Yes Andrew, PBLV is depressing though only about seven or eight years ago it was kind of ´ watchable ´ as it had some humour mixed in with everyday problems encountered. It then changed direction with more sensationalist topics to try to attract the dwindling viewing figures. The figures are dropping even more quickly nowadays with the other soaps gaining ground if anything. Un Si Grand Soleil is more watchable I suppose but er indoors is hooked on the other even though she doesn’t really like it in the same way.
Covid was briefly mentioned in one PBLV in March but doesn’t exist otherwise. Life goes on normally on the soap with murders, terrorism, brutality of French prisons and other such appalling topics, bring back Crossroads please !!
I would switch the tv off during meal times though that would go down like a lead balloon to er indoors and most French people I know.
I haven’t watched either for decades but this morning I heard the ITV give a warning that some scenes in Coronation Street may be upsetting to some viewers. What has the program become? Ena Sharples will be turning in her grave!
ha ha, tv and meal times. I can’t remember the last time I had lunch or dinner without the JT on!
Never! The idea of eating with a TV on would just destroy the pleasure of the meal for me… and is rude to the person who cooked it too.
so, what’s the difference 
eating in a restaurant with a pianist playing soothing « lounge music » is disrespectful of the cook too?
It’s a cultural thing…
the other thing I do not understand is that people are encouraged to watch soaps to earn the language.
I would be very upset if I had spent all that time and ended up speaking like someone from Eastenders or Corrie.
How are newcomers able to test the accents used on some of these soaps?
Piano playing doesn’t stop people chatting. TV shouldn’t either, but it does seem to. When I have been at people’ houses who eat with TV the only conversation has been about what’s on the TV. A bit dull.
isn’t that disrespectful to the piano player? 
We all have something we dont understand 
I don’t watch UK tv here but then I didn’t watch tv in the uk either for about 20 years so got completely out of the habit! I haven’t had time to watch since I was running the business and now the business has died (thank you Brexit) it’s not something I’ve thought of restarting. I can’t get tv here anyway (3km of wet string connecting us with the phone exchange) but the blank that meant the end of our lives as we had them means an opportunity, I suppose, to catch up on reading and learn more French from the radio…
It’s not an easy time for any of us…
Same here.
Yes they are, Jane, and for a very good reason once you’ve got a good language level it helps understand day to day chit chat and slang. I already had masters level French when I started watching plus belle la vie but university French doesn’t cut it with the language used in soaps. Evey source of language has its value. I used to tell my students and stagiaires to expose themselves to as many sources of the language they’re trying to learn/improve/master as possible. In the dark ages back in the UK, I had a long wave radio with a very long antena strung between the house and trees in the garden to get french and italian radio before internet came along!
Oh, and going back to the accent thing : I listen to so much parigo french between france info, tf1, france 2 et 3, bfm, lci et al but there’s no way I could drop my local accent for theirs, they can’t speak properly and miss out half of the sylables and vowels 
That 's fine for anyone who has at least a high level of French already and, presumably, been exposed to well spoken French.
A newcomer to English might very well end up speaking Eastenders English without knowing that they have a pronounced regional accent.
On the contrary, regional accents and patois add to a language 
You’re telling me Andrew,around here words like…
Vin, bain and pain are replaced with…
veng, beng and peng…
and ´ moins ´ somehow becomes ´ mwaince ´…
Oh, and the village of Denat, south of Albi is pronounced ‘Denatte ´whereas a word like ´sénat ´ is pronounced normally.
But isn’t that just normal French…?!
And Denat isn’t the only one, there are loads, montirat near me, my BIL pronounces the t in juillet, like août and of course it’s a “but” with a t when you score. I could go on and on but I’m at work
Accent is a vital ingredient to an individual’s character.
Up the workers !!
Seldom watched TV in the UK, but had seen sufficient Corrie in my teens so that when sometime in the mid 1970s, I walked into Tommy Ducks’ pub in Central Manchester I realised the bar was full of the cast of Coronation Street, all of whom were rather better dressed than their fictional counterparts.
From the outside the pub also resembled The Rovers Return, but the interior decor was rather different, its most notable feature being the ceiling which was covered in hundred s of pairs of donated women’s knickers.
Assumed it would have been a listed buiding, but just looked it up online at
https://manchesterhistory.net/manchester/gone/tommyducks.html
and learned that it was knocked down thirty years ago. The online description also made me wonder how I’d managed to forget that the pub’s tables were glass-topped coffins! Obviously my dotage is approaching…
You wouldn’t approve of the behaviour of the Royle family.