as possible with no apparent concern for the consequences of what the said bars and clubs promote so really they should take some of the blame as well. Lets have a bit of bar/club owner/licensing authority bashing too.

Coke and Heroin are cheap as chips in the UK, crack amphetamine cheaper still but not many take it (price wise I'm talking about what my wife has told me, she's very involved in managing substance abuse /treatment programmes).

I just detest having what is in reality the very small minority used to blanket bash young brits abroad.

Lets see what the old codgers whine on about next week


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

bob_bob said:


> Quoted you? Nope, not you at all, refering if anything to Pesky who's not seen the show ?
> 
> Regarding coke etc, put a bunch of kids who are away from home, money in pocket, offer cheap alcohol or drugs and *some *will take them. Coke is available anywhere these days but not many take it whether here or Spain or Columbia. Walk down 'club street' in any resort in Spain/Greece/Cyprus et al and the bars and clubs are set up to target youngsters and get them to spend as much as possible with no apparent concern for the consequences of what the said bars and clubs promote so really they should take some of the blame as well. Lets have a bit of bar/club owner/licensing authority bashing too.
> 
> ...


I think you're getting posts and posters mixed up. (see post 17 where you quoted Maiden)

Pesky has seen the post and replied! (see post 20)

As far as this post is concerned regarding the taking of coke (or E's or, alcohol or any other drug) I would just like to say, _exactly,_ some will and some won't. 
Some will skip school some won't. 
Some will beat up people who are different to them and some won't. 
The same way as when they are older some will abuse drugs, other people and animals and some won't.
Regarding the taking drugs and puking up on holiday, I just can't see any argument. You make up your own mind, whether the tourism market is geared up to sell you that or not. Most British tourist go to Magaluf for those very attributes. The decision of how they're going to spend their holiday has been made way before they even get there.

However I do think that if the tourist trade is geared up to that kind of tourism then the people who are in the tourism trade should have certain expectations of what their nights are going to consist of, but I don't hear them complaining. Perhaps they do, I don't know.

Anyway, as I said before, 4 posts ago I wasn't referring to the tourist trade, and don't want to make any more comments on it.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Pesky Wesky said:


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


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## bob_bob (Jan 5, 2011)

Sad thing is, Spain, parts or Greece/Cyprus (to a degree Prague) have geared themselves up for this type of tourist, laid a path and sadly seem happy to take the cash. Can you blame them, take €20 off a family who sit there for two hours eating burger and chips or throw wild evenings and take €50++ of each of the youngsters getting hammered?

You lived in Prague Mary, my son in law went on a stag do last summer, part of the organised trip was a drinking session followed by firing live AK47's at some gun range or other, imagine the H&S in the UK and that idea lol.


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## MaidenScotland (Jun 6, 2009)

bob_bob said:


> Quoted you? Nope, not you at all, refering if anything to Pesky who's not seen the show ?
> 
> Regarding coke etc, put a bunch of kids who are away from home, money in pocket, offer cheap alcohol or drugs and *some *will take them. Coke is available anywhere these days but not many take it whether here or Spain or Columbia. Walk down 'club street' in any resort in Spain/Greece/Cyprus et al and the bars and clubs are set up to target youngsters and get them to spend as much as possible with no apparent concern for the consequences of what the said bars and clubs promote so really they should take some of the blame as well. Lets have a bit of bar/club owner/licensing authority bashing too.
> 
> ...




Yes I think you have gotten mixed up..


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## MaidenScotland (Jun 6, 2009)

Just watching the History programme about the gold rush in America.. one of the biggest problems is alcohol abuse and opium smoking... 

What is happening now is nothing new..


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

bob_bob said:


> ?
> 
> You lived in Prague Mary, my son in law went on a stag do last summer, part of the organised trip was a drinking session followed by firing live AK47's at some gun range or other, imagine the H&S in the UK and that idea lol.



Bob...there used to be a company called Prague PissUp....again I kid you not....that organised these events. They included the stuff you described with white water rafting and brothel visits.

My son and his little chums go on these trips, or used to. I once inadvertently strayed onto his Facebook page...and saw some photos I'd rather not have seen....

Oh well...As I used to say to my students: 'Boys will be boys...but girls will be women.'


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## Sirtravelot (Jul 20, 2011)

On German TV they have a program that shows Germans immigrating to different countries. Usually they aren't pensioners, but families moving or single people moving and trying to "make it" in Spain.

It's a shame I can't give a link to it. Sometimes it can be really good, but also ridiculous.

I have seen:

-A gay hairdresser couple making it Tenerife. They opened up a shop there and actually seemed to make profits. I believe one of them was half Spanish.

-A German family opening a dead-end business in Andalucia. The husband a decorator who worked for very, very little. Sad, to say the least.

-A 5-headed Family buying a 250,000 Euro Villa and trying to make a holiday business by renting out rooms for holiday makers. Looked ready to fail.

