Tele Talk - Part 5

I think I have vaguely lost the plot with this one but I will include it anyway, as, well, you know.  It’s my blog and I want to whinge and moan.  I just want to. 

5. And now, coming to you from across The Pond…

This is not a complaint about American tele - although I have seen some series that never made it to release in the UK, and could probably come up with numerous decent reasons as to why - it is a complaint about dubbing.

More specifically, bad dubbing.  Oh, and subtitling.  Again.  Bad. 

We often watch these programmes in their original forma and have the Spanish subtitles on.  As my knowledge of Spanish has increased, so has my realisation that the people who actually write the subtitles clearly have not got the faintest clue what the story is about or the humour.  I mean, a lot of what the write doesn’t bear even a passing resemblance to what is said.  I am talking about tone here, not the actual words.  Everyone knows that a language has it’s own way of communicating something.  But. It’s the tone that is wrong.  Sometimes though, it can even be basic facts born of incomprehension of pretty basic English.  Or, I suppose of not hearing what they have said properly.  Either way.  It isn’t the same programme when they get it wrong.  

The above can be said for dubbing.  

They dub a lot here.  Everything that is aired in that was originally in any other language is dubbed rather than subtitled.  It is normal here.  The people see nothing strange in it.  They are used to it.  Spain is one of the only Spanish-speaking countries to bother with dubbing at all.  Most Latin American countries just air the programmes with subtitles.  

Oh, and the voices?  Well, the voices don’t resemble to original voices in any way.  Karen from ‘Will & Grace’ is an example of a character whose voice belies, well, her character but also defines it.  Here she talks normally.  It takes away from the humour of the characterisation.  Homer doesn’t have the same voice, he doesn’t even say ‘d’oh’.  Homer without d’oh.  I’m sorry, what?  

It’s all well and good to say that something doesn’t translate well so they have changed it, but, in that case, don’t air it.  Or don’t dub it.  Just air it as is with subtitles.  Those who get it, get it.  Those who don’t don’t.  

Dubbing also has the added irritation of just being really counter-intuitive.  At least for me.  It’s the mouths moving but the words not matching thing.  There are also times when the mouths have stopped moving and we are looking at someone else but the original person is still talking.  It’s just weird.  

Thank feck for that, I have finished.  I promise, my next blogs will be a more reasonable length and may actually be interesting...although I make no promises about the interesting part!

Tele Talk - Part 4

Beware.  I have lost impetus BUT I have completed points 4 and 5 of my enormously long winded whinge.  Final part of large whining session that I have broken into separate long whiney chunks is about to continue.  Part 4 people.  Only one to go after this. 

We. Can. Make it! 

4. It’s all in the timing

Scheduling.  

I am well aware that here in Spain people keep different hours.  They eat later, stay up later and generally avoid the hot hot hot midday period.  People do however have jobs, most of which start at 8 or 9 and finish at 3 or 7.30 depending on lunch break time allowance and stuff like that.  So, people do actually have to wake up and go to work during the week.  Right, so, could someone explain the wisdom of airing a film that starts at 10pm and can run til 2am with ad breaks midweek?  Do people actually stay up to watch these things?  Clearly they do or they wouldn’t do it.  One show actually closes with a song which is meant for the kids (‘vete a dormir’ – go to bed).  The show closes at 10.15pm by which time most kids in the UK would be long in the arms of Morphius, with any luck anyway.

Actually, it is not so much the late timing of these things it is the fact that the published schedule bears no real resemblance to the times the programmes actually air.  

They always start late.  

Here I come back to point 3.  They start late because of the ad breaks overrunning.  They finish late because of the 20 minute long ad breaks that are inserted unceremoniously every 20 minutes. 

In short, everything starts and finishes later here, by accident or design.  

So, the pIanned schedule is generally later here.  You have to work tomorrow but don’t want to miss the film scheduled for late tonight so; you set your Canal+ (Spanish Sky+) to grab.  It grabs the timeslot as ordered and….you end up with 20 minutes of ads at the beginning and miss the final 20 minutes of the film, which is, let’s face it, when it becomes worth watching.   It would be absolutely certain to happen.

