Neil Armstrong, first to set foot on moon, dies at 82 | The Columbus Dispatch. Impossible to be sad, really. This single fact of history, that Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the Moon, did more the ignite people's imagination than anything else in Sixties. And that's saying something. I remember the crackly... Continue Reading →
Yale Literature Lecture in technicolour
Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood | Yale Literature Lecture. I have chosen this as the subject of today's blog because of my ignorance. My ignorance is two-fold. Not only had I not heard the name Flannery O'Connor until a couple of days ago, I was also ignorant of the fact that for no financial outlay whatsoever,... Continue Reading →
Now or never: translation of a poem and other things I don´t know
I have chosen now. Well, that is rather misleading. Let me rephrase that: I have finally chosen now to be the time. This is the time to translate that poem. I shall need a preamble for this. For fellow translators in a hurry: the poem in the original Portuguese together with the English translation are... Continue Reading →
Steps
Oooh, I loved steps. I have always traversed them two at a time. Yes, up and down. When I was younger and foolish, I used to jump the last four to the ground. Indoor hockey training at the local stadium as a school girl involved running up and down the concrete grandstands until our legs... Continue Reading →
An unexpected treasure
An unexpected treasure.
An unexpected treasure
—This post is the first of two fashion stories. More or less. The second is an illustrated version of an overly long Facebook status update made a few days ago. This story has been written with the assistance of my misplaced notes dated 23 December 1999 referred to in a post entitled, "Miscellany" from October... Continue Reading →
A bright idea
Buying light bulbs used to be easy. Where I came from, British standards were followed in this regard. We had screw or bayonet types (gory name, that last one). For the bathroom 75 watts was ample, 100 watts more than enough for the verandah, and 60 watts if you wanted decent lighting at a desk... Continue Reading →
Back then in the backwater
I invite you to listen to this gem, The Continental, featuring the beautiful voice of Maureen McGovern overlaid with images of equally exquisite dancing by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Now, I ask you to imagine, if you possibly can, an overworked translator attempting to imitate all of the above in her slippers, singing the... Continue Reading →
The concepts of time and space revisited
No matter where you go in the world, you still have to take yourself with you.
A failed ascetic awakes
I was strangely drawn at a young age to the concept of asceticism. Perhaps it was the collocation of living as a child in a country at war, where people survived against the odds in an environment of economic sanctions, and those ridiculous cotton dresses which passed for school uniforms, over which we were permitted... Continue Reading →
That elusive pair of jeans 