I feel bereft

 Yes, bereft [beraubt] is how I feel.

A couple of weeks ago, I wondered why I hadn't had any articles on the subject of stationery [Schreibwaren] to translate for a while and looked up "Insights-X", the name of the stationery trade fair [Messe] organised by the people in Nuremberg. I discovered that, after 8 years, it had been discontinued. How sad.

I mentioned this to the agency that had given me the articles to translate and got another piece of bad news. The organisers of one of the largest trade fairs in Germany - the Spielwarenmesse or International Toy Fair - had decided to use artificial intelligence, AI, to translate all the articles in the future. The trade fair company offered the agency the chance to "tidy up" the translations, which they refused. 

So now, I feel bereft. No longer will I learn about the innovations in the world of model railways. Never again will I be in the know when it comes to the latest board games, new toys for toddlers, smart building blocks, creative games, learning games and the like. And I shall never hear of the latest trends in stationery either: scrap-booking, calligraphy, marker pens and diaries... 

One thing I like about translation is that you're never quite sure what you are going to get from one day to the next. One minute, you're translating something relating to the environment or economics and the next text to come along is all about glitter pens or jigsaw puzzles.

Life has become just a little bit more boring and flat.

TV series recommendation: The Other Bennet Sister

The BBC has come up with a little gem: an eight-part series based on a book by Janice Hadlow called The Other Bennet Sister. Anyone who is remotely familiar with the works of Jane Austen will instantly recall that the Bennet family crops up in her novel Pride and Prejudice, and, indeed, this story is a continuation of that book.

The first two half-hour episodes basically recap [zusammenfassen] the tale that Jane Austen wrote. It's as of episode three that the story gets really interesting and answers the question of what happened to the unmarried, plain Jane [Mauerblümchen] sister called Mary. Bookish, a bit gawky, not at all girly, she doesn't fit in with her sisters, and doesn't sparkle like they do - much to the despair of her mother, brilliantly played by Ruth Jones.

The actors in each role are credible, just right for their roles, the costumes are wonderful and the sets have been dressed to perfection. You can almost imagine that it was filmed on site in the past. Almost. Two things didn't seem quite in keeping with the rest. One was the scene at a gathering in a private house when everone chants "Sing, sing" over and over again. I didn't think people would do that in those days. Secondly, we sometimes see the London street she ends up living in: it's too clean. In those days, it would have been filfthy, what with all the horses for one thing. As it is, there's not a speck of dirt or a scrap of waste. Too unbelievable. But those are minor faults and, overall, the effect is pleasing.

But it's the blossoming of the little "ugly duckling" that is so wonderful. From an awkward and gauche young woman lacking any kind of confidence, unaware that people are actually on her side or interested in her, we see that she finally grows comfortable in her own skin and realises that she is likeable and welcome and even lovable. That sounds very serious, but, believe me, there are plenty of laughs along the way.

What makes me so fascinated by the story is that I can identify with the main character so well myself: nose in a book all the time, socially awkward, believing no-one could put up with her and with an overbearing [herrisch] mother who never failed to indicate when she was disappointed in her daughter.

This is why I cheer Mary on, why I want her to come out on top in the end. I want her to have a happy ending, and, without wishing to give anything away, a happy ending is what she gets. Hurray! At least there's some good news on the small screen these days.

Is it any wonder that I'm watching it for the third time already?

Guess which one of them is Mary?

But can the actress playing the role - Ella Bruccoleri - really be called plain?

A welcome pain in the neck - for once

This year has been a very slow year workwise. If I've not been twiddling my thumbs, I've been crocheting hats and scarves and sewing and stuffing small teddy bears for a children's charity headquartered in Berlin. And doing a bit of studying. I've even re-joined my old gym and attempt (note the word) to go there two or three times a week.

All that, however, really fails to fill in all my waking hours and I have found myself simply bored out of my skull for most of the time.

Fortunately, things changed drastically on Monday, when a colleague in Cologne e-mailed me to ask whether I fancied taking some work off her hands. Did I? Of course, I did! So 25 pages about alarm systems winged their way over to me across the ether. Along with files and files of reference material and glossaries. Wonderful.

Two and a half hours later, I read another e-mail offering me 66 pages of translation, which I also accepted.

As they say, "feast or famine" - literally "Festessen oder Hungernot". Or as one German phrase would have it "Sekt oder Selters".

