Expat TV Tips

Tune of the Week - Energy 52 - Cafe Del Mar

2009-01-18T04:36:00.000-08:00

Cafe Del Mar is another Ibiza-inspired classic. Not even Ibiza inspired, this refers to the infamous Ibiza bar in San Antonio, where many of us expats would go on the start of another night out.

[From YouTube - Energy 52 - Cafe Del Mar ( 1993 )]

Tune of the Week - Jaydee - Plastic Dreams

2009-01-18T04:35:00.000-08:00

Jaydee's Plastic Dreams, another classic that has inspired many expats round the world I'm sure.

[From YouTube - Jaydee - Plastic Dreams ( 1993 )]

Jimmy Carr chavs

2009-01-12T23:33:00.000-08:00

[From YouTube - Jimmy Carr chavs]

Tune of the Week - Delacy - Hideaway

2009-01-11T04:34:00.000-08:00

An Ibiza Anthem classic from 1995. What a tune. Enjoy.

[From YouTube - Delacy - Hideaway ( 1995 )]

Jimmy Carr - Live at the Apollo

2009-01-02T23:29:00.000-08:00

[From YouTube - Jimmy Carr - Fuck Buddies]

Alan Carr - Live at the Apollo

2009-01-02T23:28:00.000-08:00

[From YouTube - Alan Carr - Live at the Apollo - Part 1 of 3]

Marcus Brigsctocke - Live At The Apollo

2009-01-01T23:27:00.000-08:00

[From YouTube - Marcus Brigsctocke - Live At The Apollo - Part 1 of 2]

Watch the London 2008 New Year Fireworks - Happy New Year !!!!

2008-12-31T04:59:00.000-08:00

[From YouTube - London 2008 New Year Fireworks - BBC One]

Jimmy Carr - Live at the Apollo 1/2

2008-12-29T23:26:00.000-08:00

[From Jimmy Carr - Live at the Apollo 1/2 - Tvdownloads.dr.ag]

QI: Who created the theory of relativity?

2008-12-28T23:02:00.000-08:00

"QI : Complete BBC Series 1 [2003]" (2 Entertain Video)

[From YouTube - QI: Who created the theory of relativity? - BBC]

Gavin and Stacey - Unwelcome visitor

2008-12-27T22:59:00.000-08:00

"Gavin And Stacey : Complete BBC Series 1 [2007]" (2 Entertain Video)

[From YouTube - Unwelcome visitor - Gavin and Stacey - BBC comedy]

Frankie Boyle - Scottish King of Comedy

2008-12-26T22:51:00.000-08:00

Frankie Boyle is the crowned king of Scottish comedy. There's enough stuff on YouTube to keep you going for ages, but if you want to give a gift, you might want to check out his DVD - Frankie Boyle Live.

[From YouTube - Frankie Boyle - Live at the Apollo - 19/12/08 (Part 1 of 3)]

PPStream is the answer to your Online TV needs, if only you could read Chinese

2008-12-25T22:22:00.000-08:00

PPStream is the answer to your Online TV needs, if only you could read Chinese.

And that is the problem. I've heard a lot of good things about PP Stream, but I'll be darned if I'm installing some programme on my computer in a foreign language.

Has anyone else had any luck with PPStream? I've heard it's good for watching Football from overseas, but have no first hand knowledge myself.

Automate your UK Nova TV watching

2008-12-24T22:13:00.000-08:00

I was just getting a bit sick and tired of logging into the UK Nova website to check for new programmes. UK Nova has new programmes up there every hour, and I've found the best way is to get an RSS feed linked in there, and to just check that.

You can use Google Reader, NetNewsWire, or even AlertThingy to alert you of new programmes.

merry christmas everybody

2008-12-24T17:00:00.000-08:00

[From YouTube - merry christmas everybody]

Using SlingBox to watch TV from abroad

2008-12-23T21:32:00.000-08:00

Would you like to be able to watch TV from overseas and change the channels as if you were actually there? No more downloading, no more delays.

Well maybe you'd be interested in SlingBox .

When I was last in the UK in Summer 2008, you could by a SlingBox almost anywhere that sold electronics. I saw it for sale in Selfridges in London, in PC World and in Tescos. They were retailing at that stage for about 100 quid.

The big advantage to Slingbox is that you are in control. All you need to do is plug in the Slingbox to a TV or aerial in the UK, and then connect to it over the internet to watch all the content live. The obvious disadvantage is that you need to know someone in the UK who is willing to 1) plug the SlingBox into their TV system and leave it sitting there taking up space and electricity, and 2) let you clog up their internet bandwidth watching all that wonderful British TV. Of course that means that the perfect candidate is your parents. You've persuaded your mum and dad to get a shiny Apple Mac, Skype and Broadband so you can chat to them from your new overseas home - in reality you dad uses it to email the relatives about once a week, and doesn't even know what YouTube is.

Why not use up that unused bandwidth to feed your TV habit?

