a collection of my words

Europe!

2011-11-08T09:40:00.004Z

So…!

It’s been a rather hectic few months in my little world.

I’ve gone from working as a freelance translator and editor, based in Porto, Portugal to living in Trier, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany and commuting to work in the Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union in Kirchberg, Luxembourg City.

I’m still working as a translator and editor. That’s probably the only constant. That and my cats and partner who are with me in Germany! :)

Moving from a Latin, Southern European country in which I felt really relatively settled (settled is probably a bit of a stretch as I’ve never really spent longer than 2 years anywhere since leaving home 8 years ago) and comfortable to a Northern European country with a very different mentality and language and then commuting to a third country with yet another language is certainly stimulating but it is also challenging. Much of what I left the United Kingdom to escape from, on first glance, appears to be present in Germany and Luxembourg. Namely bad weather, a faster paced, more stressful lifestyle and seemingly less focus on food (!). I’ve spoken before about how I feel most comfortable in “Latin” countries, for want of a better term. Although I grew up in Northern Ireland and lived there until I was 18 and later studied in England I feel that I personally am more suited, emotionally and psychologically, in many ways, to living in Southern European or Latin American cultures. Overall I have felt most settled, happy, content and at ease when living in Buenos Aires and Porto. So, I was rather concerned about moving back to Northern Europe, after spending over two years in Portugal, the longest consecutive period of time I have ever voluntarily lived anywhere. However, as much as I do miss so, so many things about Portugal, I have to say that I have not found the move quite as difficult as I had expected. There are several reasons for this.

Positives

The people in the Translation Centre in Luxembourg have all been very welcoming, professional, friendly and helpful. This has undoubtedly helped significantly in my transition to life here.

Secondly I find Germany to be an incredibly well ordered, structured and refreshingly “straightforward” country in many ways, after living in Portugal. Essentially the only things I have ever missed about the UK, my experience of Northern Europe, when living elsewhere are the relative lack of bureaucracy, and the lack of the “mañana culture/mentality". There is simply more organisation and structure and things just work better. There is no other way to say it. It’s a massive stereotype and also a huge generalisation, but for the most part, it’s true! Nonetheless things are often taken to silly extremes in the UK. Common sense goes out the window and rules are ruthlessly and clumsily enforced. Despite the reputation that German people have for being brisk and sticklers for rules I have actually found people to be remarkably friendly, open, helpful and kind as well as highly efficient. There seems to be a great deal more flexibility than in the UK and I feel more like I am being treated as a valued individual than in the UK. There is more service and more attention to detail. People are also lovely in Portugal, of course, it’s just that they aren’t very good at overcoming their conditioning (and the system) in order to actually get things done! So, I have found things here to be very smooth and straightforward and simple to sort out. Which has been a huge relief after Portugal.

Food. Again, Germans really do have such a bad reputation and it is seemingly unfounded. I’ve been here for a month now and also spent a few weeks while at school in Berlin, Heidelberg and Cologne. And I must say that I have been, on the whole, very impressed with almost everything I have eaten. Yes, German traditional food is quite rustic and heavy and relatively basic. But, it exists. In the Uk traditional food has almost disappeared from menus; it is no longer "fashionable" In the UK it is also very difficult to differentiate between regions, based on food. Going from Belfast to Edinburgh to Manchester, you see the same eateries, the same menus and the same ingredients replicated across the board. In Germany respect for the seasons and for the produce and specialities of each region are key. As they should be! This is obviously something that is common throughout Europe but somehow seems to have dwindled in the UK. The traditional food here isn’t perhaps as sophisticated or complex as French or Italian cooking, but it is very tasty, fresh and filling. Coming from a country like Portugal, with such a rich and diverse food culture, and being someone who adores food and cookery, I was worried about moving here. But overall, although I do miss certain dishes (francesinhas(!), feijoada, picanha, seafood in particular) I have been impressed with both the traditional German food I have tried as well as with the Japanese and Indian restaurants I have visited. There is also a great variety of wines (advantage of being in a wine producing regions) which is another thing I was anxious about, given that Portugal produces such good wine, as well as beers, ciders and so on. And the cost of living is relatively low here (obviously significantly higher than Portugal but so much lower than Luxembourg!).

Weather. It is grey and cloudy, yes. But it isn’t wet! Which is wonderful. Porto in the Autumn and Winter is very, very rainy. I can cope with cold much better than with rain. The weather so far has been cool but dry and still. Not much wind and rain. Which is very nice. Of course I miss bright light but it could be worse.

Negatives

Eating in the street! This drives me insane! People seem to eat practically every meal unterwegs (on the go)! In Portugal (and most of Southern Europe & France) mealtimes are sacred, especially lunch! Everything here is zum mitnehmen (to take away) and I find it very odd that people are happy to walk about eating. The same goes for coffee. I miss proper Portuguese coffee so much. To me, the coffee they have here is tasteless and watery. It’s like comparing a mouthful of intense, rich velvety flavour to a mouthful of sugary, watery milk. Horrible. I miss sitting down, having a proper meal and coffee afterwards. I find rushing meals and eating while moving around to be utterly unfathomable. I don’t understand why anyone would, except in an absolute emergency, not pause and sit and enjoy their meal. Snacking and grazing all day is incredibly bad for the body and mind and it’s something I really dislike about here. I feel that three structured, formal meals a day are what I am used to and what is best for me. On this point, I absolutely miss Portugal!

Tipping! In Portugal you only really ever tip in a restaurant if you have a very good meal and the waiter is extremely attentive and useful. And even then it will be around 5-10%. Here, it seems that one must tip for everything, and at least 10%! I would much prefer that it was just added onto the bill as a service charge as it really doesn’t seem optional. It makes me feel that the waiter in a cafe or restaurant, or the taxi driver or whoever, is only being friendly because they assume you will tip them! I believe that the customer should tip when and if they feel it is appropriate. Not, in all cases, almost regardless of the level of service received! Again, this is something that I got used to in Portugal: table service is the norm and is expected. It is not an additional service which requires additional payment. The very reason you pay an inflated price for food and drinks in restaurants, cafes etc is because you are being served them! This is definitely a major culture shock. Also, the way in which you are supposed to tip here is something I find odd. The waiter appears with the bill and a money purse and you are supposed to decide on the spot how much to tip and tell them how much you would like to tip when handing them your money. This is very un-British (actually telling the person how much you will tip them seems much too direct on a subject like money!) and unlike what I was used to in Portugal as well, where the tip is decided after the bill is paid and is generally left on the table. My residual Britishness makes me almost embarrassed to be so open about tipping (which is silly I know). And the expectation that you will tip and tip well grates on me, especially when the service is nothing special.

I’m sure with time I will come across many more things I’ll feel the need to point out, but for now I’m coping (just about) with the above!

The square beside our apartment building in Trier

Studying language at university

2011-09-08T13:21:00.002+01:00

I have lots of opinions on this topic.
But here are a few thoughts of mine in response to an article I read.

This is a relatively insightful article however there are a few major additional points that I would like to mention for the sake of those people reading it who may like to work in the languages industry. I too studied a language degree and now work as a professional translator. Firstly it is extremely important to distinguish between more vocational and practical language degrees which normally equip graduates with the necessary skills to enter one of the related professions (teaching, translation, interpreting) and the more traditional, academic degrees which focus on literature, history and culture and much less on acquiring a professional level in your foreign languages and the appropriate knowledge about possible career paths.

I was very disappointed that fluency and career prospects as a linguist were very much secondary to literature (often not even read, taught or discussed in the foreign language and therefore of negligible value to an aspiring language professional!). I am not saying that the culture of a country/region is not fundamental to understanding a language; I acknowledge and appreciate that. What I am saying is that the study of culture, history and so on is not being used appropriately in order to further the students' knowledge of the country, language and culture. All too often, on very traditional "language" degrees, the manner in which the modules are delivered mean that they could easily be mistaken for those which would be taught on an English Literature or History degree and are really not of that much use to a linguist. In contrast, I found that studying literature and film at A-Level and on my year abroad was very useful and enriching as it was taught in the foreign language which provided essential exposure. I actually switched to a more practical degree and graduated from a different university for this reason. It is important to assess why you are studying the degree and what your long-term aims are; the year abroad is incredibly useful, but if the professional and vocational aspects of the degree are all but non-existent for the other 3 years of the course, you will inevitably struggle to compete with high-calibre graduates from other institutions.

The second point I would like to make is to highlight the requirement to study a minimum of 2 languages to degree level if you would like to work as an interpreter or translator (either freelance or for any major private business or international organisation). I translate from 4 source languages and have worked successfully as a freelance translator for over two years and am now set to work in the EU for a period as a translator and reviser. However if I had just one source language I doubt very much that this would be the case. Most of my work has been from French and German (my other source languages are Spanish and Portuguese). I would like to point out that it is essential to be aware of market needs in the translation industry. Ironically when deciding which languages to focus on at university I chose the two I now work with the least precisely because I assumed that French was a very common language for Anglophones to study so I would choose a more unusual language which is still a major world language (Portuguese). I also decided not to focus on German as I assumed that Northern European languages would not be as "in-demand" as Southern European ones given that the inhabitants of these countries tend to have a much higher level of English. The reverse is actually true. German, Dutch and the Scandinavian languages along with the Baltic languages and Eastern European EU member state languages to a somewhat lesser extent are extremely useful professionally. Dutch, German and Scandinavian language speakers in particular are aware (precisely because they have a high level of English) that only a native speaker can ever translate flawlessly, idiomatically and accurately and as such these are excellent languages to learn as speakers of these languages will value your native expertise.

Professional linguists only EVER translate or interpret into their native language; all other languages are passive source languages which you must understand extremely well but don't necessarily need to be fluent in. In any case the reality is that fluency is almost impossible to acquire without spending several years in the country and British degree programmes are usually nowhere near as effective at teaching a language as courses are in other EU countries. In addition the other major issue is that in the UK we tend to start to study languages much, much later than in other countries, have much less exposure to them and study them less intensively. Nonetheless British language graduates are very much in demand for their native level of English. German and French is probably still the single most useful language combination for a native Anglophone, especially if you aspire to work for the EU or UN. It's essential, in the case that you would like to work as an interpreter or translator, to train properly and to investigate these career options at an early stage. This can be done through an additional post-graduate level course or by choosing an undergraduate degrees which includes the study of these professions and equips students with the skills and knowledge to work with their languages professionally.

Quick update

2011-09-08T13:18:00.002+01:00

Everything has been hectic recently.

I've been extremely busy with work, trying to enjoy the summer and also organising a move to Luxembourg because... I'm going to work for the EU for 6 months.

Temporary moving is rather complex when you have two cats, an apartment you want to sub-let in Portugal to return to in the Spring and need to find an apartment somewhere suitable (most likely in Metz, France or Trier, Germany, just across the border from Luxembourg) to rent for 6 months.

In addition my sister has visited Porto and I've been to the south of Portugal for a few days of relaxation.

Crazy.

Farewell and good riddance to Little Britain?

2011-06-20T11:51:00.009+01:00

Farewell and good riddance to Little Britain is an article published in the Guardian yesterday. It infers that "Little Britain" is an unpleasant, unfunny, elitist and nasty television show. I'm afraid I have to disagree. From a cultural perspective, firstly, I think that it is essential that a country can ponder its shortcomings and idiosyncrasies and can poke fun at itself. Being self-aware and self-critical, as a nation, is a positive trait which should be encouraged. Any self-confident and proud nation should be able to weather a little bit of criticism, from national and international sources. The problem is that, in a country which is very much an island in Europe in the cultural, social and linguistic sense, criticism is not taken well. Even when it comes from within the country. Accusations of classism abound in the piece and in any perceived attack on the British "working" classes in general, the class background of those making the jokes about/and or criticising the lower classes and the UK's "benefit culture" are always thoroughly scrutinised and their opinion shot down if they are not of the same background as those they are criticising. Which is a curious and baffling attitude. LB critiques all aspects on British society, as far as I can see. All class groups, ethnicities, sexualities etc. It would not only be misleading and incorrect to call the show racist or classist, it would require the viewer to ignore many of the sketches...

But back to the main point. In my opinion, "Little Britain" is an intelligent, timely and democratic satire. It mocks much of what is seen as intrinsically and uniquely British. And is does so in an equal manner. No part of modern British society is spared. And that includes groups which we have been taught it is impolite and politically incorrect to critique in the mainstream media and which are therefore not routinely mocked. The horrendous prevalence of over the top "politically correct" thought leads people to brand a comedy show like "Little Britain", which pokes fun at British people as a whole, homophobic, racist, classist and so on. It is easy to make a case for all of these accusations but the primary problem I have with the attack being made on LB is that it is not essentially being appreciated for what it is; comedy. It may be uncomfortable to watch, we may find it at times unpleasant and it may make us squirm. But that, to me, is the very point of the show. Why are we uncomfortable watching a scene in which a white British character mocks an Indian character's accent... Because we have been conditioned to believe that racism does not exist in politically correct, 21st century Britain and the insinuation that xenophobia and cultural ignorance continue to be rife in our society stirs up, not a desire to rectify this, but rather utter rejection of this notion. In short, having our flaws, as a society, pointed out, tends to infuriate and frustrate us.

The British public can undoubtedly be extremely prudish and reserved and doesn't take well to being criticised. Regardless of whether it's our often condescending attitude to other countries, foreign travel and our poor foreign language skills or our high rate of teenage pregnancy (see Vicky Pollard) being mocked. Yes, some of the sketches may be crass. But they get our attention, they highlight important issues and draw our attention to sociologically significant characteristics of our modern society. Having lived in several countries I find LB very interesting. Interesting in that it highlights very quintessentially British occurrences and traits. It could not be about another country. The article above on teenage pregnancy, compares teenage pregnancy rates in Holland (The teenage pregnancy rate in Holland is only one-fifth as high as that of the UK) and the UK and compares how sex education is taught in both countries. It concludes that "it is as much about changing attitudes and culture in the UK as it is about developing lesson plans". I would argue that, by exposing the less pleasant aspects of our society we can confront and improve them, rather than by burying our head in the sand and maintaining the same arrogant belief that the way we do things is the best way. LB may make us uncomfortable; it points out our flaws and shortcomings. But we should be able to laugh at ourselves and simultaneously use the understanding gained to rectify our mistakes, as a culture and as a society.

