7. "There's nothing worth watching on TV nowadays."

Oh, how many times did I say or hear that statement before we left the UK?
Over here in the "cradle of civilisaton" you don't pay for a TV licence per se, there is a fee hidden somewhere in your electricity bill. I haven't found anyone yet (Greek or English) who can tell me how much it is and what it is spent on.
I know one thing that it isn't spent on though; salaries for people who can actually run TV stations properly! Greek broadcasting is more like "cutting and pasting" by dyslexics. The schedules are completely arbitrary; a programmes' published start time means it will start within half an hour either way, if they don't decide to put something completely different on instead!


We recently watched the second series of "24" again, after accidently finding episode 8 whilst channel hopping one night; but, although it aired on consecutive nights, it had three different start times. However, we persevered and watched it to its exciting climax. A few days later we saw trailers for series 3 and settled down one night for the start of another Jack Bauer marathon. However, it's a few years since this series was made, and age has caught up with our Jack; on Greek TV he only runs half marathons now. The "new series" started at episode 10!!!
When they show ER they must either pull the tapes out of a tombola tub, or some mischevious junior executive has removed all the episode and series numbers, because dead people reappear and characters actually get younger!

And, if you hate adverts on UK tv, spare a thought for us next time you rush to put the kettle on before Coronation Street starts. Over here we can cook a meal in a commercial break! We settled down one night at 9pm to watch a 105 minute long film (I checked afterwards on the net). It actually started about 9.10pm and it finished at...............................00.50am the next day! If you carry out some simple maths with this example you will find that the commercial breaks accounted for 115 minutes of the broadcast time, 10 minutes longer than the actual film!!

The news programmes are a nightmare too. We naturally try to keep up with what's going on in our adopted country but Greek broadcasters don't make it easy. When a major (Greek) story breaks they do what they do in the UK and have various commentators/experts sat in little windows on screen, alongside the newsreader, to offer their opinion and analysis. Now you will be used to having 2, or maybe 3 little windows on screen, but the Greek news programmers are obsessed with them; 4 is the minimum but, if you can fit them on screen, 6 is much better. So what you may ask? Well the thing is, in the rush to employ this brilliant technology, somebody forgot to buy microphones that can be switched off remotely, and you end up with all six trying to shout each other down, thus ruining anybodys chance of understanding what is going on.

So the next time you open your mouth to complain....................................think of us!

And, as a postscript, remember I said our TV licence was incorporated in the electricity bill?
Well recently, in a town in Greece, somebody decided to check the electricity bills for the towns traffic lights. A thorough investigation of the charges revealed that, for the last 7 years, the traffic lights were licensed to watch TV!!!!!!!!!
Quite naturally, the mayor has asked for a refund!