Michael Palin - New Europe (reviews on BG bits)

[SG1]

Sell Overseas Property

The TV show part on Bulgaria was very disappointing and painted a very odd picture of Bulgaria, especially when compared to the other countries shown. I got the book for Christmas so can only hope its better reported in there.

[jakdublin]

Sell Overseas Property

I've just read the first six pages of posts on this thread and I thought I'd throw in my tuppence worth.
I know we all love BG but I think people are being over sensitive. I watched it and the main gripe I had was that it wasn't long enough. I think that it's just madness to believe BBC had a political agenda in showing BG in a bad light, if that's what you think it did.
I work in media and it's laughable to say politics has anything to do with any of Palin's travel shows. It's lightweight TV, good eye-candy and not much more.
I thought the White Brotherhood part was interesting and the popularity of Aziz is odd given your average Bulgarian's low tolerance for Roma and gays. Both topics were original and certainly worth featuring in my book.
The Roma segment wasn't that good from any perspective but two out of three isn't bad, so all in all from a producer's view it adds up to fairly decent TV.
The show wasn't designed to be a comprehensive guide to Bulgaria or a promotional snapshop so I'd say from a neutral perspective it wasn't that bad at all. If you didn't know much about BG, you'd have seen something new. What was expected? Ski slopes and Sunny Beach and how wonderful BG culture is? How dull would that have been?

[Chippy]

Sell Overseas Property

Here Here

I find Palin slightly annoying though although this is true of all his series. He seems to have the air of the old English colonial traveller which gripes slightly although it does not prevent me from watching

Chippy

[Adolf]

Sell Overseas Property

You can "read" the book day by day on his web-site. This for example is an extract from the page relating to Belgrade. http://www.palinstravels.co.uk/book-4271

He likes cars with a story attached and is especially proud of a 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 called 'The Adenauer', after Konrad Adenauer, the Chancellor synonymous with the reconstruction of Germany after the war.
'With this car,' says Braca, 'the Germans told the rest of the world, "we are back".'
In case I thought he might be taking himself too seriously, he points out the two dummies in the car. One is Tito, sitting in splendour in the back. The other, driving, is Slobodan Milosevic, Serbia's one-time President who died in his cell at The Hague in March 2006, after his conviction for war crimes.

As we all know Milosevic was never convicted and at the time of his death it was generally thought that the prosecutors had not succeeded in pinning anything on him at all. That may not worry Palin, though, he is a media man after all.

[blackaqua]

Sell Overseas Property

We deal with Turkey about twice a year for importing dive products into EU and UK, we where suprised two years ago to how far Turkey is within EU when it comes to importing from there. On my last visit to Turkey I found Italians and Spanish reps banging on the doors of Turkish dive manufactures.

Including Turkey in the program may have had something to do with The EU and Turkey are linked by a Customs Union agreement, which came in force on 31 December 1995.
The main Turkish exports markets in 2006 were the EU 51.7%, and imports into Turkey from the EU 39.8% for 2006.
In addition to the Custom Union with the EU, in 2005, Turkey is also member of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership and as such should conclude free trade agreements with all other Mediterranean partners, with a view to the creation (by 2010) of a Euro-Mediterranean free trade area.
Turkey is rapidly becoming an “operation and production hub” for multinational companies and an average growth rate of 7.3% since 2004.

[Seedy]

Sell Overseas Property

The programme is STILL making waves - Novinite, several years behind the times as usual, has managed to discover either the original (or perhaps a repeat?) showing and even unearth an archaeological "talking head" to complain about it.

Not bad for only 4 years later, Newshounds!

http://novinite.com/view_news.php?id=126008

[Moscow_Wolf]

Sell Overseas Property

The programme is STILL making waves - Novinite, several years behind the times as usual, has managed to discover either the original (or perhaps a repeat?) showing and even unearth an archaeological "talking head" to complain about it.

Not bad for only 4 years later, Newshounds!

http://novinite.com/view_news.php?id=126008

You were LUCKY, they should remake that awful episode and show a few more Shoe box houses in middle T road.

Right, I'm off to lick the lake clean before our Dad gets back to thrash us to death.

[Seedy]

Sell Overseas Property

Right, I'm off to lick the lake clean before our Dad gets back to thrash us to death.

Gets BACK? You are LUCKY...our Dad used to thrash us to death BEFORE he went out so we could recover by the time he got back to beat us to death again....

[theweeton]

Sell Overseas Property

Wondered why this utube clip appeared on my farcebook this morning http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4tzkrJYBWE

[Applejuice]

Sell Overseas Property

Wondered why this utube clip appeared on my farcebook this morning http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4tzkrJYBWE

Nice link which led me to this . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKHEX5jasOI
Could this be the latest craze to be imported to the UK ?