Good comedy makes us laugh and makes us think. It should challenge our preconceptions and push the limits. And LB certainly does all of that, in my opinion.

The Tree of Life

2011-06-05T22:39:00.005+01:00

I just watched "The Tree of Life". And I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. It was the first film I've seen that caused several people to walk out of the cinema. Not because the film was particularly unpleasant or difficult to watch (like Von Trier's"Antichrist" for example) but rather because it requires patience and is quite visually overwhelming and conceptually unusual. So much so that I frequently felt that I was watching a Herzog documentary film. I also feel that the hollywood-esque cast list and the fact that the film is being shown in the mainstream multiplexes as a result of this, may mean that the audience is expecting a very familiar and straightforward hollywood narrative and is confused and frustrated by the unfamiliar concept and format of the film.

I had few notions about the script or concept of the film before seeing it, having only seen the rather extraordinary trailer and not having read any reviews prior to the screening. As such I was caught somewhat off guard. The film is visually captivating and incredibly beautiful. The narrative is fascinating and crushing, lofty and pretentious at times but also very touching and human. It's a confusing film and I left the cinema feeling very unsure about my feelings about it. I was impressed and angered. Overwhelmed and slightly disappointed. It's a film with wonderful highs but certain scenes (big-bang) do drag and come across as very forced and melodramatic. It could undoubtedly benefit from a thorough edit. Nonetheless for all its cliches and pretensions, it is certainly a film worth seeing.

The Republic of Ireland is a sovereign state....

2011-04-21T16:54:00.006+01:00

...however the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office doesn't appear to have heard!

I "liked" the FCO on Facebook and as such see their updates, which can often be quite useful to British citizens living abroad. In a recent video on passport applications the outline of the entire island of Ireland, including the Republic is shown covered with the Union Flag.

For those unfamiliar with the historical and political intricacies and complexities of the island of Ireland you may want to have a look at the history of the Irish Republic and the issue with flags in Northern Ireland. The Republic, as an independent country, naturally has its own flag.

My comments on the video are below and a screenshot of the image is above:

Christopher Fitzsimons Useful video however you might want to update the image of the British Isles (including the Republic of Ireland) at 4:27! The ROI is not part of the UK!

FCO travel - travel advice from the Foreign Office Ireland is part of the British Isles, but not part of the UK.

Christopher Fitzsimons I understand that but the flag used is the Union Jack which is the flag of the UK. And at the point the image is shown the words "British nationals" and "UK" are used and the Republic of Ireland is shown with a Union Jack. It's quite misleading and some would argue offensive given that the ROI is an independent country.

FCO travel - travel advice from the Foreign Office It is rather clumsy, but no offence meant, obviously.

Christopher Fitzsimons

The point is that the flag, whatever we call it (although the terminology is apparently disupted, seehttp://tinyurl.com/lh8dsx) , is the flag of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Republic of Ireland is an independent state with its own flag. As such the ROI should not be shown in the way it has been in this video. Personally, I am Northern Irish and therefore British and don't find it offensive, just a little shocking and clumsy, as mentioned. I don't doubt however that anyone from the Republic would most likely find it highly insensitive and offensive and would consider it a major political blunder which warrants correction.

Update on Portsmouth situation

2011-04-18T14:25:00.001+01:00

So, finally, someone else on the course indicated that they agree with my point of view.

I also work as a professional freelance translator and completely agree with Christopher's comments. None of my agency nor direct clients would ask or allow me to translate into anything other than my native tongue. I would appreciate some information regarding the German>English Spec Trans courses and whether I will have to translate into German. If this is the case it is a completely worthless exercise (for me personally as I am also doing this course for professional development) and I will have to seriously reconsider completing the rest of the course.

Bad Food Britain

2011-04-15T10:25:00.003+01:00

I came across this review on a book I'm thinking of buying, called Bad Food Britain: How a Nation Ruined its Appetite by Joanna Blythman, an award winning food writer, on amazon.co.uk. It effectively sums up the point I was making in my last post:

[Joanna Blythman] explodes the myth of Britain as a cosmopolitan, sophisticated, cappuccino drinking, Michelin-starred restaurant frequenting, organic goat's milk yogurt slurping and rare-breed pork sausage-gobbling foodie nation by giving us the facts on the sad, brutal reality. Here are some frightening statistics: in 2003 Britain ate more ready meals than the rest of Europe put together; Britain eats more than half of all the crisps and savoury snack in Europe; 40% of all food bought in Britain ends up in the bin; one out of three Britons do not eat vegetables because they are too much effort to prepare; by 2020 at least a third of all British adults, one fifth of British boys and on third of British girls will be obese. Of course we are out of kilter with Europe in how we deal with food. We prefer, lemming-like, to follow our cousins across the pond who are several years further down the road of mass obesity and a junk food culture so pervasive that it is actually incredibly difficult to buy and eat healthy food even if you want to.

The book amply demonstrates our problems with food: we don't really enjoy it very much: we have become disconnected from the pleasure that good food can bring; we don't see the point of it; we don't have time for it; we're afraid of it; we have become divorced from its origins and in fact don't like to be reminded where it comes from. Every week we hear conflicting advice about what is or isn't good for you. Governments shy away, under the huge pressure exerted by the food industry, from giving hard messages about the impact of nutritionally valueless food. Thus we are told you can eat any old junk as long as you exercise (remember James Fixx, the American runner who lived to that dictum and collapsed and died of a heart attack?), and that there is no such thing as bad foods, only bad diets.

This book is gripping if extremely uncomfortable reading and because of that should be prescribed reading. Why is everyone not talking about it? Maybe because we are in denial: we don't want to hear the truth about how distorted and perverted our relationship with food has become because then we would have to do something about it. What can we do about it? First read the book, then heed the author's advice: "eat as little processed food as possible and base your diet on home-cooked meals made from scratch from raw ingredients". Simple really and you could save yourself more than just a few pounds.

Culture and Society, Food in the UK vs Portugal

2011-04-14T10:57:00.015+01:00

One of the major differences between the UK and other countries I've lived in which I often discuss with my partner is the concept of meals/food/cookery/eating in general.

In Portugal (as well as in Argentina and France) the day is, in many ways, structured around fixed meal times. Food is important. It takes precedence. Lunch is most often a hot, sit-down meal, eaten at a table with proper cutlery and crockery, with colleagues/friends/family. Dinner is the same. Lunch is very much a fixed time and no-one would ever dream of scheduling something at that time, unless it was absolutely essential.

In contrast, in the UK, eating is often seen as a hassle and an inconvenience, something to fit around the rest of your day. There is a tendency to "just grab something quick" and so the nutritional not to mention social significance of food and meal times is dismissed and eroded. When someone is passionate about food, interested in cooking and eats three proper meals a day (as I did in the UK and continue to do) it is often seen as being greedy. Eating two hot meals a day is seen as excessive despite the fact that in Mediterranean countries, which have an extremely healthy diet and lifestyle compared to countries in the Anglosphere, this is commonplace. In Portugal I eat a very small breakfast, a two course lunch (soup and a hot meal) and a cooked, hot dinner. I almost never snack. Occasionally people have a drink and small snack late afternoon in Portugal (5-6PM). I only really eat this meal if I am going to a class afterwards and won't eat dinner until later than usual. Breakfast is approximately 9am, lunch 1pm and dinner around 8.30pm. When I eat each meal I am hungry and ready to sit down and eat. And I always eat at a table. I am providing this information, not to highlight anything particularly interesting about my eating habits, but to demonstrate the Southern-European/Mediterranean meal structure, which most people in Portugal follow. In contrast, in the UK, people eat a larger breakfast, snack frequently (tea and elevenses), disregard lunch, often eating nothing more than a pre-prepared sandwich and some other form of snack food and only eating one cooked meal a day, and even this meal is frequently not eaten at a table. People also use the excuse of tea breaks to eat biscuits and other snack foods.

From a nutritional perspective this approach is clearly less healthy than, for example, the way the Portuguese or French people tend to eat. Eating foods such as cheese, or other foods perceived to be unhealthy/high in calories, in the UK is often scorned and ridiculed. And yet, many people eat a large amount of processed foods (which contain extremely high levels of salt, saturated fat and preservatives). I also found in the UK that people are very badly informed about nutrition, listening to tidbits of information from the media and the government and forming a zealous but misinformed opinion of diet and nutrition. An example is the "5 a day" campaign which many people in the UK have completely misinterpreted, believing that all the need to do to ensure optimal health (disregarding the rest of their diet and lifestyle) is to consume 5 pieces of fruit and vegetables each day. In my opinion the government and media should educate people about cookery, food, ingredients and meals, rather than preaching overly simplistic slogans.

Mireille Guiliano, author of French Women Don't Get Fat mentions the same issues I have addressed in comparing the Anglo-saxon (US) diet to the continental western European (French) diet.

Guiliano explains the key factors to the French woman's ability to stay slim as:

Smaller portion sizes
Savoring food to increase the feeling of satisfaction, choosing a small amount of high quality food rather than larger amounts of low quality food
Eating 3 meals a day and not snacking
Taking in plenty of liquid such as water, herbal tea and soup
Sitting down and eating mindfully (no multitasking and eating while standing up, watching TV, or reading)
Emphasizing freshness, variety, balance, and, above all, pleasure

This is precisely what I would argue the issue is. Food should be savoured and respected. It should be given time, both in terms of choosing ingredients and recipes, cooking and eating. This simple shift in attitude results in significant health benefits as well as social benefits. Pleasure, in eating, is not wrong. Food should be enjoyed and meals should be social occasions. People should have set meal times and not just graze and snack all day, paying attention only to their stomach. Food is more than that.

Studies on the Southern European Atlantic Diet, the traditional diet of northern Portugal and Galicia, have shown that the diet reduces the risk of heart disease. In stark contrast, studies have shown the almost 2 million people are malnourished in the UK, despite having almost unlimited access to food. Obesity is also a major, growing issue as it is in the US.

"Experts say the poor state of the average British diet — often high in fat, salt and calories, but low on nutrition — means malnutrition is a problem even though food is plentiful....doctors say they are seeing patients who are both overweight and malnourished. According to government statistics, 75 percent of Britons are overweight; more than one-fifth are obese."

Another outcome of this phenomenon of shunning mealtimes and eating meals with family/friends/colleagues is the stunted development of social skills. Children therefore don't learn to cook, which is an essential skill in life and they also don't have the chance to develop their conversation skills and to learn about social interaction. I would also argue that the lack of emphasis on meal times is one of the major causes of the unhealthy relationship many British people have with alcohol. Wine is not commonly consumed with meals and alcohol in general is reserved for social occasions, creating a link, from an early age between socialising and alcohol and not between socialising and food. Again, in stark contrast, the Southern European countries consume wine regularly and moderately, with meals and in front of their children. Alcohol consumption is not perceived as something to be hidden or something which one only does to become inebriated. As Hadley Freeman so eloquently puts it:

"socialising [in the UK] is so shrouded in bashful anxiety that it is taken as a given that real friendships are forged only under the forgiving umbrella of mutual inebriation"

Because children and young people don't gain valuable social interaction skills at the dinner table, with their family and friends and don't learn about relationships and conversation in this environment they are more anxious and withdrawn, in socialising. Additionally, because they aren't provided with examples of healthy (and health-enhancing) consumption of alcohol from an early age, they see alcohol as a way to rebel and to enjoy themselves, rather than as an integral part of the enjoyable experience of having a meal and socialising in that way.A night out in the UK is so often a euphemism for binge drinking, which is not at all the case in the other countries I have lived in, particularly in Argentina and Portugal. Alcohol abuse, in my opinion, has nothing to do with the price of drinks sold by supermarkets and bars and everything to do with cultural and social attitudes towards binge drinking and intoxication. Case in point; alcohol is much, much cheaper in Portugal than it is in the UK and yet binge drinking is almost unheard of here and yet it is an enormous social, health and financial issue in the UK. The British government likes to use retailers/bars as scapegoats because it is much easier to blame them for selling alcohol cheaply and in this way forcing grown adults with free will to spend their money on absurd amount of alcohol (which is what the government/media likes to make out that they are doing!) than to admit that this is a severe underlying social and cultural issue. Contrast this attitude, from a statement made by a minister in the Northern Irish Executive, a country in which there is a severe issue with alcohol abuse, with the attitude prevalent in France, where alcohol is cheap and where children see it, in their homes, on their table day after day and where, despite this (or because of it!!!) there is an infinitely healthier relationship with alcohol:

“Alcohol advertising on television should also be banned before 9pm. Our health messages cannot compete with the vast sums being spent on advertising by the drinks industry. I will therefore work with my colleagues across the UK to ensure that existing legislation on alcohol advertising is rigorously enforced. I will be raising the issue of a watershed for alcohol advertising.”

Binge drinking can only be tackled by addressing attitudes, not by hiding alcohol and pretending the issue will go away. And that starts with food, mealtimes and the very concept of socialising. To put it simply, binge drinking (in public) is socially acceptable in the UK and is not elsewhere. The government needs to look at why that is.

Jo Daykin, Northern Ireland Drugs and Alcohol Strategy Coordinator, said binge drinking had become increasingly "normalised".

"It is a sobering reality that if Northern Ireland's binge drinking culture continues it could result in a generation's health being lost to alcohol misuse," she said.

I recently came across an article which contained the following statistics, which for me, sum up my experience in the UK:

"Eighty percent of British children have televisions in their bedrooms, more than have their biological fathers at home. Fifty-eight percent of British children eat their evening meal in front of the television (a British child spends more than five hours per day watching a screen); 36 percent never eat any meals together with other family members; and 34 percent of households do not even own dining tables. In the prison where I once worked, I discovered that many inmates had never eaten at a table together with someone else.

Let me speculate briefly on the implications of these startling facts. They mean that children never learn, from a sense of social obligation, to eat when not hungry, or not to eat when they are. Appetite is all they need consult in deciding whether to eat—a purely egotistical outlook. Hence anything that interferes with the satisfaction of appetite will seem oppressive. They do not learn such elementary social practices as sharing or letting others go first. Since mealtimes are usually when families get to converse, the children do not learn the art of conversation, either; listening to what others say becomes a challenge."