I would be annoyed.  Lucky for me there is nothing worth recording that I can’t watch via some other means.

Phew, that’s a relief.

Tele Talk - part 3

Hurrah, two posts two days in a row!  How do you like them apples??  

What the f*ck am I talking about?

3. Taking a break

Ad breaks.  We all know what they are for.  They are a quick break to allow us to do any of the following: 1) Make a cuppa 2) rush to the loo 3) channel surf.  You have nice little announcements at the beginning an end, giving you due warning that you have 20 seconds to get back infront of the box.  On some channels you get an extra few seconds as the sponsors put on some announcements.  

Not so here chaps.  

Ad breaks here begin completely unannounced and usually in the middle of the action.  I watched Bad Boys 2 a while ago (not a great film, but, you know, it was on) and, I kid you not, an ad for Activia began slap bang in the middle of an explosion.  Granted in this case the film is basically formed of one long sequence of explosions but this was a good sequence.  I seem to recall a car chase, a speed boat veering off a trailer and careering along a freeway…and something about Activia reducing bloating.  

That which begins unannounced ends unannounced.  Need I say more?  The film begins where it left off but without the slightest sign that this is about to happen.  It can be disconcerting.  ‘That forever-stay lipgloss looks good…oh, is that someone’s arm flying across the screen?  Does lipgloss do that?  Wait?  What?’

The confusion of the recommencement of programming is compounded by the fact that many ad breaks in the evening can last as long as 20-30 minutes.  This is absolutely true.  I only wish I was joking.  By the time the film (or whatever) restarts you have forgotten entirely what you were watching.

This said, some channels do restrict their ad breaks to 5 minutes and do announce them BUT, I have found that this happens mainly during the early evening programming and also ups the frequency of the breaks.  Basically, you should view the shows as an interruption to the advertising.

Oh, in case you are wondering, yes, the state-funded channels also have ads.  

Cue switch over to the beeb (no adverts – Hurrah!)

Tele Talk - part 2

You thought I would forget.  Well, I haven’t.  Yet.  

2. Balancing act

One thing that came as a surprise to me, naïve little libertarian that I am, was that the main TV channels (we are talking about the Spanish equivalent of the BBC here, not just some random channel that no one watches) are state funded.  As in, funded by the Government.  As you can imagine, this is not really all that conducive to balanced and unbiased broadcasting.  If there is a change of governing party (right to left or vice versa) the spin (I will use that term because, lets be honest, that is what it is) of a certain news topic can change direction so fast it’ll give you whiplash.  Someone who yesterday was persona non gracia suddenly becomes the flavour of the month. This also works the other way round.  Evil to good, good to evil.

As a result, I watch news coverage on TVE with a pinch of salt, change channels and compare it to other news coverage on other commercially funded channels.  Then, just for fun, I watch the British news coverage and compare.  I may have too much free time but it is interesting to see how the coverage can really diverge, even between Spanish channels.  

Not that I give more credence to the commercially funded channels either, it is just an interesting comparative exercise.  Neither am I saying that the UK news coverage is always the best or unbiased, no way.  For me, all news reporting should be viewed through the prism of scepticism; what is the story, who will benefit, why break it now, what other ‘smaller’ news stories are being obscured? Etc etc.  

Funnily enough, the tendency to bias I have noted here doesn’t just apply to state-funded TV, or to the news.  Coverage here generally has a bias of some sort or another, explicit or implicit.  Funding affects everything.  Commercial channels would NEVER be able to air (let alone produce) programmes like Top Gear or Watchdog, their commercial ad-space-buying funders just would not allow it.  If they did, you could bet that the car company that spent the most on advertising with the network would have produced the Car of the Year for whichever channel made the show.  

And do not get me started on the Grand Prix coverage.  I think that here the only person who actually races, is Alonso.  The main commentator happens to be rather a good buddy of Señor Alonso, which adds wonderfully to the balanced nature of the broadcasting.  At least an hour is spent on Alonso’s qualifying times, his car, any changes and possibly, what his haircut is like this week and how many times he sneezed on Monday.  Then there is the pesky interference of a couple of hours of racing, in which Alonso comes, well nowhere actually but his every move is scrutinized and breathtaking in its perfection.  After this there will be another 30 minutes of interviewing Alonso along with details of his finishing position and what he will have for dinner.  There is then a 30 second mention of the winner, unless it is Hamilton.  If that should occur, apparently, nobody won. Or nobody worth mentioning anyway. 

