FOR several weeks, my wife and I have become hooked on the Get A New Life (BBC2 Mon-Thurs) series, partly to join the dream of fun in the sun but also to escape the always-depressing 6pm news round-ups on the main channels.

You can't help noticing that the more successful of the escapees from our shores are childfree couples with enough spare cash to survive the red-tape roastings should you be stupid enough to want to buy a legitimate scooter in Goa. And none of them learn the lingo.

"I don't wish to appear rude," said my fellow sunseeker, in an unexpectedly restrained moment, "but a lot of them come across as big, fat, bad-tempered Brits."

This week's adventure abroad has involved ex-primary teacher Jo and plumber husband Colin, complete with his Stop Cox van and a car which the couple had somehow managed to get all the way out to Tenerife.

She had the tenuous dream of teaching baby aquatics - basically, you seem to stick the child under the water and watch it emerge red-eyed and slightly stunned - while he was determined to train as a diving instructor.

Neither seemed to have done much research. Aquatics sank without trace and an old back injury ended Paul's easy-money diving idea. With a child of their own and having taken on an apartment they couldn't afford, by Thursday's programme the couple were packing up to return home. "I think that's what would happen to most of us," said Mrs Honesty-Box, who would rather deal with a tanked-up hunt supporter than don a wetsuit and inspect the seabed.

In spite of this, according to Housetrapped In The Sun (C4, Thursday) host Amanda Lamb, around 150,000 properties a year in Europe alone will be sold to Brits seeking permanent holiday retirement or that cosy B&B that the rest of us will use.

It was frightening to see that in one of our favourite haunts Calpe, on the Spanish Costa Brava, a developer can use local laws to knock down existing villas and come up with a compensation figure of their own choosing.

After that it was easier watching A Seaside Parish (BBC2, Wednesday) where my wife was trying to spot which properties in Boscastle were washed away in this year's flood - "that one I think and the one selling stuff to tourists... well all of them by the river I suppose," she mused.

Those unmoved by holiday horrors or fast-flowing torrents may have found Should I Worry About..? (BBC1, Thursday) harder to stomach, particularly as Richard Hammond went in search of the contents of the British banger.

Reminders that some sausages cost less than dog food seemed less than reassuring. But I have to confess that I'd already experienced a tour of a major snorker-making factory quite a few years ago where I was informed that everything from eye-balls to gristle was being ground up and sprayed pink - the mixture comes out white otherwise - for our consumption.

So to be informed that pork sausages now actually have to have some pork inside was a distinct improvement. Bangers and mash anyone?

Published: 18/09/2004