I do have a good laugh when I choose to write on a subject about which I know so very little. When I was still at school, we had to read a novel by George Duhamel entitled Le Notaire du Havre which, as now expected with so much of modern literature, had nothing - and... Continue Reading →
ee cummings
Shandy Whitaker can put your ideas into video format too - professionally. It is worth visiting her site to check out a few of the possibilities.
Assaulted by infinitude
In an attempt to keep up with what is happening in the world around me, I began reading an overwhelmingly detailed blog by Christopher Mims entitled, How the “internet of things” will replace the web I launched myself jauntily into the text and was happily memorising lots of little bits of information new to me,... Continue Reading →
Incidental lyricism
Some poets find poetry in the most surprising places. Translators can also find lyrical bits in dry texts. When I come across them, I sometimes scribble these fragments down. These are gleanings from a few target texts I have produced in the last week, which bear no relation to the general import of the text... Continue Reading →
International Label Day 2013
The Immediate image which sprung to mind was of a cardboard, buff-coloured manilla label with reinforcement rings around the hole through which string may be thread when I saw the words "International Label Day" in rarasaur's blog today. My About Me page says a few things about labels. Today I have labelled myself as follows:... Continue Reading →
New typewriter required
There are not too many translators who readily accept scanned copies of documents for translation. Even translators who were touch typists before the introduction of function keys on computer keyboards (such as I) become lazy. We love our computers. We love our CAT tools which obviate the necessity for (a) typing and (b) formatting. These... Continue Reading →
Five years
It has taken about one month for me realise a few things about our having arrived in Portugal as immigrants five years ago. This led me to thinking that lots of things take five years. For me, anyway. It takes five years to realise that you are still not immune from getting into the passenger... Continue Reading →
Ten minutes
Self-reprimand is often the best form of punishment precisely because it is private. I am going to make my most recent one public, though. It was ten minutes to seven o'clock when I sat down again to work this evening. I thought to myself, "Great, I can check my mail - and the odd forum... Continue Reading →
Stuck in a hole
What you are looking at is Sempre em frente*, the adventurous tortoise we had about eight years ago. He is trying to escape the Inner Sanctum, his designated living space. That hole, at the bottom of the wall served a practical purpose. During the Zimbabwean rainy season, it was the only place for the water... Continue Reading →
Oh, fadista!
Imagine you have one tape cassette which you play over and over on a portable tape deck. The tape was recorded on this same tape deck while sitting as close to the gramophone as possible as a borrowed long-playing record of Amália Rodrigues singing the fado filled the air. At the end of Side 1,... Continue Reading →
That elusive pair of jeans 