It could be worse though, it could be Italy. 

p.s. If you don’t know what I am talking about check out Berlusconi’s media holdings and you’ll work it out.

Tele talk

So, I am officially bad at blogging. It’s odd because I think, oh, I must write my next blog, stuff has happened and I want to blog about it, then, I sit down and can’t for the life of me remember what I wanted to write. Then of course I wander off, distracted by tea and the BBC.  

Yes. That’s right. The BBC. I may live in Spain but I can’t live without the beeb.  

The tele here is simply dreadful, and I mean DREADFUL. The Spaniards I have spoken to agree with me for the most part too. There are a few good programmes that are worth a look and are pretty informative, the highlights that I can think of are: Callajeros, Madrileños por el Mundo and El Hormiguero. For the most part however they are real tripe (not to say that many of the UK TV is not the same). I thought that I would do some bullet pointy ‘Top 5 Worst Things About Spanish TV’, you know, just for kicks.  

OK so, my Top 5 Worst Things About Spanish TV are:

1. Soaps, gossip, soaps, gossip…need I go on?

Ok, so the first gripe is that Spanish TV seems to be all about the soaps, or gossip programmes, which they try to sell as ‘current affairs’ but are basically an issue of Heat.  

I will start with the soaps. A lot of them are Latin American and bear more than a passing resemblance to the soaps aired by their North American neighbours. They are just so contrived. Comical even. The distressing thing is they are trying to be serious, whereas I think the American versions are rather more tongue in cheek. They honestly want us to have palpitations about the fact that (I am making this up now) Enrique, who is married to Conchita, is having an affair with Pilar who is incidentally Conchita’s closest friend and possibly her half sister though no-one yet knows that her father was a philanderer.….but I just DON’T care! They address no real issues, no real worries, give no advice and bring nothing out into the open for public debate. They always consist of beautiful, perfectly coiffed people who live in houses the size of Kent. Think Sunset Beach in Spanish, the dramatic music, the inability to act in any serious sense, the hair, the ridiculous cringeworthy plots (btw thanks for that experience Channel 5, it was enlightening!) It’s Footballer’s Wives but they take it seriously. Uh oh!  

There are other soaps that appear to have a budget roughly equivalent to 20p an episode. There is one that springs to mind that uses the same set for every single backdrop; they just change the props about a bit. It is so shoddily done everything shakes every time someone slams a door…which is quite often it seems. I can think of one which is called ‘Dame el Chocolate’ roughly, ‘Give me the Chocolate’. It’s set in a factory and they make, you guessed it, CHOCOLATE! Who came up with that one?  I include a YouTube link to this wonderous soap below if you fancy checking out a snippet. (couldn't embed because the functionality wasn't enabled on YT).

Dame el Chocolate

Now, the ‘current affairs’ programmes. Don’t be fooled, these are not current affairs at all, they are GOSSIP. If there is anything that the Spanish love it is gossip. They say that the national Spanish pastime is envy, of ones neighbours and friends and even family. The obsession with gossip ties in neatly with that. They absolutely thrive on it. We think the paps in the UK are bad but they could learn a thing or two from the guys out here. There are hours and hours of TV coverage dedicated daily to the antics of the latest ‘celeb’. The funny thing is that non-one here seems to object to being filmed, photographed and scrutinised, it goes with the territory as it were. The most normal person in the street will happily be filmed for hours on end about any old thing. People allow themselves to be filmed being taken away to hospital with an arm hanging off (not kidding). I personally find the spectacle of bereaved families weeping outside courtrooms stopping to give incoherent and inconsolable interviews to every TV station that asks for one particularly disturbing. The emotions and dirty laundry of everyone here seem to be open for airing and no-one minds. It is such a contrast. The Brits would (for the most part) rather shoot ourselves in the head than be filmed sobbing uncontrollably or screaming incoherently (literally) at some official we feel has wronged us, it is just not at all what we are about. Upon witnessing such spectacles in the ‘current affairs’ and even serious news programmes, I just mutter to myself in my very British manner. *mutter* never beaten *mutter* us in *mutter* battle *mutter* no bloody *mutter* wonder *mutter*. I am awful. I know.  