-A rich guy living and working in Andalucia with his daughter. They managed to be okay because they were RICH. Otherwise, the father said, it becomes extremely difficult.

These are the things they should show on British TV because it shows what it's really like. And to be honest, I still feel like they sugar coat it.

They never show the bureaucracy in Spain.

Ah well, c'est la vie!


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

bob_bob said:


> _Sad thing is, Spain, parts or Greece/Cyprus (to a degree Prague) have geared themselves up for this type of tourist_, laid a path and sadly seem happy to take the cash. Can you blame them, take €20 off a family who sit there for two hours eating burger and chips or throw wild evenings and take €50++ of each of the youngsters getting hammered?


_
VERY FEW_ parts of Spain, please. The majority of us never have the pleasure of witnessing this sort of behaviour.

It is _Carnaval_ in my village this weekend. People were drinking from midday till the small hours yesterday but there was no loutish behaviour and no piles of vomit on the streets this morning. They go out in family groups and eat while they are drinking. 

All the kids and half the adults are in fancy dress and there are singing groups going from bar to bar to entertain the crowds. All this would be illegal in the UK because of public entertainment licences etc.

Here we are being entertained by a _chirigota_ explaining the euro crisis:


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## Solwriter (Jan 10, 2012)

Alcalaina said:


> All the kids and half the adults are in fancy dress and there are singing groups going from bar to bar to entertain the crowds. All this would be illegal in the UK because of public entertainment licences etc.


That's what I like so much about Spain - the fact that kids are actually welcome and that public entertainment is not usually hindered by bureaucracy.


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## bob_bob (Jan 5, 2011)

Alcalaina said:


> _
> VERY FEW_ parts of Spain, please. The majority of us never have the pleasure of witnessing this sort of behaviour.
> 
> It is _Carnaval_ in my village this weekend. People were drinking from midday till the small hours yesterday but there was no loutish behaviour and no piles of vomit on the streets this morning. They go out in family groups and eat while they are drinking.
> ...


Agreed a tiny part of Spain, but lots of business's in a lot of Spanish resort towns popular with youngsters are now geared up for it. You don't buy a bar/club then spend thousands on lights, sound system, foam sprayers etc and expect the kiddy winks to drink a couple of Sherries and nibble on tapas...you want them our or their minds and spending €€€€€€€€'€

You can shut down the bars/clubs and loose mega euros in the drop in visitors or do what they do now...clean up, mop up, restock and get ready for the next evening.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

I have seen programmes showing wild scenes in Benidorm, Fuengirola, Torremolinos and parts of Marbella but I think this sort of behaviour is confined to the known 'party towns'.

Estepona is very popular with Spanish families and the paseo maritimo is packed in the evenings with families and young children. We love walking there with Azor, it's so peaceful and he is a real conversation starter....we could hire him out to men who have trouble meeting women as women of all ages coo over him and ask what breed he is, how old, etc.

Not a drunk in sight or sound. There isn't much nightlife in Estepona either, just groups of people sitting chatting on the paseo or on the beach in the lovely warm summer evenings.

When the group of drunken British chavs strayed into our village last summer their behaviour was a talking point for quite a while. Thankfully it was a one-off.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

bob_bob said:


> Agreed a tiny part of Spain, but lots of business's in a lot of Spanish resort towns popular with youngsters are now geared up for it. You don't buy a bar/club then spend thousands on lights, sound system, foam sprayers etc and expect the kiddy winks to drink a couple of Sherries and nibble on tapas...you want them our or their minds and spending €€€€€€€€'€
> 
> You can shut down the bars/clubs and loose mega euros in the drop in visitors or do what they do now...clean up, mop up, restock and get ready for the next evening.


I'm sure it happens. But most towns in Spain _aren't _resort towns. I think the great British viewing public (helped by programmes like this) get the impression that Spain consists of the Costas, Barcelona, Madrid, a few castles and monuments dotted round the countryside, and that's about it!


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## bob_bob (Jan 5, 2011)

Thats why I used the word 'tiny' in my post


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## thrax (Nov 13, 2008)

Pesky Wesky said:


> 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?
> ...


Hang on, hang on. What about Thrax??? Can't I feature on a TV programme too? I was on TV once at the Derby in Epsom. I was watching the horses go round and round the paddock trying to make my selection based on no knowledge of the sport at all and the TV cameras decided to zoom in on me. No doubt my trendy sunglasses were responsible. It was a bit of a shame because I was supposed to be somewhere else and the OH (not the current one) saw me. I did not tell her, however, that being a little drunk (well a lot) I elected to put 20 notes on a 100-1 no hoper. It won by 20 lengths. I'll let you do the maths. I didn't tell the OH as gambling was strictly forbidden.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

thrax said:


> Hang on, hang on. What about Thrax??? Can't I feature on a TV programme too? I was on TV once at the Derby in Epsom. I was watching the horses go round and round the paddock trying to make my selection based on no knowledge of the sport at all and the TV cameras decided to zoom in on me. No doubt my trendy sunglasses were responsible. It was a bit of a shame because I was supposed to be somewhere else and the OH (not the current one) saw me. I did not tell her, however, that being a little drunk (well a lot) I elected to put 20 notes on a 100-1 no hoper. It won by 20 lengths. I'll let you do the maths. I didn't tell the OH as gambling was strictly forbidden.