Translation in academia vs the professional translation industry

2011-04-11T15:48:00.006+01:00

Having worked in two British universities and studied at three, completing a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts, and currently working towards a Post Graduate Certificate I feel that I have certainly experienced academia in the UK sufficiently in order to feel that I am qualified to comment on it. Having also worked for clients across Europe and beyond for the last two years, as a professional translator and proof-reader, I also consider myself suitably experienced to comment on the translation industry. And I have concluded that I dislike the condescension certain academics and students display towards those who are more focused on and interested in the vocational side of their discipline than on pursuing an career as a researcher. Each to their own. But I feel that many students, particularly at post-graduate level, who have often not yet had a great deal of experience in the working world, can be relatively green, naive and, to put it simply, quite arrogant and cocky. Case in point. On my degree at the University of Portsmouth we were asked, being about a third of the way into the first academic year of the course, for feedback on the programme. I am a great believer in showing everyone respect, regardless of their position or status within a certain structure. I.e. I don't believe that lecturers are always correct. I don't believe that we shouldn't challenge those who are in some way "senior" to us and accept what they say without question. Some people, however, haven't quite caught on that lecturers are not infallible and all powerful.

Subject: Student-staff consultative committee, spring 2011	Topic: Student-Staff Consultative Committee spring 2011
Author: Carol O Sullivan	Date: 06 April 2011 10:25

Dear all,

The student-staff consultative committee is an opportunity for you to tell us your views on any aspect of the course. This may include e.g.:
* Induction and registration
* Course management
* Resources
* Course structure and content
* Student support and guidance
You may post your input here on the course website as a reply to this message. Alternatively, you may email your feedback to carol.osullivan@port.ac.uk.

Subject: Re:Student-staff consultative committee, spring 2011	Topic: Student-Staff Consultative Committee spring 2011
Author: CHRISTOPHER FITZSIMONS	Date: 06 April 2011 11:22

Hello Carol and everyone,

This is a great idea; thank you for providing this space. I just wanted to use this opportunity to share my concern and disappointment regarding one aspect of the course content.

I chose the MA Programme in Translation Studies at the University of Portsmouth for two main reasons. The first is that a good selection of both theoretical and practical modules is offered which effectively creates two distinct pathways on the course; one for those interesting in pursuing research and an academic career in translation and one for those who want to use the programme to develop their vocational and professional skills in order to work professionally as a translator. Of course there are also those interested in both these “pathways” and the programme enables us to achieve a balance between the theoretical and the practical should we wish to. The second is that it is possible to exit the programme at three different levels. As such, I decided to choose the four “Specialised Translation” modules for my first year of the course with the aim of completing them and existing with the Post-graduate Certificate in 2012. I chose these modules as I believed them to be the most vocationally orientated and I want to use the course to develop and improve my translation skills and to gain specialised knowledge through these modules. I feel that this sort of flexibility in the course structure and the variety of modules available enables students on the course to focus their learning on the areas they are most personally and professionally interested in and to get what they want out of the degree.
I am currently following “Specialised Translation 2” in both French and German and have so far been very pleased with the modules with one significant exception. The aim of this module, according to the handbook, is:

“to familiarise students with the main language-specific resources of the translator for specific domains

2. to identify the problems of translating specialised texts;

3. to identify strategies for the translation of such texts;

4. to develop the critical comparison and evaluation of alternative translations.”

There is a general consensus in the translation industry and among the professional bodies I am involved with that it is highly unprofessional to translate out of one's native language. All of the outsorcers I work with make it very clear that they only work with professionals who translate into their native language. However, the third block of the French Specialised Translation 2 module is only offered into French.

I have to disagree with the logic of this. Professionally, translators never translate out of their native language unless they are completely bi-lingual, which very few people are. As I am studying this course as Continuing Professional Development and work professionally as a translator I expect it to develop my areas of specialisation and my translation skills. I have only ever translated out of my native language on my undergraduate degree and this was in the context of improving my writing skills in the foreign language as well as my understanding of that language. I would not expect to be asked to do so on a Masters in Translation, especially not on a module in specialised translation which is clearly aimed at those students who have chosen this course for vocational and practical purposes. I appreciate that there is an language option when it comes to the assessment and that we are encouraged to translate both ways within our groups but I feel that it would be much more beneficial for me personally (and for anyone studying this course for a similar reason) to translate exclusively into my native language and have this work marked as part of this block than to translate into French, which, at best, is a purely linguistic exercise and has little to do with the profession of translation given that a client would never expect me to translate that way. I understand that there is a mixture of native Francophones and Anglophones studying on the course and as such I would like to suggest that in these modules, for each block, there is an option to translate in either direction, according to each individual’s native language.

I strongly feel that the department should make it clearer in marketing this course that students will be expected to translate out of their native language (even if it is only for one of the three blocks on each module). If I had known this it would have made me reconsider my choices. It also seems entirely illogical to practise translation into French for this area of specialisation and then be assessed on a translation into English.
I understand that translating out of English can be a useful exercise but I feel that it is the sort of language training that should be done on an undergraduate degree in languages (on which the aim is to develop and improve one’s command of a foreign language) and not on a masters level degree specifically in translation (which I feel should be focusing on improving my translation skills, i.e. primarily my writing skills in the target language). In short, I feel that we should be focusing on perfecting our translation skills which evidently encompasses a good level of understanding of the source text (which I believe we should already have acquired at this point from our previous studies/experience and should only be perfecting at this stage) in addition to practising and improving our writing skills in the target language. From a professional perspective, this degree programme and specifically this module, I believe, should be focusing on helping us to develop our specialised skills and knowledge and ensuring that we are translating to a professional level and it is highly unprofessional, in that context, to translate out of our native language. I don’t believe that it is a valid argument to consider that certain people may personally believe they are capable of translating out of their native language and therefore it is down to each individual to decide whether or not they are happy to do so. In the professional world this is just not acceptable in 99% of cases and it is important to recognise and respect that. I believe that it is very important, on a programme like this, to value both those who would like to focus on theory as well as those who are mainly interested in practice and to not engineer the course in such a way that one group is disadvantaged and prevented from achieving their objectives. The only colleagues I know who translate into two languages professionally are those from Quebec who have been educated, from childhood, in both languages, to an equal standard and have grown up in an entirely bilingual environment. And that is a completely different scenario to someone translating out of their native tongue. Most of us have just one native language and one or several (sometimes relatively passive) source languages. As a learning exercise it is fine to translate out of one’s native language, but I just feel that it is not the sort of exercise that is suited to this kind of module and programme and that we should be using our valuable time to practise the actual tasks which the profession of translating encompasses, rather than practising our writing skills in a foreign language, which is undoubtedly a valuable and significant skill, but one which I feel would be more suited to a degree in language/linguistics and not one in translation.

Subject: Re:Student-staff consultative committee, spring 2011	Topic: Student-Staff Consultative Committee spring 2011
Author: STUDENT XXXXXXXX	Date: 11 April 2011 12:08

I know in some 'real worlds' we are often asked to translate into L2. It is an excellent educational exercise and prepares the percentage of students who will confront this.

Subject: Re:Student-staff consultative committee, spring 2011	Topic: Student-Staff Consultative Committee spring 2011
Author: CHRISTOPHER FITZSIMONS	Date: 11 April 2011 15:39

Any reputable company in the translation industry I have ever worked with (and I work with many different companies in many different countries) would never ask a non-bilingual professional to translate out of their native language. Perhaps a direct (non-agency) client would, but this is only out of ignorance with regard to the industry and is a case of client education being necessary and being the responsibility of the translator. As I said, it is extremely uncommon (and unprofessional) for a language services provider to be asked to produce a (written) translation into a language which is not their first language. Perhaps you are thinking of interpreting, which is a completely separate profession, when you mention "L2". In the translation industry we talk in terms of "source" and "target" languages and the target language should always be the translator's native language.

I have no problem with anyone choosing to translate out of their native language as an educational exercise. If you read my post carefully you will see that I have mentioned this several times. My point is that I feel that this exercise is of neglibible benefit to me personally in achieving my professional learning objectives with regard to this course and I feel that we should not be forced to do so on an MA in Translation. Everyone should be given a choice, at all times, to choose the direction in which they translate.

As for the "percentage of students who confront this", firstly students should not be translating professionally and secondly, it is our professional duty, as translators to educate outsourcers about our profession, meaning that any client asking you to produce work out of your native language should be referred on to a colleague who is a native in the target language.

_______________________________

I dislike the sort of arrogant, ignorant and condescending put down that my (carefully explained and justified!) post received. I have no problem with differing opinions *but* if you decide to treat someone with absolute derision then you can only expect the same back. I get very frustrated and offended by ignorant viewpoints and by people who are doing little more than sucking up to authority. I'm sorry, but I am an adult and am paying for the course; I have every right to express my opinion and to provide suggestions for improvement. I think it is incredibly immature to discredit my reasons for studying the course, my desire to exit at PG Cert level and my focus on the vocational, professional aspects of the course. And, at the end of the day, I feel that is what the issue is. I am not being disrespectful by expressing my opinion when it is solicited. I don't have to conform to a certain attitude towards post-graduate study. I already have an MA, which I worked hard to get. That sort of smarmy, belittling comment from someone who clearly doesn't know what they are talking about and clearly can't even be bothered to properly read my post and provide a reasoned response is unnecessary and offensive.

To be a professional translator is to be a professional writer...

2011-03-22T15:44:00.003Z

The translator
needs to have the skills of a writer in his/her chosen fields in order to be
successful. Discuss.

Translation, according to the Oxford Dictionary is "a written or spoken rendering of the meaning of a word or text in another language”[1]. We can therefore conclude that there are two main tasks involved in the process of translating a text. The first is the comprehension of the text written in the original, or source language. This involves understanding the syntax, vocabulary, grammar and terminology used in the text and thus assumes that the reader (i.e. the translator) will be sufficiently familiar with the specific dialect of the language in which the text is written and the subject matter of the text, in order to understand its meaning. The reading of the source text however must be an active rather than a passive reading. The translator must profoundly and intimately grasp the nuances of the text and understand it from the perspective, not of a passive reader, skimming through the text to extract information, but as a writer, appreciating and absorbing the meaning of the diction and syntax chosen and studying the way the text has been constructed, the tone used and the purpose of the text. The translator must consider the audience of the text and the reason the text was written. Professional translators are sometimes provided with briefs from clients which answer questions such as: 1. who is the text aimed at? 2. why was it written? 3. what is its aim? as well as providing background information on the author and the subject matter of the text. This information is invaluable as it facilitates the translator's next and most significant task in the process of translation which is the re-writing or rendering of the source text in the target language.

When a brief is not provided by a client, the translator must assess and study the linguistic devices used in the text all the more closely in order to find the answers to these questions and to understand how to proceed with the task of writing the translation. Reading and understanding the original text is therefore a crucial step in the process of translating a text; without a sound understanding of the original, there is little hope of a coherent and usable translation being produced. Terminology specific to certain industries and fields whether it is medical, legal, technical or artistic in nature, is one of the biggest challenges faced by translators in their work. That is to say, the specific terms used in a given discipline are almost a language in themselves and as such familiarity with these terms is essential, in addition to familiarity with the language of the text, in order for the translator to sufficiently comprehend the aim of the text to the point that they are able to accurately and correctly express it in their own language. The terms used in the translator’s native language, into which they are translating, must match those in the original text both in terms of basic meaning as well as suitability, in accordance with the level of formality and the style of the original text. Therefore the consideration of the audience and the objective of the text come into play in choosing a suitable translation for specialised terms and jargon. It is essential that the translator correctly understands the level of knowledge of the subject matter of the text possessed by the target audience, in order to ensure that they understand the terms the translator chooses to use and can extract the information required from the text so that it can fulfil its aim. The translator wants the text, in short, to be authentic and functional.

The process of translating consequently requires, before a single word is ever written, a great deal of effort, concentration and skill in order to decipher the source text in addition to copious amounts of research into both the language used as well as the subject matter. This step is clearly extremely important and its success or lack thereof highly influential in determining the quality of the translation. However it is the translated text which is the ultimate aim and the translator's comprehension of the source text will be judged based on the quality of the text he or she produces. In this way, the translator is essentially evaluated in the same way as a journalist, copywriter or any other professional writer is; on the quality of their writing. However, in many ways, the translator’s work is more challenging and complex than most other professional writers. Firstly, they do not have the same level of creative freedom as most writers do; they must communicate the meaning of the source text, in the way the author of that text has chosen to express their thoughts and ideas and as such they are somewhat restricted in terms of their artistic license in creating a new text. There is, nonetheless , a great deal of creativity and linguistic manoeuvring involved in attempting to faithfully replicate a text in another language while ensuring it reads fluently and precisely in the target language. The translator simply has much more direction in terms of the subject matter and overall tone of the text, but this requires, if anything, more resourcefulness and originality than writing a text from scratch, with free reign, does.

The translator, therefore, must produce a piece of writing which is of the same professional standard as the original text. As such, the bulk of the work involved in translation is actually writing; writing with a professionally acceptable level of expertise and skill and producing a piece of work which is suitable for publishing, in many cases. This, of course, implies that the translator will possess the knowledge and expertise pertaining to the field of the text. As such, in addition to an extremely advanced level in the source language and the skills of a professional writer in the target language, the translator must thoroughly understand the subject matter of the text. This often involves, in the case of legal translation for example, an active knowledge of the legal system of a given country meaning that the translator also needs to possess many of the skills that a professional working exclusively in that field must possess. Linguistic knowledge, cultural sensitivity, professional writing skills and a professional level of proficiency in a given field are the essential aptitudes which any professional translator must display in their work. An additional concern is the visibility of the translation. Most professionals in the translation industry agree that a translation should read fluently, coherently and elegantly, as if it was an original piece and not a translation.

