I live in a village in the Algarve, in the south of Portugal. There are over 26,000 such villages in Portugal. I cannot give you a link to this information because I heard it on television a couple of years ago, and Internet searches to confirm the exact number have proven futile. Things I like... Continue Reading →
Scatterling, the book
A potted story of me so far As memoirs go, mine are intentionally short. They are composed of 45 stories. Each story is around 150 words long and has a cartoon drawing to go with it. This is about the right size of book for the kind of life I have had so far. I... Continue Reading →
A bowl of cherries
Or, in my case, as I write, a bowl of dried figs, removed from the freezer and cut in half to facilitate chomping. I am definitely a proponent of the "no crumbs in my keyboard" philosophy which fellow translator Emma Goldsmith introduced in the recent video discussion while being interviewed by fellow translator and agency... Continue Reading →
I have bitstripped
Bitstrip is a new Facebook app which is quite fun to use - provided your good friends also create their own Bitstrip avatar. It proved so popular within the first few days that the program crashed. The app writers were a little ambitious, and have now removed a few of the flexibility features which made... Continue Reading →
FlumMoxed
Of course, "flum" does not mean anything, but quite a few of us have been "Moxed". The purpose of this post is to get as many people Moxed as possible. The next mass Moxing will occur at the forthcoming TriKonf 2013 in Freiburg, Germany, 18-20 Ocober 2013, where in addition to attending some excellent workshops,... Continue Reading →
Drawing from life
Some people complain on Facebook about how their housemates do not clean the bathroom. One friend describes it in such graphic detail that I am compelled to remark that what she probably needs to remedy the situation is a soapy hot-water pressure hose. We are playing. We are joshing with each other. She replies that... Continue Reading →
Savage talk and TED
Yay! Today is Savage Chickens day! In tribute to this excellent cartoonist who manages to fit drawings and words onto a yellow Post-it®, I slavishly follow Doug Savage's copyright rules which state that as one of the other 7 billion-odd people in the world, I am permitted to copy one of his images every thirty days. How wonderful it... Continue Reading →
Simon, Garfunkel and Yoda
It all started when a fellow translator posted an image of Yoda, of Star Wars fame, on her Facebook wall. The speech balloon said, "OOYL", which, of course, is short for "Only once, you live". Despite obvious pronunciation difficulties, I prefer Yoda's rendition to the now ubiquitous YOLO. "My favourite, he is", I commented. "Ha!",... Continue Reading →
That elusive pair of jeans 