Must say we are very happy here in CH- but for us, BBC TV is a must. The News, Panorama, Question Time, Sunday morning debates, Spring Watch and other wildlife programmes, gardening, rugby and tennis, great houses, history... even Antiques Road show and, dare I say it, East Enders.

Life without the Beeb: peace at last!

... and don't get me started on the commercial channels...

You can't get it? I am sure that we had a package with Swisscom that allowed us to view all the mainstream UK channels ... or is it a geographical problem?

Odile lives in the Welschland, so it's very likely that the ox is refusing to push the wheel which powers the local cable service.

You know how things are over in the west...

We can - we have cable (yes even up here int'sticks). Just saying I'd really miss it if we didn't. French is my MT, but Swiss and French TV are so bad.

Ahhh, understood. Yes, I would miss it too!

iPlayer is your friend (Just finished watching last night's "Apprentice") :-)

Not in CH it isn't.

Watch it you.

If you set up a VPN or use expatshield it still is

It is if you subscribe to this www.my-private-network.co.uk/ at euros 5 a month. (In my experience it is much more reliable than expatshield).

It's very easy to use a proxy server to appear as if you're in England. There are commercial versions available eg IdentityCloaker. Just remember that to speed things up you only need to cloak your identity when first starting a download. As soon as it starts downloading turn it off.

EDITED TO ADD: OOPS. CROSSED EMAILS ABOVE. SORRY FOR THE REPETITION.

I just love the Beeb. And not only for Doctor Who or Torchwood, but for all the shows about food and all the documentaries about the UK.



When I had to leave my genevan flat, where I had swisscom tv and come where I live now (parents' house in France) I stayed a few months without a good internet connection, so no Beeb for me....

Such an horrible time....

You'd get used to it. Really, you would.

I used to love the telly - I grew up watching hours and hours of it, in between getting muddy in the brook and learning how to program a computer (fat lot of good the last one ever did me), and continued to enjoy it well into adulthood.

Then I just got bored of it. First of all, news and current affairs programmes started to irritate me (they're all so bloody biased), then documentaries got on my nerves (ooh, tramping Roman feet! Oooh, let's ask a dumb question then spend half an hour watching scientists trying to find the answer when I can read it on Wikipedia in thirty seconds!), then the persistent assault of crappy celebrity 'reality' shows ground me down, and, by the end, even Top Gear and Come Dine With Me didn't do it any more.

After failing to turn the telly on for a whole six months, I finally cancelled the contract last year, and haven't missed it once.

Now, when I'm visiting family who have the telly on, I find myself reaching for a book to read.

It's weird. If you'd told me all of this when I still lived in England, I'd have laughed in your face. But then I didn't have mountains to look at, and youtube wasn't half as good as it is now.

Funny how you adapt, isn't it?

We all don't want to be you though DB

Swiss com all the way!!!!

Sorry, Im confused with the last couple of posts.
Are you talking about the Beeb or the iPlayer?
I've got Sky but still don't have the iPlayer, which I would dearly love to have.
Are you saying that with a UK voip connection I could then get the iPlayer?
I can't even get Classic FM radio, which is something else I'd give my eyeteeth for.

Never had TV as a child growing up in CH in the 50s- Every Wednesday and Saturday at 4.30, about a dozen of us would pile up in the lounge at a neighbours and watch Rintintin, Black Beauty, Lassie and Cow Boys and Indians of one kind or another! But now, the Beeb is our link to our 'other home and other life' - as retirees it means a lot to us.

Will look at the expat ipad options, thanks all.

Not a voip but a VPN. Just google 'UK VPN'

I don't use one just now but I've used identity cloaker in the past and it works very nicely. It will work with sky player as well.

You just have to make the website think you are in the UK.

It seems that "how to use the iPlayer" is the techy version of "Can I survive on 120,000 CHF?"

BBC iPlayer works!