In the words of Norman Shapiro, quoted by Lawrence Venuti in chapter 1 of “The Translator’s Invisibility”:

I see translation as the attempt to produce a text so transparent that it does not seem to be translated. A good translation is like a pane of glass. You only notice that it’s there when there are little imperfections— scratches, bubbles. Ideally, there shouldn’t be any. It should never call attention to itself.[2]

Avoiding these imperfections, often in the form of slightly unnatural or jarring wording, syntax and terminology, are one of the greatest challenges faced by professional translators. Often these scratches are a direct influence from the source language. As the translator must have a profound knowledge of this language and spends time reading and rereading the source text, it is only natural that some of this language’s shape and form may spill over into the target language, effectively corrupting and “foreignising” the target text, creating “translationese”:

There is even a group of pejorative neologisms designed to criticize translations that lack fluency, but also used, more generally, to signify badly written prose: “translatese,” “translationese,” “translatorese.”[3]

In conclusion, the translator’s work is complicated, multi-faceted and incredibly challenging. To remain “invisible”, by creating an entirely natural and fluent piece of writing while remaining true to the original meaning and style, to understand and reproduce complex concepts from specific fields and to master two languages, requires a great deal of professionalism and dedication. The translator is most certainly a professional writer. To be a professional translator is, however, in addition to being a professional writer, being a professional linguist and a professional terminology specialist.

***

Bibliography

http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_gb0877800#m_en_gb0877800

Venuti, Lawrence (1995), The Translator’s Invisibility, A History of Translation, London, Routledge.

[1] http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_gb0877800#m_en_gb0877800

[2] Venuti, Lawrence (1995), The Translator’s Invisibility, A History of Translation, London, Routledge. Page 14.

[3] Venuti, Lawrence (1995), The Translator’s Invisibility, A History of Translation, London, Routledge. Page 17

Why I won't be staying at Tigmi Marrakech anytime soon...

2011-03-04T18:22:00.008Z

I love to travel. I've been lucky enough to visit lots of different places. And I'm constantly planning trips. Consequently I'm always on the look out for interesting places to visit, hotels to stay in and restaurants to eat in. After visiting Morocco for the first time last year I am keen to visit again at some point soon. So when I came across Tigmi, a beautiful hotel in a rural area outside of Marrakech, it went straight on the "must-stay-here-at-some-point-soon" list. I've been on the look out for somewhere I could spend a week and just recharge, rest and relax. Cabo Verde, Malta and Morocco are all on the agenda.

When I noticed that Tigmi had a competition to win a stay for two for valentine's day this year, despite rarely bothering to enter competitions, I decided to give it a go. All it required was a re-tweet...

The competition lasted for one week. On Wednesday the 26th of January, the winner should have been announced. A week later, with valentine's day drawing close and no winners having been announced I sent Tigmi an e-mail:

		Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 4:29 PM
		Valentine's day competition

Dear Sir/Madam,

I was wondering if you could inform me as to when you are intending to announce the winner of your Twitter Valentine's competition (http://www.bit.ly/lovetigmi)?

Many thanks.

--
Best Wishes,

Christopher Patrick Fitzsimons BA (Hons), MA, ACIL
www.bespoketranslations.org
Time Zone: WET

To which I received a polite reply:


		Tue, Feb 1, 2011 at 12:26 PM
		Tigmi Comp

Dear Chris,

We will be announcing the winner today. But unfortunately you did not win this time.

Kind regards

James

Great, I thought. All I wanted was a reply and to know that someone would be enjoying the prize. So I forgot all about it until a week later when I thought I'd have a look and see who had won. Still, no winner had been announced. So a week later I sent James another e-mail:


		Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 12:01 PM
		Re: Tigmi Comp

Hello again James,

I couldn't help but notice that a winner of this competition still has not been announced; as far as I can see no further details have been posted about it on Tigmi's website, nor via the twitter or facebook profiles... Was the competition cancelled or is it just that the winner hasn't been announced yet? As the date of the prize is the 12th-15th and there were plenty of entries to the competition I would have thought that the winner would have been announced by now. Apologies for bothering you about this; I'm genuinely curious as to who the lucky couple are...?

--
Best Wishes,

Christopher Patrick Fitzsimons BA (Hons), MA, ACIL
www.bespoketranslations.org
Time Zone: WET

To which I have, to date, not received a reply...

I realise that something may have gone wrong. I understand that perhaps some sort of unforeseen event may have prevented the hotel from announcing and/or awarding the prize BUT when they have benefitted from the exposure created by using a competition like this for marketing purposes, in a very public and open way via a social network like twitter, it would at least be courteous and professional to let those who have entered know who, if anyone, was awarded the prize.

I hope that there have been some administrative delays and that the prize was actually awarded but there has simply been a lapse in communication. However, if my worst fears are confirmed and the hotel actually had no intention of awarding the prize then I am afraid I am left feeling very disappointed. It would be highly unprofessional and unethical to exploit those who entered the competition in that way. Perhaps I will receive a reply from Tigmi now that I have published this... It would have been polite to have replied to my e-mail from February 7th.... The fact that they didn't makes me feel suspicious of the whole thing. I'm afraid they have lost a potential customer and, by extension, the potential trade that my positive reviews on websites like Tripadvisor could have brought them. I feel that this raises important questions about the ethical and legal issues surrounding the use of social media by businesses for promotional and marketing purposes.

The last tweet from Tigmi:

Tigmi_Marrakech Tigmi - Spa & Hotel

Our Valentine's comp closes tomorrow. Have you entered?http://www.bit.ly/lovetigmi #competition #holiday

25 Jan

Cruel nature

2011-03-04T18:15:00.003Z

Probably my favourite track from PJ Harvey's new album... I love the lyrics, the vocals, the arrangement. It talks to me about that heavy feeling of utter futility, despair, lament and inevitability, but I find that it's delivered in a strangely uplifting way... The gentleness of the piano, the emotion in her voice, the visceral lyrics...It's such a beautiful, haunting and disturbing track.

Recap

2011-02-27T21:33:00.006Z

I did say I was no good at blogging...

Although I am exceptionally good at reading blogs! Truth be told I sometimes find the blogging world, indeed the whole online world to be incredibly stifling and overwhelming. I feel suffocated by the vastness of it all. Sometimes it leaves me feeling elated and inspired; there is just so much being produced, in so many different fields, in music, journalism, cookery, politics, travel writing, personal blogging etc and being published online, often in such incredibly creative and insightful ways that I am often left spellbound and transfixed. However it can also work the other way; I sometimes feel exhausted and saddened by the sheer volume of material, information and knowledge there is to be digested. I will never know it all, I will never understand, see, feel and hear everything I would like to. I will never experience everything I could and I will personally probably never be able to produce something I am happy with, in terms of a blog. Quite simply, so much time goes into anything I am inspired by and I just don't have sufficient time and energy to do a blog (or other form of creative output) justice. Having said that, I do sporadically try. Although it feels like trying to swim against the current in terms of even trying to capture a tiny amount of everything I see online that I feel inspired by. But I do like to have some sort of virtual trail of breadcrumbs, if only for my own interest. Having said all that, I do sometimes truly feel, especially as I have to spend 40-60 hours a week at my desk in front of the computer, that sometimes the best thing for my mental, physical and spiritual wellbeing is to turn off the computer and go and live in the real world. It worries me sometimes, the amount of time we spend "online". But then, where would we be without the constant access to an incomprehensibly massive body of information we have become accustomed and very much addicted to...

On the topic of the good old internet, a very old, very dear friend, after a long chat via skype, sent me a list of his favourite websites/blogs/online sources of inspiration. So I am doing the same, in blog format. I thought it would be a good opportunity to revive my flailing blog. Aside from my (huge) workload and the Post graduate certificate I am attempting to do in my "spare" time, this is what's been keeping me busy and what's been keeping me sane.

Food/Cookery

Some recipes and food blogs I have become obsessed with. Because I eat Portuguese food out everyday for lunch, when I cook dinner I like to make something non-Portuguese and often non-European.

Recipes I love:

"Perfect" beef stew

An Armenian lentil and lamb stew

Vietnamese grilled beef patties

Vietnamese grilled pork with vermicelli

Sticky Balsamic Ribs

Portuguese octopus stew

Mushrooms, herbs and ricotta on toast

Incredible food blogs:

http://hungryoyster.blogspot.com/

http://www.weareneverfull.com/

http://www.amateurgourmet.com/

Music

I love NPR and KCRW in general. And Grooveshark !!!!

You can listen to most of my favourite albums for free on Grooveshark. :)

6 incredible albums I am obsessed with right now:

Ceci Bastida: Veo la Marea

Joanna Newsom : Have One on Me

Juana Molina: Un Dia

PJ Harvey: Let England Shake

Lykke Li: Wounded Rhymes

Ana Tijoux: 1977

15 albums ……I’ve heard that will always stick with me.

Other

http://oportocool.wordpress.com/

An (often-bi-lingual) blog about the city I live in!

Three wonderful KCRW live sessions:

Rufus Wainwright Live at KCRW on Morning Becomes Eclectic 08.19.10

Juana Molina Live at KCRW on Morning Becomes Eclectic 02.17.09

Ceci Bastida Live at KCRW

'Biutiful' review: Iñárritu's noble effort

Amazing film!

One of my favourite films ever

Graduate Fog I strongly agree with so many of the issues Tanya is fighting to illuminate and expose.

Can't think of anything else at the moment but a part II will probably follow at some point soon. Hope you enjoy!

My Twitter & Tumblr

British Soldiers Burn In Hell...

2010-11-11T21:57:00.004Z

A relative of mine just posted this as her facebook status:

Today muslims broke the 2minutes silence in Central London with holding banners "British Soldiers Burn In Hell" & with the burning of a poppy... KICK ALL THE DISRESPECTFUL BASTARDS OUT OF THIS COUNTRY!!!! copy and paste this if you agree

This is my response:

I don't agree with the banners at all- to say that about anyone who has died is disrespectful and shameful. However I can understand their reason for protesting and why they feel so strongly about the issue. This might go some way towards explaining it:

"On 11th November 2010, commonwealth countries will join together in a moment of silence to commemorate the sacrifices of their civilians and armed forces during times of war. For over a century these events have gone uninterrupted, as millions of people continue to reflect on the casualties of modern warfare.

Unfortunately, the bitter reality of Remembrance Day is that the majority of people (who participate in it) are blissfully unaware of the hidden truths behind this very distasteful event. Put simply, Remembrance Day is a symbol of imperialism and everything that is wrong with democracy and man-made law.

As Muslims, we can poignantly remember the victims of (British) military intervention, the bullets fired and the bombs dropped, the lands occupied and the resources stolen and in light of this find it very difficult to remember the perpetrators of such crimes without much anger and hostility.

The British military are currently at the forefront of some of the harshest campaigns against Islam and Muslims, and furthermore have played a crucial role in cementing economic and strategic interests that rob large Muslim populations of vital resources.

In light of this, Muslims against Crusades have organised an emergency demonstration, to highlight these injustices and to furthermore ensure that on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, this message is heard loudly and clearly."
From the website muslimsagainstcrusades.com.

I suppose they are so bitter and resentful because they are remembering the many women, children and men murdered by British troops in muslim countries while British people are remembering the soldiers themselves. But, of course, that certainly doesn't mean that they have a right to desecrate the memorial service. It's also important to note that it wouldn't really be possible to kick muslims out of the UK as that would be confusing muslims with immigrants and many muslims are British citizens and many British citizens are muslims and therefore have a valid and intrinsic place in our society. British soldiers who are also muslims have also died in combat in recent years. But I do totally agree that the way these people are demonstrating is very crude, provocative and aggressive. Two wrongs don't make a right and all that... They should have tried to explain and describe their point of view and educate people about why they feel this way rather than insult dead soldiers which only creates more hostility and breeds ignorance and anger. That's how I feel anyway, but I think this is too long to paste as my status... :)

Restaurant review- Canelas de Coelho, Porto

2010-10-18T16:54:00.004+01:00

Review of "Canelas de Coelho",

Rua Elísio de Melo, 29/33

Porto, Portugal

I had dinner with my partner at Canelas de Coelho on Saturday the 16^th of October. We had booked a table earlier in the week and when we arrived at the restaurant at 9pm all of the other tables were already occupied. When we booked our table we had been informed that the restaurant normally only accepts reservations until 8.30pm and afterwards works on a first come, first served queuing basis.... which seems a little odd for a restaurant with approximately 25 seats... but perhaps they intend for there to be a queue outside to create a certain image. The first thing we noticed, to our dismay, was that the restaurant permitted smoking. The table beside us (and as the space is very, very small and there are approximately 25 people in this very small space the distance between tables means that you are sitting very close to fellow diners) insisted on smoking between each and every course, as did most of the diners at the other tables in the restaurant, which we found highly inconsiderate and unpleasant. Unfortunately we hadn’t realised that this was the case, as it is now quite rare in most of Western Europe to come across a space, particularly one in which food is served, in which smoking is permitted, so we hadn’t thought to ask about this when reserving our table. When we left we noticed that there was indeed a small sticker displayed outside the restaurant (as there must be by law) to indicate that smoking was allowed however this was seemingly located as far away as possible from the entrance and in the most inconspicuous location possible, which is rather deliberately deceitful in my opinion. I would have preferred if we had been informed as to the situation regarding smoking when we booked our table. In addition to this the restaurant felt cramped, stuffy and hot; the owners clearly hadn’t installed a sufficiently powerful ventilation/air-conditioning system to deal with so many people, most of them smoking, in a very small space. As a result, the space which we had hoped would be intimate was rather uncomfortable. Not a good start to our meal. On the plus side the decoration, which was what had first made us want to visit the restaurant, was very attractive. The restaurant was recently completely refurbished, redesigned and rebranded having previously been a very traditional (and non-expensive) eatery. As we live in Porto and had passed the reopened restaurant frequently we were keen to try it out. The original tiled details on the walls had been maintained, which is a very nice touch and the olive green walls, stylish furniture and contemporary light fittings all combine successfully to create a well thought out look. The service, on the whole, was brisk and unremarkable. However we did wait much longer than we would have liked for our food to arrive and for our plates to be cleared once we had finished. The concept of selling wine by the glass is quite uncommon in Portugal and is an excellent idea. At 2 Euros a glass the red wine was a good choice. However my partner tried the green and rose wines offered by the glass and was unimpressed with both. The green wine she ordered was actually (bad) white wine and the rose wine tasted cheap. We ate the “cover” which was brought at the beginning of the meal (bread, olives, butter and vol-au-vents) which cost 5 Euros (4 for the nibbles, 1 Euro for the bread) which was all quite unimpressive. The vol-au-vents didn’t taste fresh at all; in fact I’m almost sure they were frozen, the bread was average and the olives were acidic and unpleasant. We then shared a “Roast scallop” dish as a starter. The menu itself was not at all sufficiently descriptive and the English translation of many of the dishes from the Portuguese was very poor indeed. The Portuguese read “Vieira assada” and although the wording of the menu was minimal it was certainly precise in that there was one single roast scallop (!) which was served with a creamy, bland leek/cheese sauce in the shell, with a sticky sesame flecked sauce artfully decorating the plate, making it rather difficult to enjoy the sauce with the food. Presentation was clearly favoured over taste with this dish-although the (one) scallop was juicy overall it really was a letdown as a dish, not to mention the price (6 Euros) is rather high for a starter in Portugal. For our main meal we had both ordered the duck with truffle risotto (12.50 Euros). Both courses seemed to have been somewhat delayed in the kitchen for whatever reason as we waited much too long for each dish to arrive; we had also ordered more wine which was forgotten by the waiter and had to be reordered. The duck itself was well cooked; tender and very tasty. However the “risotto” was a very bad choice as an accompaniment. The taste of the rice simply didn’t go with the duck not to mention the fact that the risotto was cold and soggy. In fact, it would have been better as a dessert; with a simple sprinkle of cinnamon it could very easily have passed for rice pudding, albeit not a very good one! The menu was badly designed and the good quality ingredients were mishandled to produce dishes which simply don’t impress on a taste level. We felt disappointed with our experience, uncomfortable due to the heat and smoke and really in a dreadful mood and only wanted to leave so we didn’t order dessert and instead just ordered coffee, paid the bill and went next door to the ice cream shop to have dessert! The fact that we couldn’t wait to leave the restaurant really sums up our feelings.

