Strictly speaking, I'm not sure if this could be classed as a comedy, but does anyone else enjoy this series? I find it very funny and love the little peek into London in the late 60s.

Hi there, oh I haven't seen the Reeves & Mortimer remake. I've been watching the original series made in 1969 with Kenneth Cope and Mike Pratt. I don't think the Reeves & Mortimer one made it to New Zealand screens (although I might just have missed it 

i love all the old 60s/70s series, i enjoy seeing things the way they were when i was a kiddy. I got really excited at seeing a "tardis" and a nurse in the old style uniform in the background of the Sykes film, "The Plank".

Same in Italy, even on satellite, it's all Fox this, Fox that and Fox the other... I understand the day Rupert Murdoch left the country is a National Holiday in Australia...

As for public TV, it seems Brazilian and German (!) soaps are better received here than British... anything, really...

There's Midsomer Murders, and a few other "mystery" stuff, Poirot on endless reruns, and glimpses of Frost, New Tricks, Hustle, last British comedy seen on screen here was Benny Hill and Mr. Bean.
Ah, and, of course, on sat, Top Gear 3 times a day, almost as often as the news...

I'd be brain-dead, if it wasn't for DVDs and the internet...


Ah, and, if it tickles anyone's curiosity...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_(TV_series)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0244357/

Nah... it'd spoil the fun of "discovery"...

It's a funny old world, Molly, I'd dearly love a spell living in beautifully green New Zealand myself, indeed, just the thought it's the farthest away from Italy I could get without leaving the planet would be enough, these days...

Maybe we could swap for a while?

Mind you, our countries have a lot in common, apart from being of somewhat similar shapes and at the almost exact antipodes of each other, and the other main thing is indeed the weather, you've got a South, we've got a North... Sunny Italy, yes, during the Summer (ours, of course ), but you'd better be prepared for snow if you happened by here in the Summertime (yours, of course )

As for TV, yes, it's just hopeless in Italy, I never liked it much even as a kid, when there was still something watchable on it, every now and then, before the commercial channels set a new and even lower standard, but I've never been able to "readjust" to it ever since I came back from England, and it's some 6 or 7 years...

Now, that's a cultural shock, never mind boiled mutton in blackberry sauce or jellied eels with custard against delicious pasta and fish dishes, I'd swap Italian food for British TV anytime, that's how desperate I am...

And that's a message to our British friends, next time you feel like complaining about your TV, spend some time on the Continent, if you dare , and when you get back home Top Gear will feel like it was written by Shakespeare, and Jeremy Clarkson will sound like Laurence Olivier...

Mind you, I actually LIKE Top Gear, not the lot of it, no, that's indeed one of the cases where I'm glad I watch almost everything recorded, so I can fast-forward through Cool Walls, Stars in (ugly) Reasonably-Priced Cars and most test-drives, but I wouldn't miss the silly "challenges" for anything...

That's an experience we share, looks like, but I have an unfair advantage there, since I've mostly been sort of a seasonal commuter rather than a "proper" emigrant, also thanks to the short distance...

It wasn't exactly holidays, I'd be bouncing back and forth jobs, summers in Italy and winters in England, but that's the best, you live in a place long enough to get to know it quite well, and when the nasty bits, which lurk under the lovely surface of every country, make themselves apparent, you just go away before they get a chance to start affecting your life...

What a good question, Molly, and what a difficult one... I don't really know, a bit of everything, I guess...

One thing springs off the top of my mind, though, and that's pubs...

Don't get me wrong there, I'm not a heavy drinker, but I like a good beer, and that's something we just don't have in Italy. The average bar in these parts has ONE pump, delivering some poxy fizzy lager, while what I really enjoy is a good pint of Guinness or some nice ale, and while the former can be had here as well, more or less, if you happen in some decent sized city with some anodyne Irish theme pub, the latter is virtually unknown...

But it's not drinks, really, the British pub, your "local", is still a place for gathering, for unwinding, to play games, to just BE together... it's where the famed and largely stereotyped "coldness" of the English disappears, where class difference is mostly forgotten, where everyone is "mates", even an Eye-Tie...

We don't have that anymore, here... we used to, we had "taverns", where the only difference was people drinking wine rather than beer, and playing card games rather than pool or darts, but the "atmosphere" was the same... no more, now we have bars, where, mostly, you enter, have a coffee at the counter, and go away...

And then there's that appalling commercial menace that's wine bars, and that's a problem in Britain as well, it's a downright disaster in London already, in fact it was quite a few years ago...

Traditional pubs being torn to pieces and replaced by ugly steel and glass "continental" style wine bars for wannabee yuppies, or their modern equivalent, which aren't "continental" at all, they're just "artificial", it's the worst face of globalisation, where a model that never really existed in the first place is imposed commercially all over the world... I'm not much of a "conservative" in any respect, especially political, but I draw the line at pubs...

Well, got a bit carried away, sorry, pubs is only the tip of the iceberg of what I like of Britain, really, but they should never had done that to the Northcote, that was MY bloody local... mind you, things might have changed again, I haven't been in London for some 6 or 7 years now, but last time I noticed, with some bitter satisfaction, that while the "original" pub was always bustling with life, the bloody wine bar that took its place was empty most of the time... I hope they might have learned a lesson there... but I doubt it...

Many things more I could add, about the people, the culture, and the language, I just fell in love with English, I don't know why, I love "exploring" dialects and expressions, getting down to their roots, understanding their use, and that's another thing I obviously miss down here...

Luckily, I have a couple of Australian friends spending the summer (ours ) here, and they keep me in practice, although I'm worried about what their company might do to my own accent, I'm a bit of a sponge for that... but while they keep calling me bloody pommie I guess that's alright...


As I was saying, I haven't been there for quite some time myself, but Caramacs? Treats, you mean? I must admit food not being one of the main attractions to Britain for me, for some reason, but I'd chew upon a fruit and nuts Cadbury, on occasions...

As for Question Time,  don't think it'll ever go away, and that's another thing we certainly don't have in this country, a "candid" (more or less...) discussion with polticians, when they do appear on the telly down here it's only on "friendly" channels which will do only propaganda of the event...

Yes, I do miss British TV... too...

But from down here, with the help of the internet, what I follow is mostly my main interests, comedy, documentaries and crime stories... come to think of it, the new season of "New Tricks" is due to start in a week, very much looking forward to it, that's my current favourite in the genre, what with Morse dead and Frost and Barnaby retired...