OI! PEDRO! DO YOU DO CHIPS?!

I was supposed to be writing this while I was watching the programme on ITV1 entitled 'Spain: Paradise Lost', but obviously its a couple of hours later now so its not quite as fresh in my mind, but here we go anyway.

I only happened to catch this show by accident as my mom was watching it, but within the first few minutes it got me annoyed; well, enough to blog about it, which I suppose is quite annoyed! It got me thinking about one of those great ironies; that of the Express/Mail/Sun reading type who moans about how Britain is 'going to the dogs' because of the strain immigrants supposedly place on services, and who solves this issue by.... yes, thats right, becoming one of them by moving to Spain! No doubt they lounge by their pool or sit in the 'Irish' Bar lamenting the fact that local councils in the UK offer leaflets in different languages, for example.

I can't blame some of these people for moving to Spain in some ways. I mean, nice weather, relaxing lifestyle no doubt - wouldn't mind it myself one day. But alarm bells rang for me when the programme introduced a small town near Alicante where Brits outnumber the locals by four to one, giving the place the nickname 'Little Britian'. To be honest, I think its a bit sad going to live abroad only to live in a community surrounded entirely by your own countrymen, eating the exact same stuff you did back home, but I can sort of understand why the British expats do this, and they're hardly the only ones to do this; it happens pretty much everywhere with immigrant communities. What really riled me though was when the Brits were asked how much Spanish they knew; 'grande cerveza' was the sum of one gentleman's knowledge of the Spanish language, and 'vino blanco' the sum of another, female, expat's knowledge. What annoyed me as well was the indication that these people had no intention of trying to learn Spanish, as they didn't feel the need to. Additionally, a bloke who had opened a bar/cafe with his wife admitted that he'd be stuck if he had to serve a local, as he knew no Spanish. Part of me wonders if these people deliberately set out to further the stereotype of the ignorant tourist, but the realist in me concedes that its sheer laziness above all.

Now, it seems to me that if you intend to live and/or work in another country, it is your duty to attempt to learn the language of said country. Heaven knows, enough people expect it of people who come to live and work in Britain (and rightly so). I wouldn't at all suggest that these British expats have to be fluent in Spanish before they move there, but surely a basic command of the language, and an intention to become more proficient in the language, would be common courtesy. In my experience, at least attempting to communicate in the local language goes a long way towards winning over the locals and making the stay more enjoyable. For that reason, if I moved abroad I would make every effort to become fluent in the language and assimilate into the community. As it is, I felt it difficult to have any sympathy with the expats who were struggling, when they set up their 'traditional British' bars and clearly had no intention of attracting any custom outside of the bloody expat community!