Overall it must be said that the atmosphere and the crowd were pretentious and combined with the smoking, which alienates non-smokers and makes them feel uncomfortable and unable to enjoy their meal, the bad quality of the food and the prices being charged, this restaurant simply doesn’t live up to the calibre of eatery it is clearly aspiring to be; we really felt that it is better suited to being a bar, not a restaurant.

The 2010 Guardian Film Power 100...

2010-09-24T12:07:00.007+01:00

...lists Pedro Almodovar as number 84, saying the following:

"He is one of only a handful of foreign-language directors who can make a dent in the UK box-office op [sic] 10 consistently punching above the weight of nearly all other European film makers".

There is so much wrong with that I'm not sure quite where to begin. I'll attempt to break it down.

Firstly there is the insinuation that no other European directors are good enough to "make a dent" in the "top 10" in the UK... This, to me, places the blame for the lack of interest shown by the British public in "foreign"(but non-American, of course, because the US isn't a foreign country after all...) films on non-anglophone directors as opposed to on British people and the society as a whole for being anglocentric and linguistically and culturally ignorant and insular. It angers me so much that there is an incredible abundance of wonderful filmic work that never makes it to screens in the UK (and the US)... and that has ramifications for other countries, which tend to show those films that have fared well in the UK/US...
Secondly, since when does "foreign-language" film equate "European" film? There seems to be a belief that, if we are to watch these strange foreign productions, then the most foreign we can possibly handle in Britain is European work... Let's just discard Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America... after all, there is nothing culturally valuable in any of those vast regions...!
The derision which "foreign" cinema elicits in the UK appears to be the result of two things. Cultural insularity and linguistic ignorance create a situation in which France is as "foreign" as Malaysia. People simply do not have the knowledge or tools to even distinguish between "foreign" films from different countries and cultures. Despite this, they know that they want to watch films with people who look, act and seem (on the surface) like them; i.e. white Europeans, hence the preference (if you could call it that), among "foreign" offerings for European cinema. The issue is that, watching an Almodovar film, for example, so much is lost in "culture" rather than through language. Because the average British person knows so little about our neighbours, never mind about even more "exotic" countries, cultural meaning, symbolism and references are not understood. We've taken the time to learn about North American society and culture, why not those of our neighbouring nations? That's before we mention that the lack of knowledge of foreign languages along with the utter reluctance of a large part of the population to watch anything with subtitles effectively means that people are trapping themselves in the anglosphere and seriously limiting their intellectual borders. Depressing.
Number 84?? Really? For one of the most successful (albeit non-American and "foreign") film directors ever? One who has inspired a cult following, consistently enjoying great commercial and critical success...84?
Where is Von Trier on this list? Like, honestly? Oh, sorry, I forgot, we already had our fill of "foreign" in Almodovar...

The United Kingdom needs to wake up and embrace the world around it. This sort of list highlights just how insular our cultural influences and references are, and it's worrying. So much is lost when you only look inwards, to your own culture and your own language.

Tumbling

2010-08-25T11:11:00.003+01:00

I started a Tumblr- it's mostly a place for me to collect and record influences through visual mediums whereas this blog is a place to discuss them in words.

I called it "Sens Perdu" as it sums up how I am feeling at this time in my world.

Overwhelmed by the online world, missing the offline world.

But enjoying living all the same. And finding my everything one day at a time.

---
Sense. Direction. Meaning. Orientation.

DeUsynlige

2010-08-22T13:24:00.013+01:00

I was pleasantly surprised to see a Norwegian film, DeUsynlige, being shown at a local cinema in Porto; like many countries in the world, the majority of films shown in Portugal are hollywood productions, which I generally avoid. Of course, exceptions to the rule exist, but I tend to find hollywood films to be bland, repetitive, insipid and a bit empty and so don't really watch them. So I decided to see this film after a look at the trailer and a quick read through a few reviews. The trailer itself was perfect-just enough information to make me decide to see the film and to make me want to find out more about it without revealing too many plot details. I won't give you a synopsis of the film, rather I will just describe my reaction to it. It is perfect! It achieves the very difficult task of creating real tension, intensity and depth without being melodramatic, vulgar or pretentious. Trine Dyrholm, a very well known Danish actress who I recongnised from "Festen" gives a chilling performance; her portrayal of pain and loss is almost too realistic, accented and perfected by beautiful camera work, the audience almost feels intrusive by observing her emotions at such close range. The incredible scenes in which the two protagonists meet and interact are beautiful and grotesque; guilt, pain, regret and unimaginable suffering are among the most complex and unpleasant of human emotions and the ability of the cast and crew of this film to make such an extraordinary film exploring these emotions is to be applauded. I love the scope of the subjects explored also; religion, justice, class and the complex and strained interactions between all three in modern-day Scandinavia...

Because of the film's subject matter, several reviewers have compared it to a French film "Il y a longtemps que je t'aime" which I also saw and thoroughly enjoyed a few years ago. Both have profound and disturbing intensity, portray the complexities of human interaction and explore the dehumanisation of criminals and ex-convicts. Both also display an admirable and striking dedication to detail and subtlety. They make important and meaningful comments on human beings and our often intricate and strenuous relationships with one other.

Empty Field

2010-08-10T23:48:00.014+01:00

One of the artists I most admire and most enjoy listening to is Zoe Keating and hearing her new album "Into the Trees" for the first time over the last few days, I have not been disappointed. Her arrangements have always been exquisite, merging and melting layers of sonic perfection together and creating something truly special and unique. And on her new album she has truly blossomed, matured and demonstrated an incredible talent for making work that is truly special and moving. I just adore it. Along with the newest albums from Joanna Newsom, CocoRosie, Sia and White Hinterland, not forgetting Tom Ze's ingenious "Com Defeito de Fabricação", all of which are absolute masterpieces, it is one of my favourite albums of 2010, without any doubt.

---

Travel.

I've never been to Asia.

I've been lucky enough to have spent time in Europe, North and South America, the Caribbean and North Africa in my life and to have seen some incredible places. But Asia remains completely mysterious to me. And I'm very curious. I've planned to spend a week in Cologne, Germany in September to study German and a few days in Marrakech, Morocco in November this year (25th birthday trip) and after that I think I might save my money and attempt to visit South East Asia at some point next year, perhaps in May. At the moment I'm considering Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand (and possibly also South Korea!) and am terribly excited about this! But these are all just plans. Fun plans. But plans nonetheless. At the moment I'm content and grateful to have a job I enjoy, live somewhere I love and have the luxury of traveling at all.

I've been following the Charles Taylor Sierra Leone War Crimes trial with great interest. It's a fascinating trial, not least because of the involvement of Ms Campbell etc. Watching the videos of the testimony and looking at the proceedings from an outside perspective it appears more than a bit of a media circus. I can't say whether Taylor is guilty or not; I only hope that justice is done for all of those who were emotionally and physically injured by the atrocities which took place. Campbell's reluctance to testify and her declaration that the trial was an inconvenience for her has attracted much criticism, which I understand, but at the same time, what has been explained to a much lesser extent were her comments clarifying her reluctance. Her fear for the safety of her loved ones, she said, was her main reason in feeling uneasy and uncomfortable testifying against Taylor and probably the reason why, I believe, she refused to acknowledge him as the source of the conflict diamonds she received. I'm very curious to see how it all turns out.

You should follow me on twitter. And leave a comment below. :)

Io Sono L'Amore/Graduate Fog/São João da Madeira

2010-08-02T19:24:00.020+01:00

Three things I want to share today.

The first is "Io sono l'amore", one of the best films I have seen for

quite a while.

There are some fantastic reviews which have been written about this

beautiful film, so instead of attempting to convey to you all its

wonderfulness in my own little way I'll instead take the lazy way out

and use someone elses!:

"I Am Love" is such a lush, deeply textured banquet of sights and sounds that it deserves more than a movie review. Carefully composed and framed, gorgeously appointed, superbly choreographed and accompanied by a thrilling musical score, it would no doubt provide rewarding fodder for critics of art, design, fashion, dance and music. As a full-on celebration of beauty in all its forms, this gem of a contemporary melodrama invites viewers to plunge into a world of unerring taste and luxury, where even tragedy comes softly when it inevitably arrives. Washington Post

Watching this lush, operatic Italian drama about a clannish family of wealthy Milanese industrialists is like suddenly being exposed to a full orchestra when you have become accustomed to listening to the plaintive sawing of a lone violinist. It’s an exquisite, all-enveloping feast of sensual pleasures. It’s almost certainly the most elegant piece of cinema you’ll see this year. It is melodrama as celebration rather than as guilty pleasure. The Times

I really enjoyed it and thoroughly recommend it to anyone who enjoys carefully crafted, stunningly

well made cinema. And of course, Swinton was very impressive.

I mentioned Graduate Fog in my last post and I'm going to mention it again. I've commented on a few of Tanya's post recently and regularly comment on the blog as she tackles such important issues which I feel very strongly about. Here are a few of them- In particular, "Mrs Tebbit" very much annoyed me. As is quite clear from my reply!:

Dragons’ Den multimillionaire wants you to work for free

Mrs Tebbit

Posted August 2, 2010 at 5:32 PM

“Poorer (better?) candidates who live outside London and can’t afford to work for free are excluded.”

I know someone who was an intern who commuted into London every day from Oxford on a coach (transport expenses paid). I think she woke up at something like 5am every morning. She did this for two months. She also had a weekend job in Oxford in a restaurant. If you want it badly enough, you can find a way.

In any case, not all internships are in London.

Christopher

Posted August 2, 2010 at 7:13 PM

“If you want it badly enough, you can find a way.”

Dear Mrs Tebbit,

Did you read this article?

If so, did you understand it?

Your comment suggests that you don’t at all grasp the severity of this issue and the moral and ethical implications of expecting graduates to carry out work which should be paid under the guise of an internship. Fair remuneration for all work, particularly when the role is so clearly one which involves proper duties (which are part of many paid jobs) like those mentioned in the ad published for this “internship” is a basic human right. “Internships” like this one are contributing to and encouraging economic elitism in the United Kingdom, effectively excluding all but the wealthiest candidates from securing valuable work experience in their chosen field. You seem to suggest that the lifestyle which the person you know who worked as an intern had whilst she was working in London is acceptable. I disagree, for all of the reasons Tanya has pointed out above. Why should anybody be expected to work for free all week and then work all weekend to support themselves financially, even if only for a few weeks? And of course, not all internships are based in London however, as in most countries, the majority of economic activity and therefore job opportunities are located in the capital city and the United Kingdom is no exception. This is especially true for many of the most competitive industries. Those graduates who are not from privileged backgrounds and who happen to not reside in the London commuter belt are therefore severely disadvantaged in progressing in their careers in this turbulent job market. Surely you can’t believe that this is a fair situation? I understand that some people see graduates asking for fair remuneration for a role like this as them having a certain sense of “entitlement” however I honestly don’t understand why this sort of opportunity (and I do agree that this is potentially a very valuable and useful opportunity) should be unpaid. It is my belief (and the United Nations happens to agree with me) that nobody should be expected to work for free under any circumstance, particularly not when those people are very young, have invested time and money in their education, have emerged from university with over £20k of debt into an extremely difficult job market and are seeking to gain experience to try and begin their career. Expecting them to work full-time for months without pay is not an “internship”. It is called exploitation.

United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 23

“Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity”

Can you trust your uni careers adviser?

Christopher

Posted July 31, 2010 at 12:29 PM

“at least Graduate Fog gets people talking about the issues we should have been discussing YEARS ago.” This hits the nail on the head! This blog is doing a great job of exposing problems which nobody wanted to believe existed, problems which universities wanted (and want) to cover up and make disappear and problems which many students and graduates are not aware of until it is too late! It’s very important that this space exists to question the status quo regarding the graduate job market and university careers services and to ask the questions that nobody else is brave enough to!

Is UK graduate careers advice a national joke?

