Yeah, bloody cross-dressers!

Cheers,
Nick

Strictly just started DB. BBC1..........just........FYI

Right, that's it, cards night at our place...let's pick a date...when's a night when you don't want to be down the pub ?

We don't have a telly, and I promise to pack away the computer so you don't even have to look at a computer screen...

There are 2 programmes I am addicted to. The apprentice and X Factor.

45 mins to X Factor

wagner, wagner, wagner, we love you wagner, wagner, wagner, wagner, wagner, wagner COME ON WAGNER

Talk to me about politics, literature, philosophy any time of the week. Just this morning I gave a workshop based on the practical application of linguistic theory. Last night I was out enjoying myself at the "Zelt" in Basel.

But for just a few hours on Saturday evening my brain fixates and it's all about X Factor - just as for a few hours on Wednesday evening my husband and I pepper every other sentence with "you're fired!"

It doesn't really count as exotic, I suppose, but I ski most weekends from mid December to April, then I swim in the local outdoor pool from May through to September. My UK friends are dead jealous of my lifestyle.

And of course September through to December, I do panto. But I suppose I could do that in the UK.

Currently waiting for TV Burp to start.

I don't talk about the telly, cos the kids hijacked it a long time ago.

What I am guilty of, however, is EF creeping into my conversations. Something like, "I read about it a few days ago on EF..., yes, old news..."

Yes, exactly, I love the BBC documentaries, anything David Attenborough does can simply not be missed. And the Antiques Roadshow. Or anything else that makes me feel like I'm learning something or seeing a different (real) world. I absolutely don't see the point of watching something like EastEnders, if I want to see ugly, crazy people screaming at each other, I could sit by the corner of Militär-/Langstrasse.

I'll join you for a Schieber. I'm no good but I get the basics.

I'd be willing to teach jass for an evening if anyone's interested. What d'ya think: should we organise a date?

"Intelligent people talk about ideas. Average people talk about things. Small people talk about other people." goes the quote from I don't know who but I like it. Just where people who talk about the telly fit into that I'll leave up to better brains to decide.

I think British TV has great educational programs. Really, they are pretty good at it.

Dougal, I am having my brain all over the wall after shooting myself every single night since wednesday because I have to sit in front of some stupid turkish drama shows that my mother-in-law loves to watch. Every nights a different one...

Here is where this expression come from: Same shit, different day!

Beside the Tily, one thing I can't handle is people sharing their most stupid and insignificant task they did on Facebook.

I drink a glass of wine, I made a pie, I am cleaning.... I don't give a shit and guess what, no one else does.

People just don't know what to talk about...

I don't know who it's from but I first heard it from a guy whom I hold in great esteem and who has accomplished many things in his life. From what I can tell, he doesn't really watch telly, maybe I should take his lead...

What you seem to miss is that those sort of things are as important to them as your books, beers at the pub, etc. to you, and that's the reason why they share and talk about it with you.

No... I don't recall having ever said that.

But thank you, anyway.

It all comes down to the "lowest common denominator".

Your friends and relations back in the UK have no point of reference for your life in CH - most people I talk to about CH think mountains, Heidi, snow, skiing, chocolate and watches. That's it.

When I tell them we have long summers of +30, with Indian summers (OK, this year excepted) they look at me as if I'm a loon. When I mention I can't see the Alps from Basel, they look lost.

They are trying to find some common ground with which to connect with you. Be kind... or ditch them.

That said, as with Paddy G, I don't think I've ever discussed TV as a topic with any of friends and relations, unless it has been the source of information used in a broader discussion.

__________________
Never let right or wrong get in the way of a good opinion

As an afterthought, consider this. TV programmes, like BB and X-factor make the front pages of newspapers. Not the middle pages, but the front ones (FFS).

If you have people who think a newspaper is their guiding source of important information, then they are going to view the discussions of who is "left in the house" or "still on the show" seriously. If the paper has it on the front page, then why shouldn't they think this?

The line between news and entertainment is an ever-increasingly blurry one. I would suggest that European and CH newspapers are probably not much better, but I, as someone who doesn't read many local rags, don't get as influenced as some in the UK might for example.

As an expat, I live a relatively sheltered life. While I make an effort to grind my way through 20 min on the tram, it only takes me 20 min to get through it because my German is so bad. If I were to be fluent, it would probably take me two minutes to get through it once I would have filtered out all the celebrity *cough splutter* "news".

Our (your!) friends and relations back in the UK haven't had the opportunity I (and I guess you) have had to be protected from such detritus masquerading as "news".

Sorry if this has already been said in other posts, just sharing a line of thought... but I'm going to stop now, in case you acuse me of protesting too much

__________________
Never let right or wrong get in the way of a good opinion

OK, I apologise for the snobbery comment - I guess what I mean is that it just irritates me when people get on their high horses about not having a TV or not watching TV and it making them somehow more interesting than others - that kind of thing anyway. I know you didn't say that - I just read that in between the lines.

I watch quite a lot of TV. But having young kids going out isn't such an easy or attractive thing to do any more (because you still need to get up at 6am on Sunday regardless). When I didn't have kids I did a lot more "interesting" stuff. These days I don't have that much interesting stuff to talk about (at least not to anyone other than my mum anyway!)

X Factor was full of drama and excitement tonight by the way - I loved it! And I had a ball chatting to my UK friends about it on Facebook while it was on.

Actually on a semi serious note - keeping up on UK TV is actually one of my ways of coping with expat life - somehow watching XFactor and Eastenders (and being able to hold down a conversation about whether Jane is really leaving Ian) makes me feel close to the UK and means I feel somehow more connected with family and friends back there if that makes any sense.

I understand what you're saying, but I can assure you that I do not consider myself to be more interesting than anyone I know - in fact, that was the core of my complaint. My friends' lives are way more interesting than the lives of non-existent people off the telly, and quite a lot more interesting than my own, most of the time.

You'd be surprised how much people want to hear, though. The examples you gave in your previous post are exactly the kind of thing I want to hear about from friends or family members who have recently had children. It's the little stories of everyday life that help me feel connected to them. The "hilarious" antics of some former politician on a dance competition programme are nowhere near as interesting as the antics of a friend's two year old son!

I understand that, which is why I wouldn't dream of criticising anyone for actually watching the television. It's a very nice, easy pastime, and is especially pleasant when you're homesick. I have a telly, which I used to watch from time to time until it broke (well, the telly's ok, but I've lost the PIN to get into the cablecom thingy) and it used to cheer me up no end on long winter nights. I still use it occasionally to watch DVDs of Dad's Army and the Fast Show.

But you would never have caught me boring the pants off my Swiss or Canadian colleagues about the Antiques Roadshow or Time Team the next day, no matter how much pleasure I drew from them, because I knew they wouldn't be interested.

I just wish people would extent the same courtesy to me.

Thought for the day:

"Television…is an anti-experience and an anti-knowledge machine because it separates individuals from themselves and from the environment and makes them believe that they are living while they are only observing passively what other people decide tomake them see."

Dr Silvana Quattrocci Montanaro, MD, Psychiatrist, Montessori teacher-trainer.

I have plenty of anti-tv quotes...it was unheard of to not have a TV 13 years ago when I moved out of home and got married...

A bit like going to the pictures, then?