Those with previous experience go to the top of the queue, of course. That includes me as I was once filmed pulling up my socks in the school playground  
PS No I can't do the maths. I've never understood what those bets mean, but I think you got good odds, didn't you?


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## thrax (Nov 13, 2008)

Pesky Wesky said:


> Those with previous experience go to the top of the queue, of course. That includes me as I was once filmed pulling up my socks in the school playground
> PS No I can't do the maths. I've never understood what those bets mean, but I think you got good odds, didn't you?


I cannot say in the case the ex OH reads this and files a late claim against me...


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## bob_bob (Jan 5, 2011)

Just watched the latest episode...1,800 violent muggings in Barcelona last year!!! If you pick pocket/steal goods worth less than €400 then all you get is a warning whether its your first offence or your hundredth and thats the* law,* you don't get charged.

I was surprised that they only dealt with 200 Brits being arrested per year, still a lot but given the hysteria banded about regarding the loutish behaviour of Brits I'd have thought the figure to be higher.


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## MaidenScotland (Jun 6, 2009)

bob_bob said:


> Just watched the latest episode...1,800 violent muggings in Barcelona last year!!! If you pick pocket/steal goods worth less than €400 then all you get is a warning whether its your first offence or your hundredth and thats the* law,* you don't get charged.
> 
> I was surprised that they only dealt with 200 Brits being arrested per year, still a lot but given the hysteria banded about regarding the loutish behaviour of Brits I'd have thought the figure to be higher.





only if you believe the hysteria..


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

bob_bob said:


> Just watched the latest episode...1,800 violent muggings in Barcelona last year!!! If you pick pocket/steal goods worth less than €400 then all you get is a warning whether its your first offence or your hundredth and thats the* law,* you don't get charged.
> 
> I was surprised that they only dealt with 200 Brits being arrested per year, still a lot but given the hysteria banded about regarding the loutish behaviour of Brits I'd have thought the figure to be higher.


Apparently the pick pocketing problem is rife in certain parts of Barcelona, namely the Ramblas and has been highlighted on Spanish TV too, especially the problem you have highlighted of being given the warning. In fact, in 2 programmes I have seen the thieves have walked out on the street, pickpocketed again and have been arrested again. I don't know if this is Barcelona, Catalan or national law.
As for 200 Brits being arrested, I think the number of arrests has little to do with the amount of "loutish behaviour". I mean, I'm sure many more arrests could be made but it's probably a major hassle for all those involved. I would imagine the police go in to difuse a situation, and only make arrests when no other course of action is available.


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## bob_bob (Jan 5, 2011)

Pesky Wesky said:


> Apparently the pick pocketing problem is rife in certain parts of Barcelona, namely the Ramblas and has been highlighted on Spanish TV too, especially the problem you have highlighted of being given the warning. In fact, in 2 programmes I have seen the thieves have walked out on the street, pickpocketed again and have been arrested again. I don't know if this is Barcelona, Catalan or national law.
> As for 200 Brits being arrested, I think the number of arrests has little to do with the amount of "loutish behaviour". I mean, I'm sure many more arrests could be made but it's probably a major hassle for all those involved. *I would imagine the police go in to difuse a situation, and only make arrests when no other course of action is available.*


Same as the UK then; easier to send them home/hotel than fill in the paperwork.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

bob_bob said:


> Same as the UK then; easier to send them home/hotel than fill in the paperwork.


Yep.
That's what *I *think happens anyway


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

I was warned about muggers and bag-snatchers in Barcelona when I first went ... in 1981. Just like any big city, you should take sensible precautions.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Alcalaina said:


> I was warned about muggers and bag-snatchers in Barcelona when I first went ... in 1981. Just like any big city, you should take sensible precautions.


This is true. It's like the Rastro or Sol in Madrid. 
On the other hand it really seems to be out of control in Barcelona.


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## bob_bob (Jan 5, 2011)

Pesky Wesky said:


> Yep.
> That's what *I *think happens anyway


It does happen in the UK, a good friend of my lad is a local bobby and its standard procedure to defuse a situation and where possible send the drunks off home. If they're kicking and punching they get taken in and charged.

Back to the show, the law needs changing, works out to 20 violent mugging a week in Barcelona...thats an awful lot.

That said I was told about pick pockets/neck chain snatchers in Barcelona back in the 80's so its not a new problem.


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