Christopher

Posted June 23, 2010 at 2:30 PM

Having worked (in an administrative capacity) alongside professional careers advisers in the past I can certainly confirm that things are changing. The world of “professional” (by which I mean university based and therefore funded directly by students) careers advice IS changing, evolving and improving all the time BUT the pace at which it is doing so is no match for the seismic changes occurring in the national and global job industry due both to the economic crisis as well as to the direction in which many industries are heading as a result of the fast-paced and ever-changing modern world we live in and the way in which it works. However, despite the efforts being made to keep up to date and change with the times, I can confirm, from my own experience of processing feedback forms within a university careers department, that this is not working and is simply not adequate. It is not working at the level of individual universities nor is it working nationally. And the problem, I believe, lies with the lack of specialisation in terms of the knowledge held by careers advisers. Until we have advisers who have specific, targeted and up-to-date knowledge, contacts and know-how with regards to the job market and how graduates from THE SPECIFIC DEGREE PROGRAMMES OFFERED BY THEIR INSTITUTION fit into it, graduate careers advice in the UK will continue to be, in my opinion, very much a national joke.

---

Yesterday Marcia and I travelled the 40 or so minutes south to the small city/large town of São João da Madeira, in the province of Aveiro, in the North of Central Portugal to see Mariza perform at the Fest IN music festival. We stayed in a wonderful hotel, the WR. If you ever have the chance to see Mariza perform, stay in the WR Hotel or visit São João da Madeira, take it! I'll leave you with a few photos and save the words for a post when I'm feeling less tired! They will tell you more than I can anyway...

More photos here

Sense

2010-07-21T12:18:00.009+01:00

With Shannon

View from the Infante Bridge

At the top of the Clerigos Tower in Porto

I've been reflecting and wondering about what I should use this space for. I'm still undecided. A personal diary? A work related chronicle? Should I explore my life as an "expat" and talk about culture and language from that perspective? Or should I "specialise" and focus on one of my passions: food, music, film, travel???

I am at a loss. I feel that I will probably continue to use it as a little bit of a dumping ground for a little bit of everything. Somewhere to record different thoughts and ideas and to record my influences, comment on my work and to generally comment on my life and the lives on those around me. Which sounds vague. But I quite like the scrapbook approach to blogging. It's unpredictable and eclectic. Which can be interesting. What I am concerned about is privacy and intimacy- and as this is not a professional blog, the impact it may have on my professional standing in the online world. Which, after all, is essentially where my business exists. However I have decided to continue to write here as I feel that what I have produced and pasted here so far is in no way too revealing or invasive in terms of my life nor is it detrimental to my career. It's simply what it says it is:

"A SERIES OF MUSINGS AND RANTS ON THE LIFE, EXPERIENCES, IDEAS AND INFLUENCES OF A FREELANCE NORTHERN IRISH TRANSLATOR LIVING IN NORTHERN PORTUGAL."

Now that we have established what I am to use this space for, I'm going to get on with doing just that. I've been mostly absent from the online world, both in terms of work as well as social media as of late. I've decided to enjoy the quiet periods with regards to work and take advantage of the time to enjoy the summer. Of course, I also have to use the time for all of those adult duties I have to fulfill i.e. managing my own life and career! Which can be a full-time job in itself. I've finally moved. Marcia and I are now resident in the parish of SE (meaning Cathedral), the oldest parish in Porto. We still have a few loose ends to tie up with regards to the move but we're basically done. The difference it makes to me, mentally, emotionally and even physically, being somewhere I feel happier and more settled and comfortable is immense. I feel like I am finally where I wanted to be when I moved to Portugal. Location-wise and apartment-wise. It's perfect for us. Now we just have to enjoy it. Work and be productive during the working week and relax and enjoy life in the evenings and on weekends. I am looking forward to our new life here.

We had a visit from some friends from London two weeks ago which was great. So nice to see them again and show them Porto. And then my parents and little sister came for a week and also stayed with us in the new apartment. Which was also nice. I think that they found Porto to be very different from the typical Portuguese/Spanish tourist resorts they have holidayed in, in the past. It has so much more to offer in terms of culture, gastronomy, history and variety than the Algarve or the Spanish costas. And I think that they enjoyed it. We did a lot when they were here and they saw as much of the city as is possible to see in a week.

So now. I'm planning to work and enjoy the summer. Marketing is something I need to focus on, as I've been too busy working to market my services, which is something that freelance professionals need to constantly spend time on. I've been very happy recently to have received very positive feedback on my work from my clients. It really makes all the difference to know that your work is appreciated. At the end of September I am spending a week in Cologne studying German at the Tandem school and then I will probably study another course in the Goethe Institute in Porto beginning in October with the aim of eventually working professionally from German in the near future. I am also keen to sit the DipTrans exam in the near future (either from French or German to English). Those are the plans. :)

new world

2010-06-14T12:20:00.007+01:00

I still haven't moved completely. I've had the keys to my new apartment in Porto, for about three weeks and have been very busy balancing working full time with getting furniture, lights, utilities, internet, removal services and so on arranged. And I'm still not done. Everything is sorted now except for getting the internet installed there and the lighting we've bought. And then we can properly move. We just spent the weekend there. The views over the Douro are incredible. We can see churches and trees, the valley of the river and the old houses clinging to the sides of the cliffs and three of the bridges over the river. And it's so central and urban but so peaceful and quiet. The perfect apartment!

I've been following Tanya de Grunwald's Graduate Fog blog closely. She is a refreshing voice among careers advice in the UK. Having worked in a careers department whilst studying for my MA I feel that the industry needs a major overhaul and it is wonderful to have somebody campaigning so valiantly for the change we need. Too many young people are being let down by our university system.

I've also been following the news on the Gaza Flotilla raid and the issues surrounding it, recently. And I've been appalled and disgusted by the violence and barbarity of both the Israeli army in forcefully boarding the vessels and those onboard the Mavi Marmara who attacked the soldiers. It's hard to know where to stand on the issue and in this particular incident I can understand both points of view- what I deplore is the violence, the loss of life and the hatred. Hopefully something good will come from the tragedy. It'll be interesting to see how the investigation turns out. Especially with David Trimble's involvement....

So, I'm looking forward to spending my second summer here in Northern Portugal. And possibly travelling to Morocco and Germany over the summer months.

Le soleil de ton pays est le même que celui du pays ennemi

2010-06-07T22:01:00.003+01:00

Tuscany and Grey Oceans

2010-05-12T14:27:00.013+01:00

I have a shocking revelation to make.

Coffee is Portugal is superior to coffee in Italy.

I am shocked. I truly expected coffee in Italy to be the best I had ever had. And while it is better than in most other countries I've been in with an important coffee culture (Spain, Argentina, France), I must say that in comparison to Portuguese coffee, which is almost universally of excellent quality (cimbali machines, segafreddo/delta/buondi branded beans, staff who know exactly how to work the machine they are using, freshly ground beans, perfectly sized, shaped cups and saucer and matching spoon) as well as being extremely good value (usually between 55-85 Euro cents) it really just wasn't that good. You can tell I take this quite seriously, no?

But really, I was a little let down by the coffee I had in Italy. I tried coffee in cafes, restaurants and bars in Pisa and Florence and was just not all that impressed. Oh well.

Apart from my little issue with Italian coffee, my trip to Florence went very well. Oh, aside from the fact that the Icelandic ash cloud almost cancelled my flight back to Portugal! Both Pisa and Porto airports were closed on Sunday and I flew back early on Monday morning. We were very lucky to get that flight... the next one out of that airport to Porto wouldn't have been for 4 days and whilst I would have been happy to spend four more days in Italy, my cats wouldn't have been too pleased to have run out of food and the clients I had scheduled to do work for also wouldn't have been particularly impressed if I'd had to cancel the projects I'd accepted. But we got back ok.

So, Italia. We flew to Pisa late on Friday night and stayed in the Hotel Novecento which was centrally located and had large rooms, very contemporary bathrooms and a pretty interior courtyard area. It is marketed as a "period residence". Unfortunately it was raining when we arrived and early the next morning so we didn't get a chance to use the garden. Nonetheless we had a good nights sleep and the owners were very pleasant. The weather brightened up later so we had a wander around Pisa, saw the leading tower and cathedral, visited a few parks, gelaterias, markets and cafes and later had a long lunch in the Osteria La Mescita. Recommended. Especially the aubergine and tomato ravioli, the pasta dish with rabbit and the ricotta with berries for dessert. We took the train to Florence last that afternoon. In Florence we stayed in the Hotel Globus, right in the centre of the beautiful historical area of the city. From our room we even had views of the Medici Chapels! Florence is an absolutely stunning city. We spent most of our time walking around, looking at the amazing architecture, oh, and eating! Highlights included an amazing platter of Italian hams and cheeses at ZEB and the mascarpone and nutella pizza at Boccanegra. On Sunday evening we returned to Pisa and stayed the night at the My One Hotel, an airport hotel which was surprisingly luxurious and the food (beef in red wine reduction for dinner and freshly baked pastries and proper orange juice for breakfast) exceptionally good for an airport hotel and a chain also. For some reason we got a room which normally costs 300 euros a night for only 65... ? Maybe because the hotel was quite empty. All in all, I loved Italy. I'm hoping to go back some time soon.

Grey Oceans is the new album by CocoRosie. I spent all last week and this week listening to their debut album La maison de mon rêve and their newest release and have fallen utterly in love with their sound and their little sonic universe. It's what some, rather lazy, music critics like to term "quirky" music, painting artists as diverse and talented as Joanna Newsom, Casey Dienel and CocoRosie with the same brush. Essentially I find it innovative, refreshing and creative. I really enjoy it. I've discovered so much wonderful music recently. I love reading (good quality) album reviews and music criticism as it often leads me down unexpected paths where I discover wonderful new artists.

I've been quite busy recently with work. As usual. Which I appreciate. We are moving apartment in a bout three weeks and are already planning how to furnish it. I'm very excited. That's the story for now.

Home

2010-05-03T15:57:00.007+01:00

I thought, as I've now been living and working in Portugal for almost a year I'd reflect a little on my reasons for moving here, my experience of living here as an expat/immigrant/foreigner (whatever you want to call me!) and my impressions of Portugal.

It seems that many Northern Europeans become "expats" after a long life spent toiling, saving and moaning in their cold, damp, expensive country of origin, choosing to retire to Southern Europe, with many(most?) opting to live in a coastal area in Southern Spain/Portugal/France/Italy with an established tourist-oriented infrastructure, other "expats" and a relatively rural pace of life. And I understand that. Warmth, sunshine, good food and wine and a cheaper, more relaxed style of living are among some of my (many) reasons for relocating to Portugal. But I really think that the difference in my reasons for being here and the reasons why most other Northern Europeans reside in Southern Europe end there. I don't see myself as an "expat". In fact, I really dislike the word as, to me, it implies a certain sense of entitlement and superiority to the country in which one is living. I suppose it's the idea of wealthy retired white people living in villas in the Mediterranean as opposed to "immigrants" meaning "foreigners" from poor countries who have come to the UK/US/France/Germany etc "for a better life". I am in Portugal "for a better life". A much better life. And as long as I can work freelance and successfully manage my own business in a relatively location-independent manner, I doubt I'll ever return to the British Isles. Warning: this may turn into a thinly veiled criticism of the UK... Porto is the second biggest city in Portugal, many times larger than Belfast (the largest Northern Irish city) and is located in the North of the country. Most tourists visit the south. Voila my three main reasons for choosing Porto:

Large city, but not too large. Excellent public transport (metro!) and infrastructure. Inexpensive but part of the EU=perfect!
In the North of the country where people are unpretentious, food is excellent, the weather, although a little miserable in the winter is infinitely better than the British weather and where few tourists come!
In Portugal! I have a degree in Portuguese. I have always loved Portugal. Now I live here! I have an EU passport therefore I can legally reside and work here for as long as I want. Which I really appreciate!

To backtrack slightly and perhaps explain why I have ended up here I should summarise my background. I was born in very rural Northern Ireland (I have dual British/Irish citizenship-nationality is complex when one is Northern Irish), longed to see cities and to live an urban lifestyle so studied a BA in Spanish, Portuguese and French in London, during which time

I spent a year in Buenos Aires, Argentina (which I completely adore and where I hope to someday live again) and time studying in Quebec, France, Portugal and Brazil. I then, through a strange twist of fate, ended up doing a Master's degree in Film and Photography in Belfast. After spending the third year of my BA out of the UK and then staying in the UK for the two years following that year, I was absolutely convinced that I wanted to leave and work and live elsewhere. Of course, this all happened to coincide with that big, serious financial crisis thing not to mention the fact that the British (global) job market is now saturated with graduates seeking work... While I had done an MA in Visual Studies (basically in order to put off searching for a job but also because I have always found film and photography fascinating) my girlfriend had done a more useful, more vocational MA, in the same university in Belfast, in Translation. And it was really through her exploration of this industry and the career options that exist within it that we made the decision to launch our careers as freelance translators. We both had language BA's so we set about investigating the opportunities and possibilities and then just did it. We became members of the Chartered Institute of Linguists, read about and studied the industry and set ourselves up as self-employed professionals. Oh yeah, and our rental contract was up in Belfast, so we got on a plane, with our two (Argentine) cats and flew to Porto, Northern Portugal where we have been working and living (rather successfully) for almost a year. I had spent six weeks studying in Lisbon during the first and second year of my BA and had returned to Lisbon to attend a translation conference at the beginning of our MA. I've always found Portuguese people to be calm, relaxed, unpretentious and friendly. And Portugal is a stunningly beautiful country. We had only spent, in our lifetime, literally 24 hours in Porto in May of 2009, to see PJ Harvey at the Casa da Musica. And we loved it so much (and wanted so desperately to leave Belfast) that we moved our life, took a substantial career/financial risk and started over, fresh and new, in Northern Portugal. That was quite a long explanation. It sounds a bit absurb written down actually. But, it's all worked out for the best. I'm going to summarise the rest of my points and finish this post with a list.

Reasons for leaving the UK

The endemic, extremely immature relationship British people have with alcohol. It's actually shocking and frightening once you have lived in another country where alcohol occupies a healthier place in society to observe British cities on a Friday/Saturday night. As a student, it's almost forgivable/understandable that your life should revolve around getting drunk. Almost. But when we're talking about 30, 40 and 50 year olds, that's a different matter.
Food. Good food can, of course, be found in the UK. The problem is that it is grossly overpriced and very difficult to find. Eating well should not be struggle and it should not be prohibitively expensive. People are not taught how to cook- nobody knows how to cook! Cookery and caring about what you eat is seen as an upper middle-class pasttime, as something poncy and pretentious.
Climate. Wet. Cold. Grey.
Economy. The cost of living is absurb.

