Spanish views from a small town

I ran across a post on Facebook asking which television show one used to watch with their parents as a child. I didn't answer, but it did bring up some memories. All In the Family, The Jeffersons, Sanford and Son, Good Times, Three's Company. They are the ones that come to mind, first. These are the ones that stick in my memory over others like The Mary Tyler Moore Show, or Kojak, or The Waltons, or even MASH, Taxi, or Laverne and Shirley. They all set something off within me that made me empathize more with the characters than other shows. Archie Bunker resembled my father in his habit of sitting on the same sofa, in the same spot, with his beer and cigarette, while my mother had her chair, like Edith Bunker. I would feel the embarrassment of the Jefferson's white neighbor. Fred Sanford and Lamont's attempts to try to get a break in life made me cheer for the underdog. Florida and James in Good Times struggle in the day to day, with James having more than one job, like...

Our television is second hand, and about seven or ten years old. That means it has no connection to internet, even though it is HD, and has a pretty good picture. About a year ago, something happened to its software. Every few times we turned it on, we then had to tune the television, waiting until it found every available channel. After a while, it got worse, and now we have to tune it every time we turn it on. That means there is no picture automatically, but we have to wait maybe five minutes or more for it to run through all the channels. This problem did help to show that we now have more channels than we did previously. However, in the years since we had lost them, the contents have become pure telegarbage, so, in the end, it doesn't matter if we can get those channels or not. To tune it, we have to choose language and country. Normally, we choose English, and Spain. But, yesterday our daughter made a mistake and chose Serbia. I found it strange that the hour was off, so I st...

Nowadays, television is boring. We don't subscribe to any television platform, so we can only see the open channels. Those channels now even have paying channels, where you can watch exclusive series and shows. So, what one can see is a rehash of the same movies of the past ten or fifteen years, and the same reruns of the same television shows ever since the year 2000.  That, and reality shows that have precious little reality. I miss the shows we used to have back when I was a teenager. Not that many of those were much more intelligent than the ones we can see now, but there were some gems among them. The funny ones were funny, and the drama was drama. Many gems were on the PBS channel, and were British productions. I remember among them, the documentary The World at War . I don't remember if I watched it because I was fascinated by World War II history, or if that particular time period fascinated me because I watched this documentary. Another document ary was The Story of En...

I am absolutely not a sports fan, except maybe for Formula 1 racing and the Boston Red Sox. I don't care who wins the Grand Prix motorcycle season, or which soccer team wins the Spanish Liga or the English Premier League. It really doesn't matter to me if Roger Federer or Rafa Nadal win Wimbledon or any other tennis championship.  In a way, it's a good thing. I used to follow Formula 1, but, of late, it's impossible. A few years ago, the races were on general television every weekend. Now, they're on the Movistar television platform, which you have to pay for. Some bars and cafés may show it, but not as many as used to do so. Grand Prix motorcycle races are now on Dazn, an online sports channel that is not free. Many bars and cafés don't show these races because they would need to update their televisions and pay yet another invoice. Bye bye Marc Márquez.  Spanish soccer is now on Movistar television, or Orange television, as well as on streaming services. Premi...

These days, thanks to the broken rib, my husband is at home. He likes to read, but he also likes to watch television. However, the offerings of the altar to miscommunication during the afternoon are even more abysmal than during the evening. So my husband ends up watching cartoons because they're much more intelligent than the programs for adults.  One of his (and my) beefs, are all the paparazzi shows that even stretch into the evening, making prime time appear on some channel at close to eleven at night. They also get strange names: Sálveme Deluxe, Sálvame Naranja, Sálvame Limón (Who and what wants to be "saved", aside from the public? All these on just one channel, the title depends on the day, I think), Socialité, Cazamariposas, Qué me Dices, Corazón, Dónde Estás Corazón , etc. Some of them might not even be aired any more, but their names stuck with me. All of them have round table discussions on stories concerning if the wife of so-and-so is going to invite the ex...