And what has this got to do with my neck? Well, I'll tell you. When I start on these huge texts, I sort of "batten down the hatches" (sich auf etwas gefasst machen) and I sit, in one position, scarcely breathing, forgetting to drink anything, not moving a millimetre - and I do this for hours and hours at a time. I feel that I have to "break the back" of the large text and won't relax until I sense that I have got the text in my grip. 

What this means is that my muscles get stiff, especially those in my neck and shoulders, so much so that by the next day, I had developed a painful neck and something that felt like but wasn't actually a headache. This lasted 48 hours, until I felt I could relax and start moving again.

But did I complain about the pain my neck? Not likely. Not when it's because I finally get to do what I enjoy, namely translating. It's a bit like the Holy Trinity or the Kinder Surprise eggs in that it's like a three-in-one thing:

1. It's a mental challenge: I get to engage my brain cells and drag out all the knowledge I've accumulated over the years. And it's even better when there's a tight deadline. Without a deadline looming, my brain doesn't wake up.

2. It satisfies my creative streak: I might not be able to write an original book, but I still get to 'create' a sentence by choosing the grammar, the vocabulary and the word order. Even in a legal text.

3. And it pays the bills - but I get to earn money by doing something that is very satisfying for me. At the end of the day, there's a text. Much more satisfying than working in an office, pushing papers around all day or wasting time with other people's egos in meetings. 

I've had experience of working in offices in Wales, London, a place on Mallorca and here in Germany and I still count myself lucky that I can sit in my nice big office, all alone, with the radio on in the background and as much tea and coffee I can handle and no-one looking over my shoulder.

For that, I'll happily accept a pain in the neck every now and then.

And this film is a comedy, you say?

Last month, I took myself off to the cinema to see a German film: Extrawurst with a local German actor, Hape (short for Hans-Peter) Kerkeling.

The word "Extrawurst" translates literally as "extra sausage", but it means figuratively "special treatment". 

The film opens at a committee meeting of a tennis club. The chairman is merely rubber-stamping [durchwinken] the decisions he makes, not giving the vice-chairman a chance to get a word in edgeways [auch mal zum Wort kommen]. Just when they want to wrap up the meeting, a woman gets up and proposes buying a second barbecue grill so that the Muslims don't have to eat food that has been cooked on the same grill that has had pork sausages on it. 

The chairman points out that the tennis club has only one Muslim member and the man in question says he is quite happy with the current situation and doesn't need any special treatment.

This is all in the first 5 minutes or so... and then the argument really kicks off. And continues for the next 40 or 45 minutes - non-stop. Really. Just as you think they've calmed down and have agreed on a solution, then everything flares up [aufflackern] again. 

The insults and accusations each of the five main characters throw at each other are very close to the true thoughts of many man and woman in the street. I've heard or read these thoughts and ideas over the years coming out of the mouths of ordinary people. It was shocking to hear them all come out, relentlessly, one after the other. You couldn't laugh. Really, you couldn't. 

The only bit of laughter from me was when a ball machine that was being repaired in the maintenance man's small room suddenly started up and balls went flying all around the room, sometimes actually hitting the people inside it.

Another woman laughed as a chairlift at Hape Kerkeling's home went wrong and threw him onto the floor and against a wall. She laughed for at least 5 minutes. Meanwhile, I'm sitting there aghast [fassungslos] and wondering how someone can laugh at someone's physical discomfort.

One more bit of slapstick [Klamauk] was yet to come towards the end of the film: a woman in a wheelchair rolls down a gentle slope and lands in a pond. Oh, what larks [was für einene Spaß]. Or maybe not.

And this film is classed as a comedy. Right. Pull the other one, it's got bells on.

For a taste of what the film was like, watch the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qwEWk5Gxi4

Carnival? - I'm outta here

It's that time of the year again: the main celebraitons of the Carnival season are getting ever closer.

Now, not all parts of Germany celebrate Carnival, which officially starts on the 11th day of the 11th month of the year. (Unfortunately, this is Remembrance Day in the UK, when everyone commemorates the soldiers fallen in past wars.) Carnival is a big thing in Catholic areas of Germany: Cologne (in particular), Düsseldorf, and Mainz are the largest towns that celebrate the season.

Festivities come to a climax with the parades on Rosenmontag (crazy Monday), which is the day before Shrove Tuesday (also known as Pancake Day in the UK - yum!). People dress up in costumes ranging from cowboys to princesses, astronauts to clowns, pirates to superheroes. On Rosenmontag, long parades consisting of floats with papier-mâché figures, often of a political nature, most famously made by Jacques Tilly. 

