At last week’s ATA conference in Orlando, there was a session on blogging, as a result of which Susanne Aldridge has started a blog (In-House Translators – A Dying Breed). As an outhouse translator, I’m still interested in this.

Translation Times has a report and a photo of the bloggers present. The Masked Translator may have been there too. (I could have sworn I had that blog on my blogroll, but the fact is that I read that and Translation Times by RSS feed – a blogroll is becoming a thing of the past).

When did Deutsche Post raise the postage on letters to other countries in Europe from 55 cents to 70 cents?

I liked it being the same in Germany and the rest of Europe, at least for normal weights.

At all events, they have no 15-cent stamps to make up the sum, just the usual 5c and 10c, all boring flowers. I fear a lot of people are going to get the stamp Alte Rheinbrücke Bad Säckingen in future weeks.

There are a couple of 65c stamps that are OK (Riga and Frankfurt zoological society) if one adds the 5c crocus.
Some pictures here (if you click on the name).

I watched a programme on John Le Carré on arte on Sunday and was surprised to hear that George Smiley lived near Baywater Street and that there was a row of gregorianische Cottages there.

I can’t explain the former, but I quickly realized that gregorianisch refers to the architecture that started in the reign of King Gregory I and continued through his other namesakes to that of King Gregory IV.

The text was a reading from the translation into German of Smiley’s People (Agent in eigener Sache), so I don’t know if this was the work of the translators or the reader. However, Google finds a lot of this architecture, seemingly always in Britain or Ireland, so my guess must be right.

Here’s one example:

Auf der Fahrt zu den Sehenswürdigkeiten auf dem Lande kommen Nordwales-Besucher immer wieder durch Städtchen, die zu einer Pause einladen. In St. Asaph ist ein Blick in die Kathedrale lohnenswert, Ruthin besticht mit einem Architektur-Mix aus Mittelalter, Tudor und gregorianischer Zeit.

Here’s the story of the unfortunate demolition of one of these obscure cottages:

Ein wirklicher dummer Zufall: Nachdem er für 400.000 Pfund die Angel Cottage in Windmill Lane, im Osten Londons, ersteigert hatte, fuhr der neue Besitzer Mubarak Patel für einige Zeit ins Ausland. Während seiner Abwesenheit rissen Bauarbeiter, die er eigentlich für ein anderes Gebäude bestellt haben wollte, das 1826 erbaute Anwesen ein – das einzige gregorianische Haus in dieser Gegend. Ein Versehen, so hieß es zunächst. Später wollte Patel sich zu dem Vorfall nicht mehr äußern.

And here is a pre-demolition picture and a British report:

A LISTED building in Stratford has been illegally demolished over the weekend.

Angel Cottage was one of the last remaining buildings dating back to late Georgian times.

Newham council and English Heritage are still trying to determine how it was destroyed.

The Open University and the BBC are co-producing a four-part series on barristers. At least those in the UK will be able to see it.

It starts on Friday November 14.

There is a website for the series with extensive materials, including videoclips with transcripts. There is also a free booklet that can be ordered.

Apparently barristers are ‘the sharpest legal minds’, and at least one of my commenters will agree with this.

(Thanks to Ekkehard, once of Erlangen but now of the OU)

Michael reports (with pictures) on the translation blog talk/meetings at the ATA conference in Orlando.

Meanwhile, Céline is interviewed on My Cool Job.

It was time to take some exercise today.

Here is the zoo’s most famous animal: