Television

There isn't much to watch on tv here, in English. Well, that's what I normally say. There is always EastEnders, my fave show (on Mon-Thurs at 7.30pm). And the odd cooking show (Rick Stein at the moment), comedies (The Office, and now Little Britain). But often you stumble onto the good stuff while channel surfing.

Like now. Couple of weeks ago we stumbled upon the first episode of Lost on the Swiss Italian channel. It was on in dual and seeing as we have the right telly we can press a button on our remote control and change the language from Italian to English. That first night there were three episodes back to back. So every Sunday night we settle down to at least two, if not three, episodes of Lost.

I have also been watching CSI Las Vegas and became a bit addicted. But last night it was replaced by 24 Hours (which usually followed CSI) so I'm not sure what's going on there.

Last year the same thing happened with Desperate Housewives. Stumbled across it, it was on in dual, so that became my Monday night 8pm 'fix'. Then it finished. Now I am waiting to see when it will come back on.

I've stumbled on some interesting movies lately that I've not seen before. Last night it was The Matrix, night before that was The Misfits and the night before that Bringing Down the House (Steve Martin and Queen Latifah). I've also recently seen The Life of David Gale (Kevin Spacey) and Mystic River (Sean Penn) - two bleak male-focussed movies with un-hollywood endings. And in one night I saw Shallow Hal (Gwyneth Paltrow and Jack Black) and Zoolander (Ben Stiller) back to back. Michael also saw the two Lara Croft movies on consecutive nights.

The funny thing is I often miss the first 10mins or so as I stumble onto these movies while channel surfing. And often I don't know the name of the movie till the end when I google the actor(s). The good thing is there is no more than one commercial - none on the old movies channel - during the movie.

And why no tv guide? The majority of the movies and shows in dual are on a handful of channels in the Swiss Italian and Swiss German part. Not extensively covered by the tv guide (in our home delivered Sunday paper) in the Swiss French part.

I'd still like to learn how to download shows from the net...preferably for free.