Here is one by Jacques Tilly - no words required

The clowns

And the marching bands - Germans do seem to like a uniform

And the people on most of the floats throw sweets (and sometimes other things, like packets of seeds)

Which are eagerly caught by all the people lining the streets

Who are in their colourful costumes

Now, the although Rosenmontag is the main day, there is also Altweiberfastnacht (literally: "old women's fasting night") on the Thursday before that Monday, that is to say on Fat Thursday (yes, really). On this day, women storm the Town Hall and snip off the ends of any man's tie that they can find, a symbolic emasculting gesture. For once, the women are supposed to be in power. 

And, of course, there is no reason not to wear a costume at the weekend and go out drinking and celebrating - until Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, when things get serious again. 

However, what I cannot understand is why so many people announce to me that they are leaving town for a week in order to avoid the Carnival festivities. All these festivities generally take place in the centre of town. 

My solution? Just stay at home. Why go to all the fuss and extra expense to "escape" the noisy people in town? Buy enough food, put your feet up, watch TV, read, play music, go for a walk in a park (no revellers there), phone friends, invite friends around, cook (for yourself or guests), do some DIY, clear out some cupboards, etc.

I can honestly say that in all my life, when I've stayed at home, I've barely noticed Carnival. Just don't go into town.

Punctuation - because it looks pretty

I'm still reeling [taumeln, schwanken] from the message that was passed on to me from a translation client via the agency.

The client said that when they used a colon [:] in the German text, they wanted to see a colon in the English text and not a full stop or a semicolon [;]. 

I replied - via the agency - saying that the way the German use colons and the way the English language uses colons are often two different things.

For one thing, the main rule in English when it comes to colons is that whatever stands in front of the colon MUST be a complete sentence.

For example, it is wrong to write this: "The five continents are: Africa, Asia, Australasia, America and Europe."

This is becuase "The five continents are" does not constitute a complete sentence.

On the other hand, "There are five continents" does. Hence you can write, "There are five continents: Africa, Asia, Australasia, America and Europe."

The woman in the agency sent that explanation on to the client, but, much to her dismay [Bestürzung], and mine, the client wrote back saying that they liked the look of the colon and didn't care about the rules of English.

Fortunately, the woman in the agency said that I should try to keep the colon in wherever possible, but to write correct English. The thing is that the client is a magazine that credits the agency with translating the articles. Who wants to get a reputation for bad translations? Not the agency, and definitely not me either.

Imagine insisting on incorrect punctuation, just because it looks pretty.

We shall see how this goes. 

"Damn! I forgot to pack the mackerel!"

Yes, sitting on the coach heading towards Bavaria on 28 December last year, those words really did pass through my mind. I'd forgotten to pack the mackerel.

Now, why on earth would any sane person think about packing tinned fish when going on a half-board holiday (i.e. with breakfast and a three-course dinner included)?

Well, I'll tell you. In the final days of 2004, when all the world added a new word to their vocabulary (tsunami), I found myself in Hong Kong, visiting a former student of mine. Her parents kindly invited me to join them at a large restaurant on New Year's Eve. Looking around, I think I might have been the only non-Chinese person there. But that didn't faze [stören] me as, during my student days in Manchester and Göttingen, I had often found myself in a room full of people whose language I couldn't understand, be it Chinese, Farsi or Arabic.

Anyway, we sat at a large circular table close to an aquarium, behind which was the kitchen. The father got up, walked over to the fish tank, stabbed a finger in the direction of one hapless [unglückselig] fish swimming past and said, "That one."

About three minutes later, the fish was lying on a plate on the table, gutted, filleted and cooked. Amazing.

The father then told me why it is important to always eat fish on New Year's Eve. Apparently, the fish scales represent coins and if you eat fish, it'll be good for your money luck.

Since then, I've always done that. Even if it's just smoked salmon sandwiches or, in Budapest once, a tuna sandwich from the Subway chain.

As soon as I got to the small Bavarian village where the hotel was, I found the nearest shop selling food and bought some tinned fish and it was a good job I did so, too. The hotel didn't intend serving fish on 31 December, and I didn't feel that great either, so I picnicked in my room and made sure I had my mackerel after all since I really could use some money luck this year.

And now you know what to do in 11.5 months' time to ensure you'll be rolling in it in 2027, too: eat fish.