Alternative to Italian TV

Well the desktop mobilisation went well. It is a worth while exercise to try and sort out all problems you might experience on a boat in the comfort of the office and the luxury of a landline and internet connection, particularly it seems when it comes to setting up QinSy. Is it just me or does everybody feel they know more than the QinSy support people? It seems they need 2 levels of support. The dumb support line where you get somebody on the end of the line reading you the help file you have already read; and a technical support line that can actually answer your questions. Unfortunately you only seem to get the former, but maybe that is just me as I try to get help on newly introduced features and drivers, such as the SEA SWATHplus sonar. Then you try and get QinSy to do sidescan and output the results into xtf so you can process in your trusted mosaic program, such as CODA Mosaic. Anyway luckily being a beta tester of the driver you can get in the back door to the developer and get the answer, just don't try knocking at the front door with any novel questions though. Anyway, rant over, they are no worse than any number of other navigation programs; they all have their good points and their bad. But why does it always seem for the particular job you are on, that a different navigation program is best suited for it. I suppose that is where we earn our keep as surveyors and engineers, by making things work!
So after a long days work and a good Italian meal don't feel like doing much except watching TV, but the only channel in English is CNN, which grates a bit on the third re-run of the never breaking news. Luckily I can forgo the temptation of ordering Viagra or investigating the webs murkier side since Yahoo developed a good spam filter. Although I still have to run the gauntlet occasionally to check that no 'real' mail has been mis-placed.
Last night I thought I had hit the jackpot for entertainment as I remembered that the BBC has finally got its act together with a reasonable media player where you catch up on any programs you have missed on the telly or radio over the last week. Good idea except I was frustrated by the fact that it can detect that I am on the internet in Italy. It politely tells you to bugger off, the material is only for the British sitting at British computers. The whole point is that I am a Brit abroad so of course I miss their programs because I have not got access to a TV and have not got into the Slingbox revolution yet. As they would say on 'The League of Gentlemen' - "Are you local?".
Ha Ha, bright idea number 2, ITV have a similar service, only to be frustrated yet again as it also looks for foreign internet access. Both sites list DRM issues as the reason for non provision but say they are working on getting some international content on-line. Not fast enough I say, I am bored and kicking my feet now. Then I remembered reading an an article about Joost (www.joost.com), tele on the internet here and now. Guess what it works beautifully and worth it alone for the Aardmen channel, brings back memories of Vision On catching up with Morph again. Anyway I just have to sift through the 200 channels of chaff to find the other gems.
So on that note, goodnight and happy viewing!