Silence is golden. To hear sounds dulled by distance, and be surrounded in the immediate vicinity only by one's own small sounds; the rustle of fabric, the air rushing through the nose, the tickety-tack of the keyboard, an occasional expletive when the wrong key is pressed, the clicking of the second hand on the clock. One's thoughts coherently appear, undiluted by unnecessary noise, pristine as the cold morning.  That is my state on most mornings. When my husband is home, however, things change. The television is turned on. While I don't mind sharing my quiet mornings with my husband, the television is a little island of noise that intrudes on my thoughts, which are then interrupted as small, unasked for items drift in. In the morning I do not care to know how the stock markets are opening in Europe, or how they are closing in the Far East. I don't care about how they are going to "investigate" the latest exorbitant rise in electricity costs, or what one po...

Once upon a time, there were only two television channels in Spain. La Primera, and La Segunda. Both were owned by the state company, Radio Television Española, RTVE for short. Generally, the first channel was the popular one, with movies and some national and international series. The second was the more informative channel, generally with documentaries and cultural programs, kind of like the PBS I grew up with in Boston. Then, in the 1980's, the autonomous regions received the right to set up their own channels. Born were Televisión de Galicia (TVG), Telemadrid, TV3 de Catalunya, Canal Sur, EITB (Basque), and others, all publicly controlled. A few years after that, private broadcasters were allowed channels, and we got Telecinco and Antena 3. In these past twenty years, two more were added before digital television appeared, Cuatro, and laSexta. So, just before the digital rearr angement began, we had quite a few open channels to choose from. Then, some months before we had to ...

It's a good thing I'm not one of those people who tremble whenever they hear thunder at a distance. If I had been, yesterday morning I would have had been found in the darkest, most enclosed corner of the house. My cat Macarena would not have been happy to have me invade her space.  At a little after seven thirty I woke to a white hot sizzle that flashed through the bathroom window and an immediate boom that sounded like a wrecking ball had smashed against the house. My husband and I flew downstairs. He switched off the mains while I screamed, "Unplug everything!" W e surveyed the house and everything seemed okay, no blacken ed outlets, no smok e . We went back upstairs to bed, to await the end of the storm to check appliances. I don't want that alarm clock on a regular basis.  Unbeknownst to us, a few minutes later, our daughter was quickly traversing the streets of Santiago to get to the stop to await the bus home. As she dodged the raindrops without much s...

There is a program on television that is a reality show that tries to help families. A relative calls the show and asks for help with a troubled adolescent. That adolescent receives help from the show's psychologists and is taught to rethink his relationship with his parents and other family members. It doesn't stop being a reality show. It only treats the adolescent for about two weeks and then hands him off to local psychologists and reha b centers. Still, it has a large public for a couple of reasons. One is the usual; we all love to see inside a family, have its prob lems explained and see them kicking and screaming at each other . As humans we are vo y eurs of others' problems and love to shake our head s and pat ourselves on the back when they don't affect us. The other reason i s the increase in problem ado lescents. It can be seen in schools and gra des. When my generation went to school here, only one or two would fail in June. Rarely would someone be kept ...

A few minutes ago I opened an article on internet that sounded interesting. As I let it load, I looked at something else. Suddenly, the computer started speaking. I jumped in my chair, startling one of the cats. They did it again. I wish it were a pixie in the computer because it would have been simpler than the commercial it turned out to be. The article had an imbedded advertisement video.  Normally, when I pull up an article and I notice the connection slows down, I go to the article and find a video is downloading. I try to find a way to stop it, but not all ads let you do so. Sometimes, it overloads my internet server and everything stops. Then I get the message of "No responde". If, after a minute or two it doesn't go away, I have to shut all the pages I have open. I have read somewhere that the powers that be in internet are planning to do away with those commercial-ads. I hope they do so before ten years elapse.  I suppose they have descended to bombarding us ...