Use BBC iPlayer with a proxy to get access to British TV from abroad

2008-12-22T21:12:00.000-08:00

While I've been out of the country, British TV has gone all hi-tech. Cutting edge TV in Britain used to mean a colour cathode ray tube, and more recently there was the introduction of the Freeview boxes as we all went digital. Now Sky Plus boxes, and Virgin Cable boxes allow us to pause and rewind television, and BBC's iPlayer service and Channel 4's On Demand website let you go back 7 days or more to watch programmes that you might have missed.

There is no technological reason that the BBC iPlayer can't work from overseas, it's all down to the way that the BBC is funded. As a licence-payer funded institution, and as a business that makes its money from selling it's content overseas, the BBC has taken the correct decision not to make the iPlayer avaiable for anyone who is physically located overseas. So this means that you can't watch your beloved BBC when you're on holiday in Corfu, or if you're an expat living in Shanghai, Miami or Sydney. Oh well.

There is a way around it, however. And that is the use of proxies.

You see, the BBC don't actually know where you are in the world, other than what your computer tells them. On the internet, our computer has what is known as an IP address, which stands for Internet Protocol. This is a unique address, just like a telephone number, that tells all the other computers on the internet which computer is yours. The BBC uses some clever software that "Geo-locates", or tells them where you are physically. The trick is to use someone else's IP address to tell the BBC's software that you are in the UK.

Now I've personally had quite limited success with using UK-based Proxy servers. There's a bunch of them available for free, but as with anything free, they don't tend to be of the highest quality.

There are also Proxy services that you can pay for, and again, I've had limited success. It is a well known fact that expats living abroad are desperate for their British Television, and a fool and his money are soon parted. I'll leave it up to you to find the right proxy service, if there even is one.

BBC Radio 1 Charts - Sunday 21 December 2008 - the Top 3 songs

2008-12-22T02:08:00.001-08:00

Every week, we bring you the latest in the Radio 1 charts. It's easy to lose track if you're overseas.

Number 1 - Alexandra Burke - Hallelujah

X-Factor finalist reaches the top of the charts

(Syco Music)

http://tinyurl.com/a4zzpl

2

Jeff Buckley

Hallelujah

(Columbia)

http://www.jeffbuckley.com/

3

Leona Lewis

Run

(Syco Music)

http://www.leonalewismusic.co.uk/run/

Separated at Birth: Harry Hill & Kylie Kwong

2008-12-21T22:47:00.001-08:00

"Harry Hill's TV Burp Gold" (Harry Hill)

[From Harry Hill's TV Burp S08E10 - Torrents - UKNova]

Is Alan Carr the Adrian Juste for the 2000's

2008-12-21T22:36:00.001-08:00

Good comedy radio to listen to in the background, similar to Adrian Juste but with a bit more voice-over. Remember Adrian?

Alan Carr's career has taken off while I've been out the UK in the last 5 years, continuing in the long standing tradition of gay brit comics.

"Alan Carr - Tooth Fairy LIVE [2007]" (Alan Carr)

Watch UK coverage of the recession on Livestation

2008-12-21T22:05:00.001-08:00

I'd be absolutely stuffed if I couldn't watch British TV on Livestation.

The Australian media just doesn't cover world news.

How to legally watch BBC World from anywhere in the world

2008-12-21T20:55:00.001-08:00

As an ex-pat living overseas, you probably miss the UK television service, which is known to be second to none.

BBC World is one of my favourite channels. The BBC has embraced the whole digital revolution by making their flagship new channel, BBC World, accessible from just about anywhere on the planet.

In the olden days of the British Empire, the BBC World Service was that radio channel that you could pick up from any continent, using a Shortwave radio, and often on Long Wave, Medium Wave and FM too. World Service is still around, but in the modern Internet era, we now have BBC World as the defacto Flagship channel for the British Broadcasting Corporation. BBC World helps promote the British, Anglo-Saxon agenda, and for an expat living overseas, without direct over-the-air access to British Television, it's a god-send.

BBC World was available for a while only on Cable Television, such as Foxtel in Australia, and on the various cable and satellite networks in the US and Asia. Now we have BBC World flirting with YouTube, and YouTube is certainly available anywhere that there is broadband internet service, which is just about anywhere these days.

My favourite way, however, for accessing BBC World, is to use Livestation. Livestation is a little program that you can download for your MS Windows or Mac OS X operating system, that basically streams in a select bunch of channels, mainly news, to your desktop. Beware however, because this uses a lot of bandwidth, 200k/hour according to the Livestation team. That can be an issue if you're using a Wireless plan with a monthly quota, or you live in a country where you're saddled with a quota-ADSL service, such as Australia.

Save money on your Cable TV bill by watching TV online

2008-12-20T21:42:00.000-08:00

Lets face it, you watch too much television.

The Simpsons Movie

With the current financial crisis, and the oncoming global recession, why not be responsible and get rid of that Cable TV bill.

I was with Foxtel for a number of years, but after some time found it unnecessary.

The answer was 2 sites:

1) Livestation

2) UK Nova

UK Nova makes the best of British TV available in a sort of semi-legal agreeable format. It's not aimed at mass market, more aimed at British expats living overseas.