Reasons why I adore Portugal

Food and alcohol. Portugal has an incredible variety in its national cuisine. Food like octopus, goat, veal, beef, fish, duck, squid and so on, which is very expensive in the United Kingdom, is cheap to buy and the national dishes are amazing! Portuguese cooking doesn't use exotic ingredients- in fact, most recipes seem to be based on olive oil, salt, garlic, wine, bay leaves, paprika and coriander- but taste is so important and I've so rarely eaten a bad meal in Portugal. I am constantly impressed and amazed. Wine is incredible and cheap. And coffee. I firmly believe that coffee in Portugal (albeit using Italian machines and brands) is the best in the world...with the exception of Italy perhaps? I will find out this weekend when I visit Italy for the first time! Cheese. Hams. Sausages. Bread. All=amazing.
Climate. Porto has wet, grey and cold winters. But it has long, warm, sunny summers. Whereas the Uk has wet, grey and cold years. Forever. And anyway, the damp winters in Northern Portugal make the incredible natural produce possible!
Culture. History. Architecture. People. I love them all.

I really could go on, but the list is basically endless. I love the European Union. I love that I have the freedom to live somewhere where people have respect for others, where the important things in life are still important and where people take their time and do things properly. Not for praise, not for money, but because that's just how you should live...

"few western European cities so successfully combine charm and culture with a low cost of living"
The Guardian

Movement and change

2010-04-28T16:10:00.009+01:00

Parque da Corcovada, Albufeira

I did say I was no good at this blogging thing.

I took a full week off from work (longest time I've taken off since I started working freelance full-time, almost a year ago) to go to the Algarve (Albufeira, Vilamoura) with my immediate family and some members of my extended family. It was interesting to be sort of absorbed back into the family fabric. When you have a large family I think that happens when you get together, no matter how long you've been away from home for (almost 6 years in my case). It is an odd sensation to feel like a child, like a son again. I'm not used to that and it is a tad disconcerting. In my life, I'm the adult, so to be sort of included in the "children/young person" category is bizarre for me. But I suppose that is inevitable- It's just fascinating to see the ways in which the parent/child relationship evolves and the ways it doesn't, over time. And of course to be in the Algarve was interesting and confusing, for many of the same reasons I mentioned when I talked about Gran Canaria. It almost didn't feel like Portugal. It's very intriguing to see the expectations tourists have when the go "abroad". They want "exotic", but not"foreign". They want to observe "abroad" from a safe, comfortable distance, through the haze of familiarity. Anyway, my parents are coming to Porto in July so they will see Portugal here, as opposed to an internationalised Southern European holiday resort. The Algarve is a stunningly beautiful area, it's just a pity about the cultural (lack thereof) aspects and how the sort of tourism it has attracted has ruined it a little. It was wonderful to have some time away from work, the internet, phones, e-mail and so on. Of course, I lost out on work and therefore income as, being self-employed, I don't get paid holidays. But I'll survive. It's extremely important to take time away from work and not become consumed by it- this is easier said than done when you run your own, albeit small, business. Actually it's more difficult if your business is small because there is nobody to delegate to, there is nobody to assist you and take care of the admin you don't have time for, because, you know, you're doing the thing that makes your money, in my case-translating! I also squeezed in a roadtrip to Huelva (Andalucia) with my brother and sister and stupidly managed to leave my passport there, returning to Spain from Southern Portugal at midnight the day before I had to fly back to Northern Portugal. Not so much fun! Since I've been back I've been busier than I've ever been before with work, I've been ill (flu/fever), I've been apartment hunting (can't deal with staying in this apartment much longer-it's too old, far from transport etc) and I've been organising my next escapade. So, not much free time at the minute. Whilst I've been busy, spring/summer has crept up on me! Flowers are blooming, the air is warm and it's dry! Finally.

Being a tourist in Albufeira

So. I've found a new apartment in Porto. The most beautiful, brand new apartment looking over the Douro river, a few steps from the baixa of Porto and it's squares, cathedrals, cafes and avenues. It's perfectly located, very reasonably priced, brand new with excellent quality fittings and the views...oh the views! And silent. So central, but all you can hear from the balcony are the boats going by slowly on the Douro below and the birds-bliss!!! I just wish we could afford to buy it right now- because it really is my dream apartment.... Can't wait to move. It will have a huge effect on my happiness, productivity, creativity and general mood! And for only 50 Euros more each a month!? It's unfurnished as well, which is actually a very positive thing. I would never have considered furnishing a rented apartment in the past but I can really see us staying in this one for a while,staying put for a few years perhaps and so, it's worth it. Plus, I want to make it our own. And to feel comfortable in it. So, we are hoping to sort out the formalities this week and move in mid June.

Marcia turned 24 this week- we are both 24 now. For her birthday we are taking a trip to Italy in two weeks, for a weekend, visiting Pisa and Florence. It will be my first time in Italy and I can't wait. I know some Italians and have always found it odd how I feel that I can relate to them, on a cultural level, without ever having been there. I've never studied the Italian language but understand it relatively well- through knowing French, Portuguese and Spanish, I can deduce the meaning of most words and follow most speech. Argentina and Italy are possibly, quite probably, much more culturally similar than Argentina and Spain, despite the linguistic link.

And Joanna Newsom. I am obsessed with "Have One On Me". It's all I've listened to for weeks. A masterpiece. I can't even begin to describe how complex, rich and satisfying it is. Just listen.

German. I've missed one month of my classes in the Goethe Institute due to: travel, illness and my (huge) workload. I went for the first time last night. I'm hoping to finish this course (six more weeks), sit the level exam (upper intermediate) and then perhaps so an intensive course in Germany over the summer... we'll see!

Vilamoura Marina with my sister

lo cotidiano

2010-03-30T18:57:00.009+01:00

This is a short essay which I submitted along with a photo project I completed during a one month stay in Argentina last year, funded by the MacQuitty travel scholarship which I was awarded by Queen's University, Belfast. The work was exhibited in the Queen's Film Theatre on my return.

LO COTIDIANO
Christopher Patrick Fitzsimons

To understand a city it is not enough to stroll its streets. You must live in it, deal daily with its professionals, its shop-keepers, its millionaires
Alejo Carpentier[1]

I am interested in identity on a collective level as occurs within a nation or a city and how this influences and shapes how people identify themselves and how they are perceived by outsiders. I am also fascinated by the banality, rigidity and mundaneness of daily life, rituals and the necessities of existence. I was inspired to undertake this project as a result of my interest in the culture and identity of Argentina. Buenos Aires is perhaps the city in Latin America which exhibits the most “European” influences in terms of architecture, gastronomy and culture, this influence being most evident, or most interesting, in my opinion, in the mentality and temperament of the porteño people. The mixture of the cultures of Spain, Italy and France with South America indigenous influences has created a unique and intriguing culture and identity.

This project is personally important for me given that Buenos Aires is the place that I have spent most time in out of the UK and for me it is a place which feels familiar, comfortable and comforting. This affection is something which I wanted to bring out in my images. One of my main aims was to capture the tiny details which make this vast city so individual and which bring me back to it time and time again. I wanted to show the people and the city, not separate and detached from one another but people in their city, people in this city known for its street life, people living their lives on its streets.

This sort of walking is close to reading, to day dreaming or to meditation
Jason Wilson[2]

Buenos Aires is very much made for walking and people live their lives on the streets of the city in stark contrast to many other cities in the Americas which are, for various reasons, usually navigated by car. Although my perspective on the city is inevitably that of a foreigner on a fleeting visit, I feel attached to the city and the country due to my previous extended stays there and therefore felt comfortable photographing in many different areas. I do not feel like my nationality was a defining factor in creating this work nor do I truly acknowledge its impact or influence on the imagery. I feel that, as a result of travelling extensively I am de rooted in general; I feel no more or less foreign in Argentina than I do in Northern Ireland. This has, I believe aided me in undertaking this project.

Before travelling to Argentina I had watched a lot of films by various Argentine directors, one of my favourites being Pablo Trapero. His work, in common with many recent Argentine films explores daily life and existence in Buenos Aires. In particular I have been influenced by his films Nacido Y Criado(Born and Bred) and Familia Rodante (Travelling Family). In Argentina I visited various museums and galleries in order to update myself about the current artistic activities in the country and the region. I especially enjoyed visiting the Museum of Latin American Art and the Museum of Fine Art and purchased various photography books which gave me inspiration and ideas for my own work. After speaking to a young Argentine artist, Leandro Piñeiro, currently photographing in the city, whose book I had purchased, and an American photographer, Thomas Locke Hobbs, I had clear ideas as to the images I wanted to achieve in Buenos Aires. Leandro had published a series of books of black and white photographs of people going about their normal daily life, walking around the downtown centre of the city, unaware of his camera and his intentions, and this had achieved a sort of snapshot effect which captured perfectly the very unique character of the inhabitants of Buenos Aires, or Porteños, as they are known. These images to me were very successful in creating portraits of people and by extension, of the city, which were powerful and interesting, both to the Porteño and to the foreigner. Thomas was creating a very different portrait of the city, based on its physical aspects and its architecture. Both of these artists were working in areas which greatly interest me and I decided to use their work as a catalyst for my own and to combine their two approaches. I wanted to capture everyday life, a recurring theme in Argentine art, particularly cinema, and the reality of the city and country, incorporating the architecture and character of the city into these portraits. In short I wanted to use Leandros approach and combine it with the work that Thomas was doing.

I have also been influenced by the photo essays of Jan Sochor which explore Latin American realities. Jan has been extremely successful in capturing the identity and character of the locations in which he has worked and I have taken from his work further inspiration and guidance on achieving a union between location imagery and portraits.

In taking the photographs I tried many different approaches ranging from staying static in one spot and photographing people as they passed me by to photographing from my waist and chest height without framing or focussing whilst walking. All of my approaches proved fruitful in different ways and achieved very distinct perspectives and effects. The images I have chosen to use are mostly but not exclusively those taken when I stayed static as I believe that it was not necessary to have blur in these images in order to convey the movement, activity and energy of the city. Perhaps the most important themes of the images are those of the intimacy and individuality of daily existence in a crowded city, the collective identity, hidden and foreign worlds and solitude and relationships.

The images I have submitted capture the entire social spectrum of people going about their daily activities; the cartoneros[3] or rubbish collectors who travel into the city from its outskirts every day, the business man on his way to a meeting, the child lost in his own world playing, the student listening to headphones, oblivious to the world around him and lost in his own thoughts, the man selling ice cream and sweets in the park on a sunny day, the woman protesting outside the British embassy on the anniversary of the Falklands war, the boy wandering along with his eyes closed and the schoolboy checking the time; all are fleeting daily moments in the lives of these people which I felt it was important to document and which, for me, capture, in some way, this city and its people. I intend for my prints to work as a sequence and to create a sensation in the viewer; an atmosphere, a feeling and a sense of location. I want the expressions of the people I have photographed to function as a link between the viewer and the subject; the viewer should look at the images and wonder about the expression or the lack thereof. Many of my photos were purposefully taken from behind the person, therefore hiding their face and their expression, but not their identity. I believe that these images challenge the viewer to imagine the persons face, their expression and their thoughts and to ponder their life; what were they doing there, who are they, what is their life like?

Like all great cities Buenos Aires doesn’t exist, except in the memory of those who live or lived there. It has no comprehensible form, no definable shape, it changes even as you walk through it, from corner to corner…. Perhaps there is too much of it, whatever it is: New York skyscrapers, Paris balconies, Madrid forged-iron windows, sidewalks from Damascus and Cairo, melancholy cafes and tree-lined suburban streets from places whose names are always on the tip of your tongue…. It is a city which foreshadows all others. You never leave it entirely, you keep rebuilding it through the faded snapshots your memory throws up

Alberto Manguel, Calgary, October 1999[4]

Bibliography

Wilson, Jason, Buenos Aires; A cultural and literary companion, Cities of the Imagination, 1999, Signal Books, Oxford

Alberto Manguel:
http://www.alberto.manguel.com/

Leandro Piñeiro:
http://fotografiasyformas.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31271394@N07/

Thomas Locke Hobbs:
http://www.thomaslockehobbs.com/
http://www.buenosairesphotographer.com/

Jan Sochor:
http://www.jansochor.com

[1] Buenos Aires; A cultural and literary companion, Cities of the Imagination
[2] Buenos Aires; A cultural and literary companion, Cities of the Imagination
[3] http://www.cartonerosdoc.com/
[4] Foreword of Buenos Aires; A cultural and literary companion, Cities of the Imagination

Same buttons get pushed

2010-03-30T11:58:00.002+01:00

A friend just sent me a very interesting piece of writing. It talks about our relationships with our parents. I found it very calming. I am my parents oldest child and I think that parents always have a difficult time with their first born, when they have grown up, left home and matured into an adult in their own right, to accept the shift in the relationship and to adjust their behaviour accordingly. Of course, it works both ways and challenges both sides to choose maturity over regressing to past behaviour. This piece of writing is idealisic and slightly too spiritualised for my liking but it does make some interesting points regarding the psychology and chemistry behind parent-child relationships, in the adult stage of life. It comes down to choices, like most things in life...

We are meant to change the way we react to our parents’ behaviors. If we are responding now, as we did as children, clearly we are not growing from the situation – and we are missing an opportunity. The goal with our family is to get to a point where we can deactivate the buttons that our parents and family know all too well how to push.

This is a great way to gauge how much of a correction we have made. How diminished is my reaction? How much kinder can I be, even in the face of those old patterns and habits that our parents have? If our reaction changes in small or even great ways, then we can know we are achieving our correction.

Elina Brotherus

2010-03-29T12:22:00.005+01:00

I just came across some assignments and short essays I wrote whilst completing my MA in Visual Studies at Queen's University, Belfast last year. I thought it might be interesting to post some of them here. This assignment was to write a few short paragraphs on a visual artist who has influenced our own work.

