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What on earth are Britons getting up to in Spain?

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    What on earth are Britons getting up to in Spain?

    There was an article in this past Sunday's NYT about boorish British behavior abroad. A stereotype I was familiar with, but this part of the article jumped out at me:

    A recent report published by the British Foreign Office, “British Behavior Abroad,” noted that in a 12-month period in 2006 and 2007, 602 Britons were hospitalized and 28 raped in Greece, and that 1,591 died in Spain and 2,032 were arrested there.

    The report did not distinguish between medical cases and arrests associated with drunkenness and those that had nothing to do with it. But it did say that “many arrests are due to behavior caused by excessive drinking.”
    I thought there had to have been some typo--over 1500 deaths in a 12 month period in one country? I had forgotten about it, then remembered this morning and went to check the NYT corrections. Nothing there. Then I did a search, found a BBC report about the study, and found out the figure was accurate.

    Jesus fucking Christ. What are you people doing in Spain? I know it mentions that medical cases could account for some of those figures, but still. Over a 100 Britons a month dying in Spain? Why there?

    The only rational thing I can think of is that retired British people living in Spain are counted, and most of those are natural deaths. Am I wrong?

    #2
    What on earth are Britons getting up to in Spain?

    Inca wrote:
    The only rational thing I can think of is that retired British people living in Spain are counted, and most of those are natural deaths. Am I wrong?
    No.

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      #3
      What on earth are Britons getting up to in Spain?

      There are a lot of Britons living in Spain. One million according to some estimates.

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        #4
        What on earth are Britons getting up to in Spain?

        Wow, didn't know it was possibly as many as that.

        All of my knowledge of British people in Spain comes from hearing Karl Pilkington talking about going there on vacation, and Sexy Beast, and Ibiza (if I still don't really know exactly what Ibiza is). I figured it was a popular destination for vacations and second homes/retirement, but didn't know it was that popular.

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          #5
          What on earth are Britons getting up to in Spain?

          The Spanish Yellow pages lists 4500 language schools, which will mostly focus on English, and will mostly favour Brits as employees. And this doesn't include the many, many schools found dotted around any town of any size, and self-employed teachers ... At a conservative estimate, TEFL alone probably accounts for the presence of about 75000 of us in Spain. It's rare for a teacher to perish in the classroom, right enough, though ... I've heard there are about 750000 Brits in Spain

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            #6
            What on earth are Britons getting up to in Spain?

            a lot of this expat population is quite old too, which accountts for the high mortality.

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              #7
              What on earth are Britons getting up to in Spain?

              Ibiza one of the Balaeric Islands. It's an extremely popular drunken holiday destination.

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                #8
                What on earth are Britons getting up to in Spain?

                Maybe it's all the ex-pat crims on the Costa del Crime offing each other in vicious turf wars over the ice cream concessions?

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                  #9
                  What on earth are Britons getting up to in Spain?

                  Femme Folle wrote:
                  Ibiza one of the Balaeric Islands. It's an extremely popular drunken holiday destination.
                  I get that, but why?

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                    #10
                    What on earth are Britons getting up to in Spain?

                    Dunno but here's a guess:

                    In the 60's Ibiza was a hippy hangout. Majorca, close by, was a favourite destination for cheap package tours from the UK. One of those operators thought; hippies = constant bonking, downing as many mind altering chemicals as possible and all-night boogying till you puke; basically the definition of 'hippy' according to the News of the World. So let's open a few clubs and fly in the kids whose parents are downing pints of bitter and fish and chips in Majorca. Sharp move.

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                      #11
                      What on earth are Britons getting up to in Spain?

                      Also it's sunny and it's quite nearby.

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                        #12
                        What on earth are Britons getting up to in Spain?

                        i read that article the other day, and was more disturbed by:
                        More alarmingly, a 20-year-old British tourist partied with her sister and a friend into the early hours in Malia also in July, then returned to her hotel room and - athough she had denied being pregnant - gave birth. Her companions say they returned later to find the baby dead; she has been charged with infanticide.
                        "and jesus wept," is the next bit, i think.

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                          #13
                          What on earth are Britons getting up to in Spain?

                          Femme Folle wrote:
                          Ibiza one of the Balaeric Islands. It's an extremely popular drunken holiday destination.
                          Its reputation is more as a full-on clubbers' destination, though I'm sure it caters for pissheads too. Not been there.

                          Majorca, on the other hand, I've been to loads of times and would visit again at the drop of a hat. The bits to avoid are well known, and confined to one part of what is a really beautiful island.

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                            #14
                            What on earth are Britons getting up to in Spain?

                            That's a pretty shoddy article, by the way. The stat about deaths in Spain is, as had been pointed out, overwhelmingly to do with geriatric expats, not package tourists. And to paint Dubai as a sun, sea and sex destination is just stupid (and in any case the woman in that case, at least, was an expat).

                            To say nothing of the extreme unlikelihood of the FCO ever using the spelling "Behavior" in any of its official publications.

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