The knock on affect of the obsession with airing these soaps and gossip is that there are simply no decent Spanish drama series. At least not that I have seen but I could be speaking out of turn (see point 5 when I post it!). The standard of filming here, at least for TV, seems to be altogether lower. My (Spanish) hubby was quite simply astounded at the quality of programmes like ‘Rome’, ‘The Tudors’ and ‘Ashes to Ashes’. He honestly couldn’t get over it. The natural history programmes too, Sir David Attenborough in particular, he just cannot get over the filming standard and the style.  

He’s a bigger fan of the beeb than I am.  

On writing this list looks like it is going to be long so, I will write it all and then publish in instalments, maybe that way we will get something resembling regular posting happening!

Echelon

Provehito in Altum

Driving force

I am not good at this…

….I have said it before and I will say it again, I am no good at blogging regularly, although I spend a LOT of time of the computer I never seem to get round to it. To make it worse, a lot has happened since I last bothered to write anything down and things have been bouncing around my brain ready to launch into cyber space but then I forget all about it. Which is typically me, I have definitely got some attention span issues. I am full of ideas; it’s the execution that fails me.

So much has happened that I have decided it is not worth writing much of it down, it’s just the account of one life among many anyway so not of much interest. There is one thing though that has been a recurring theme over the last few weeks that I think is worth a mention. I started this whole thing to observe differences in Spanish and Anglo Saxon ways of bumbling around on the mortal coil, more as a reference for me than for anyone else, although, there is an off-chance that others might be interested.

Anyway, blah blah blah. Driving. Driving in Spain is not for the fainthearted. For the first time in my life I feel genuinely brave when I go round a roundabout. Which is nice I suppose.

I don't mind driving here; you just sort of have to have eyes in the back and sides of your head. At the same time you have to pretend that you don't see anyone at all so that you can still muscle in and go where you want to go. Trick 1 of driving in Spain: Master the art of seeing EVERYTHING whilst appearing to see absolutely nothing and seemingly not caring one jot for your car. It is not easy. I have an irrational sentimental attachment to my car. And my life.

Trick 2: Please understand that indicators are optional extras on cars in Spain and it seems that most people don't like to pay the extra for this feature. That or somehow they charge here per usage of the aforementioned indicator. Whatever the reason, they appear very scarce. Endangered even.

Trick 3: my dad gave me one piece of good advice (ever) and it was "if you drive as if everyone is out to kill you, you may just make it out alive". This is indeed wise advice although it has done nothing to lessen my innate paranoia about the world.

Trick 4: Avoid women drivers. Yes. I am a girl and yes, I am all for equality BUT having said that, the women drivers here are among the worst I have seen anywhere. The problems are many and varied, they have: no sense of anyone else’s existence, the attention span of gnats and basically drift in and out of lanes in a rather listless and disinterested fashion, sometimes at high speed while talking on the phone, doing their makeup or shouting at their kids/boyfriends/husbands. They seem to genuinely disconnect from reality the minute they get in a car, they do the strangest things and then get really really outranged (and a outraged Spanish woman is something to see) when they drive into you or pull out without looking and you overtly question their decision-making capability. Spanish Women Drivers: AVOID AVOID AVOID (especially when outraged).

The next thing is less a trick and more a series of observations that relate to the drier more central and southern areas of Spain rather than the north. When it rains here, people crash, a lot. The roads in the city grind to a halt owing to the number of people randomly smashing into one another. The windscreen wipers on the cars here are different and they are basically not up to the job. Rain here is scarce so the roads get greasy when they get wet. They also don’t use cat’s eyes here on the roads. I had not really noticed the difference here; I drive at night and have street lights etc so no big deal. Well, it is a huge deal when the heavens open, the roads turn to rivers and you cannot see the little painted white lines on the roads. Cat’s eyes. I miss them (but only when it rains).