Justin's Life

If you watched the UK Live Election Debate last night on TV you may have noticed that Nick Clegg mentioned that his wife is Catholic.

Apart from being Catholic she is actually Spanish.

It is interesting to see in the Spanish press that they are really behind Nick Clegg.  Is it because his wite is Spanish?

I have to admit that I've been really impressed with his performance on TV.  I really like him...but I also really like Gordon!

Who would get my vote?  I'm not sure yet but I wouldn't give it to Cameron, I just think his face is too "shiney".

It's amazing what can influence a vote these days!

Well, we had a few nice days a couple of weeks ago but since then the weather has been horrible again.

Actually I lie, last Wednesday was really nice.

I really feel for all the tourists who must have come out for a nice warm Easter break, it's not a beach umbrella they will have needed!

Let's hope it picks up soon.  Normally at this time of year it's nice and warm but since the middle of December it has been very depressing.

Time to do a sun dance...

Some friends of ours are hosting a Bollywood Night in Gibraltar on 18 April.  It's all in aid of charity and we're going to be there.  It should be a fantastic evening so hope to see you there!

If you come along then please say "hi" if you see me.

No matter where I go there is always one dish I can't help ordering.  I do love fried fish and my favourite, by far, are the "boquerones fritos".  These are fried anchovies but don't think of them as the anchovies that you get on a pizza, I hate those.  These are fresh and very tasty.

You can peel them and take the main bone out or just eat it as most people do as it's very soft.

Here you, go, have a nibble on these, like I did yesterday...

Have you tried them?  Do you have a favourite fish dish?

This is truly brilliant!

I have recently stumbled across a totally legal way of being able to watch BBC iPlayer when in Spain or abroad in general.  AND IT'S REALLY CHEAP!

We get asked all the time how expats in Spain can catch up with their favourite programmes on the BBC iPlayer.

Until recently it seemed that the only way of doing this was by using a proxy server in the UK to effectively "pretend" you are in the UK.  This is actually illegal and apart from the that, terribly unreliable and quite costly.

Well, what I am about to show you is going to blow your mind away.  Because apart from allowing you to watch your favourite programmes on the BBC, it actually speeds up your Internet connection too.

This is SO true, I'm not making it up.

The service is called Onspeed.  It's primary function is to actually speed up your Internet connection.  Being able to access iPlayer abroad is simply a by-product of this service!

How it works

You install the Onspeed software on your PC.  Once it's up and running, every time you access anything on the Internet it goes via OnSpeed's UK servers.

Onspeed compresses all the data on their servers before sending it to your PC.  The compression aspect is what speeds up your Internet and the fact that it is done on OnSpeed's servers means that you are effectively seeing content as if you were based in the UK.

You're not breaking any laws at all.  It's fully legal.

Genius!

Here's how it worked for me

We have a truly terrible Internet connection at home, thanks to Telefonica.  Using the Onspeed speed test this is what I got BEFORE I installed the software:

You wouldn't believe we are actually contracted for 6MB!  We are getting just 224 KB of ADSL speed which is awful.

Anyway, I installed the Onspeed software, repeated the test and this was the speed test result:

Still not quite my contracted 6MB but what a difference!  1.4 MB.  That's a 6-fold improvement in the connection speed!!  At least at this speed I can stop crying.  Truly amazing improvement in the speed of my Internet connection.

Now, before I installed the software, this is what I used to see when trying to access iPlayer:

Argh!  Horrible message. 

But look what happened after I installed Onspeed:

:)  Yippee.  It works!  And it's legal.  And my Internet connection is faster too.

Best thing of all?

It costs only £26.99 or €29.99 for 12 MONTHS!  It has to be the best bargain ever for us expats.

Anyway, hope that's made your day as much as it made mine when I installed it.

Check out Onspeed here and watch BBC iPlayer the cheap, easy and legal way...through a faster Internet connection.

It just seems to be too good to be true...but it's not! Try it out.

Enjoy.

Justin

We were in Ronda on Friday and managed to get the Easter procession coming through the town.  It was a glorious day there and the people in the procession must have been absolutely boiling under all those gowns!