Not quite a breakout from the Battersea Dogs’ Home, but one dog opening his and his friends’ cages at night for midnight feasts. Story and videoclip.

(via Random Acts of Reality, the blog of a London ambulance man)

An exciting new weblog in English on Spanish affairs, spainmedia.com, has been launched by famous persons in Barcelona and thereabouts. Anyone who can write about Spanish football should contact them. Looking at the list of writers – and there are a number, and the site is full of information – I see Trevor is more of an impresario now. My favourite bit so far is the article ‘Pujol holiday home is tremor epicentre’, by ‘Barcelona-based geographer Derek Geary’.

Sadly, another legal weblog I liked has stopped – LATER NOTE: No it hasn’t – see comment: The Blogbook. However, the reason for its demise is that the (main) author, David Maizenberg, has a new job, and he may, and I hope will, blog again at a later date. In commemoration, if you haven’t done so before, test your vocabulary against that of Judge Selya of the First Circuit.

Meanwhile, another new law blog in Germany. mein blawg – via Udo – is the work of a judge or public prosecutor

bq. Blogs lesen macht Spass. Mein Einstiegs-Blog war Udos lawblog – sehr unterhaltsam – und von dort aus habe ich viele juristische Blogs kennen gelernt.

bq. Es gibt viele Blogs von Rechtsanwälten, Referendaren, Studenten, Wissenschaftlichen Mitarbeitern usw. Von Richtern oder Staatsanwälten habe ich noch keinen Blog gefunden und oft sind die Angestellten der Justiz eher die Zielscheibe der Postings. Meistens völlig zu recht!

bq. Vielleicht kann ich ja ein paar Aspekte von der “anderen Seite” beitragen.

A new magazine for translators, to appear 4 times a year, has been launched in Britain. The Translating Today website is informative.
It looks as if the first issue has already gone out, that is, cannot be ordered any longer.
(Tip-off from an ITI mailing list)

In an article on the delivery of letters to confusing addresses, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reports that a schoolboy addressed his application to the police to the following street address: Berthaübelsiegfriedcäsarheinrichemilrichardstraße 2-6.

He had phoned up to ask how the street name was spelt: Büscherstraße, and not recognized the phonetic alphabet when he heard it.

The writer wanted to do a practical/internship with the police, but they turned him down on the basis of the envelope. As the heading says, quoting a common German expression, ‘More stupid than the police permit’ (Dümmer als die Polizei erlaubt).

Here are more phonetic alphabets (not in the IPA sense), and Wikipedia on the NATO phonetic alphabet.

LATER NOTE: here is another list of phonetic alphabets, suggested by a commenter.

A new edition of Gabe Bokor’s online translation journal, Translation Journal, is online.

Among other things, in ‘Translation Taken Seriously’, Danilo Nogueira reports on a financial translation seminar organized by four clients (international financial institutions of IFIs) to help their translators. The remarks on CAT software are heartening:

bq. I do not know about your clients, but most of mine can be divided into two categories: a diminishing one that confuses CAT and MT and an increasing one that says: “Buy Trados, or else.”

bq. It was very refreshing to learn that IFIs belong to neither of the above groups. They know MT is one thing and has its uses, and that CAT is another thing and there is more than one CAT program worthy of consideration. It was great to learn that we should expect segmented files in the future and will be free to deal with them as we think best, provided the results achieved are acceptable to the IFI that requested the job.

I also looked at Fire Ant and Worker Bee’s agony aunt column. I always thought the readers’ letters were invented, but I have it on the highest authority that they’re genuine, strangely enough. The first letter, from ‘Litter Bug’, addressed a situation I know well, and I suspect the answer was from Fire Ant.

bq. I am a freelance translator with an office in my home and a reasonably successful business serving clients in the UK and the Netherlands. The other day I was caught off guard when a client phoned me out of the blue and insisted on dropping in to review a text in person (he happened to be in the neighbourhood, and the text was urgent).

bq. It was a chastening experience—not for the text itself and our discussion, which went very well, but because my office is a shambles, with papers papers papers and files files files as far as the eye can see. I will spare you the details, but from the look on this man’s face as he crossed the threshold, I don’t think my frantic hoovering accomplished much.

Suggested solutions include intercepting the client at the door and directing him or her to a café, tricks with lighting and plants, quickly piling stuff into removal boxes and claiming moving is going on, or putting crime scene tape around a pile of stuff and claiming it results from a burglary and may not be touched.

I was confronted with this situation a week or two ago when two young American soldiers turned up needing a sworn translation. I thought they’d all left, but even the law office still exists, with my address of ten years ago. It took them two hours to find me. Standing at the counter in my office, one of them reached into a container full of writing instruments but failed to get a functioning pen. Not surprising, since three-quarters of them are no use and the only thing I frequently use from there is a small screwdriver.

bq. (Langsam und mit Bedacht)

bq. Sehr verehrte Fahrgäste,
hier spricht Ihr U-Bahn-Fahrer zu Ihnen. Wie Sie vielleicht in den letzten Wochen bemerkt haben, fährt die U-Bahn nur langsam zwischen Eberhardshof und Muggenhof. Dies ist zurückzuführen auf Sanierungsarbeiten an den Weichen. Dies führt natürlich zu Verspätung, dient aber Ihrer Sicherheit.

bq. Die VGN und meine Wenigkeit wünschen Ihnen einen schönen Tag und einen schönen Sommer.
Ende der Durchsage.

Heard on the underground (subway) between Fürth and Nuremberg in August.