I would like to discuss the work of the Finnish artist Elina Brotherus and the essay written on her work by Val Williams which appears in "The Citigroup Private Bank Photography Prize 2002".

Much of Brotherus' work focuses on her experience of living in France as a foreigner and the resulting feelings of inadequacy. The resulting images encompass themes of cultural isolation, loneliness, social change and personal trauma. Throughout many of the photographs there is a sense of linguistic and cultural imprisonment; Brotherus has spoken of her frustration with the lack of social mobility which she experienced in France as a result of her inability to communicate in French. This disorientation arising from an unfamiliar cultural signage is what initially interested me in her work.

In Epilogue (page 43) we see a visual representation of these restrictions, the chains of cultural isolation which physically hold and control Brotherus, and the resulting suffering and despair. Le Printemps (page 53) was the first image of Brotherus' that I saw and I immediately reacted to the image and felt attracted to it even before knowing anything of the artist or the context of her work.

I find that Brotherus' work is very relevant to my own preoccupations and interests and consequently to my artistic output. I experienced a very similar phenomenon to that which Brotherus expresses through this work, when I spent two months living in Paris, initially not having any knowledge of the language. I had never before experienced living in a country for a relatively long period of time with such a limited grasp of the language. Even though I had previously spent time in South America and Europe, I had studied the languages of the countries I lived in and therefore found assimilation to be much more straightforward. I am fascinated by national identities and how linguistic and cultural boundaries shape and blur these. Disorientation, a lack of discourse and the sensation of being in a foreign and hostile space are evident in this work and are themes which I feel I can identify with and which greatly interest me.

[Brotherus uses] photography to provide a visual key to a shifting and unsettling range of emotions and events
Val Williams

Time for Cultural Musings...

2010-03-16T11:41:00.008Z

"Like all Englishmen I am simultaneously enthralled and intimidated by the dazzlingly relaxed, refined and generally not uptight culture that seems to exists everywhere beyond the borders of my drizzly and grey little island"
Sam Delaney, Ryanair Magazine, Feb-March 2010

If you were to change Englishmen to British and Irishmen in the above sentence, it would come very close to accurately summing up the relationship of the inhabitants of the British isles with most of the rest of the cultures on earth, but, in particular, with continental Europe.

Like most people who have spent a significant amount of time out of their country of origin I am absolutely fascinated by cultural differences, national identities, language and linguistics, travel and cultural, social and linguistic clashes/integration in general. Here in Northern Portugal the majority of tourists tend to be French or Spanish whereas the Northern Europeans, or as a woman from the Canaries on my flight back to Portugal put it yesterday, the people from the cold countries (!) meaning Scandinavia, Britain, Ireland, Belgium, Holland and Germany tend to go to the established tourist centres, in the Algarve in the case of Portugal. Obviously this is a bit of a generalisation but the main point is that those who go to Lisbon and Porto as well as smaller cities such as Coimbra and Braga tend to be slightly more culturally and linguistically aware whereas many of those who go to the Algarve aren't sure whether they are in Spain, Portugal or Greece. It's been a while since I've been somewhere which has mass tourism of the latter variety. So my long weekend in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria was very interesting. The city itself is fascinating as it very much acts as a stage on which hundreds of thousands of cultural and linguistic battles are fought every day. First comment to make is that I am delighted, shocked and very amused that in almost every place I've been to in Spain where there are tourist resorts or large numbers of foreign tourists the grasp of English which the Spanish people living there have, never seems to be very advanced. Despite the fact that they are practically flooded with completely monolingual British and Irish tourists as well as other Northern Europeans who predominantly communicate via the use of English as opposed to their own native language. And yet, the Spanish don't so much see this as an opportunity to speak English and perfect their command of English as... well I'm not sure how the see it. I just find it so amusing. It's like neither side really wants to budge and admit that perhaps everything would go a lot smoother if both sides spoke the others language. Honestly, it's like watching the British colonists trying to communicate with the Native Americans all over again. And this is Europe! It's not so much a criticism as just a comment from someone who feels bemused and entertained by the situation. I don't really believe in any case that in a city such as Las Palmas de Gran Canaria which receives a large number of tourists but is, at the same time, a large, fully functioning, Spanish city, that the Spanish people who reside there should be expected to speak English. Nor am I really optimistic enough to believe that Northern Europeans, the British in particular, will ever admit that they are not the centre of the universe and that learning another language doesn't erode or render less valid their national identity and would instead improve their time in another country. I just found it, from a linguistic and cultural perspective, to be incredibly interesting to watch Anglophones becoming irritated, rude, confrontational and confused when spoken to in Spanish, in Spain. Or when they actually had to make an effort to communicate and flail around feeling awkward and silly because of their lack of linguistic knowledge or cultural sensitivity. And again I echo, this is Europe! Two Europeans trying to communicate and it may as well be two ancient tribes from the opposite ends of the globe... Saying that I am honestly absolutely in awe of the immense amount of patience displayed by Spanish and Portuguese people when confronted with often (but not always of course) rude and abusive tourists who manage to make, for example, the Spanish person in Spain feel responsible for the confusion created in their conversation in English and try to somehow project their linguistic inability onto the native speaker of the national language of the country they are in and to somehow blame the Spanish speaker's lack of English for the difficulties in communication.... I don't know. Perhaps it is just insecurity, frustration and intimidation. Some people don't like what they don't know and all that. It just then seems hypocritical to get on a plane and fly somewhere else. Linguistic neo-colonialism and all that. It's just a terrible pity that the attitude towards foreign languages is the way it is in the UK. The education system at all levels is woefully, miserably inadequate when it comes to teaching foreign languages. Moreover British and Irish people tend not to have a very developed knowledge of their own native tongue when it comes to grammar, idioms, regionalisms and colloquialisms (as the teaching of English itself is also incredibly minimal) and therefore can rarely even manage to adapt their own speech patterns in English to make their communication simpler for a non-native speaker to understand. In short, the UK is culturally isolated and is linguistically an island and I believe, very strongly, that it needs to change. Maturation and development comes from exposure to a wide range of influences.

My weekend in Las Palmas was wonderful. The weather was extraordinary. Whilst everybody in Northern Portugal is still wrapped up in coats and scarves, we were on the beach in almost 30 degree temperatures. I found that confusing. But also amazing! I was also surprised by how easy it was to avoid the touristy areas and to feel like I was in a large Spanish city which was what I wanted. I was very impressed by the restaurants in the city- we ate Galician, Cuban, Indian, French, Japanese and Argentinean food and it was all absolutely incredible. All in all, a wonderful few days, made all the more enjoyable by the fact that I didn't have to eat in the sort of places that have pictures of the food in the menus and could take advantage of the daily lunch menus which were clearly aimed at the Spanish speakers and not the tourists. On that note, I chose to say Spanish speakers as the city is actually much more cosmopolitan and multicultural than I was expecting. I had the preconception that the Spanish would be in a minority, beaten down by progressive waves of Northern Europeans arriving by their millions of package holidays but what I found what a bustling city, with Spanish speakers from across the globe as well as a significant Muslim population. Very interesting. Also, I found Canarian Spanish to be much more distinct from Peninsular (Castilian) Spanish than I had expected. At times I was almost sure I was actually in Cuba/Venezuela/Dominican Republic! Anyway, all in all very successful and enjoyable break. A beautiful place and wonderful people with excellent food and unbelievable weather...in March! Three more weeks of work and then I'll be going to the Algarve. Oh, and I found out that I don't actually have to do my Portuguese tax return until next month. Which is nice!

And to have a few days completely away from the computer and the online world-absolute total and utter bliss. Facebook/Twitter/Blogging and so on are marvellous. But only if you have an offline life and therefore something interesting and meaningful to share. Sounds obvious but the world seems to be forgetting it...

In from the Cold

2010-03-08T17:46:00.009Z

There are several things I've decided to disseminate and record using this medium, today.

First is that I love my job. I am truly so incredibly appreciative of the opportunity to work on a freelance basis- the freedom it gives me to work alone, be based wherever I choose to locate myself and accept and reject work based on nothing but my own criteria is immensely liberating and I value it more than I can possibly express. I especially value this opportunity due to the absolutely dire situation in which many university graduates from my generation currently find themselves. See my comment at the bottom of Tanya's article. Translation is a challenging and often difficult job with long hours and hard work required to be successful. But it can also be gratifying and interesting and varied and creative. And I enjoy it. Of course the long working hours can tire me out and there are many trends in the industry that I find discouraging, offensive and irritating but at the end of the day, quality, professionalism and education will prevail. I hope. We updated our little website recently too. Should you be interested.

Musicians accompanying me in recent times have included Tiny Vipers, Michelle Blades and Casey Dienel/White Hinterland.

In particular Michelle Blades' debut album "Oh Nostalgia" has delighted and charmed me. The music is refreshing and complex but Michelle's voice creates something very special- it's forceful and energetic yet subtle and fragile. I just love it. It kept me happy and awake all night last thursday when I was working on a hellish translation project I had to submit on Friday morning. Along with classic fm. A lovely quote from the White Hinterland Daytrotter Session article:

The ways that I've only heard of Casey Dienel acting are more numerous and full of triple the dimensions in relationship to the ones that I've seen with my own eyes. It's probably exactly that way with every single person that any of us have ever come into contact with throughout our many days - you, me, all others and the dead. They are mere tips of monstrous icebergs that those around us allow glimpses of - the original paper doll before the connected family is unfolded like a triple-gate letter, shocking us with numbers, a magnitude of aspects, of a billion blinks, a million fingernails and platforms and thousands of gestures and angles.

Lovely. And special. And true. I'm very excited about the new White Hinterland album too.

The third and final thing I want to mention is that I finally saw Von Trier's Antichrist. A little blurb on my feelings and opinion follows.

I think the film managed to be both direct and subtle- there was a clear narrative within which all of the characters' actions made sense , the quality of the acting was excellent and the film was visually close to perfect. I find that people who have complained about the on screen sex/violence are being incredibly immature in as far as they feel uncomfortable watching something human and natural in a context where it makes sense with regards to the sexual scenes between a married couple. I don't see why it is shocking. Perhaps uncomfortable to watch, but who said film was supposed to be a pleasant or entertaining experience? I also personally don't believe that the violence was excessive or included "for the sake of it" or to court controversy. It made sense within the narrative and it was in keeping with Von Trier's work and the work of other similar filmmakers. I really question whether those who criticise this film are genuinely shocked and horrified or whether they are simply using the violent aspects of the film to attack and deride it; in terms of sex on screen, many european directors, notably almodovar have repeatedly shown explicit sexual scenes on screen and this depiction has even been praised by the mainstream as portraying human sexuality in a gritty, realistic and honest manner. Why is Von Trier criticised for something which others have been applauded for? And violence- I have to say that this really annoys me- apparently five people fainted in the Cannes screening... Have these people ever watched Buñuel's much acclaimed "Un Chien Andalou" or other avant-garde classics in which extreme violence features heavily? Or in current times, successful and very often critically acclaimed films such as "Saw" which focus on and graphically portray torture, suffering and violence?! I'm afraid I just don't buy these criticisms of "Antichrist". The people who have issues with the violent and sexual scenes either haven't seen very many films in their life, whether modern horror/terror films or classic avant-garde works, both of which push boundaries much more than this film does, or they are simply criticising Von Trier and his work without appreciating it or attempting to look past what they have been told to see and to feel i.e. jumping on the bandwagon. The film isn't perfect but it is certainly extraordinary and very much worth seeing. It is also fascinating within the context of Von Trier's previous work which, I should add, can be much more "shocking" than Antichrist.

An Australian reviewer wrote a beautiful piece on the film that I very much agree with:

Von Trier’s mission is to imbue his audience with more than just an understanding of his characters pain; the director needs for you to experience the helplessness of their despair as well...The themes, cinematic devices and underlying darkness of this extraordinary work reflect the best films from the likes of David Lynch and David Cronenberg (whose films Crash, 1996, and Dead Ringers, 1988, share a blood-soaked vision of sexuality-by-way-of-pain with Antichrist)... Cries of ‘misogynistic torture-porn’ and walkouts amidst booing and jeering greeted the film when it premiered at Cannes this year... But critics can’t expect to have it both ways. We deride the lack of bold visions and confronting themes in world cinema today, yet a film like Antichrist comes along and there is a backlash against its artistry, complexity, ambition and ambiguity just because it contains moments that deeply shock. Patrons sickened by the films visuals will get no arguments from me – Antichrist is a hideous film in parts and its excesses will not be to everyone’s tastes. But Lars Von Trier demands a lot from his audience (not to mention his poor actors); by accepting the Antichrist challenge, you will emerge feeling exhausted, filthy and abused, but also invigorated, stimulated and stronger.

So, I'm going to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria this weekend. Before then I have a few small translation projects to get through and then, jesus, how could I forget, the Portuguese tax system to tackle on wednesday/thursday. Wish me luck.

sooner or later

2010-02-21T15:29:00.014Z

Me in Guimaraes

Hello.

I'm not very good at blogging regularly. Sorry. However I am, on the contrary, rather good at tweeting regularly. Less effort. Doesn't need to be quite as coherent and so on. I will try to be a better blogger. Because I really do appreciate the blogs of others (see my little list on the right of some wonderful blogs I like to read on a range of things- basically covering everything I like and everything that affects me).

So yes, I have been drowning in music. I am a huge, massive, enormous fan of Grooveshark. So basically it allows you to listen to music. For free. And it has a very extensive catalogue of music. I've used it for long enough now that it can quite accurately predict (as I rate everything I listen to) new music and artists that I might like. In this way I've come across such absolute gems as

Joanna Newsom, Ebony Bones and Casey Dienel who have been serenading me in recent times. I recommend them all.

Film.

I saw "Das Weisses Band" recently and was left thoroughly enchanted and extremely impressed by the magic that Michael Haneke had created. I'd seen a few of his films before and have always found him to have a wonderful quiet but oh so powerful style so I was looking forward to seeing his new work. And it does not disappoint. Please see it.

I've gone to the cinema twice recently with the intention of seeing "Antichrist" by Von Trier. I understand that he is a little like marmite. People seem to have very strong opinions on his work. As far as I am concerned his films are extraordinary and I am always very keen to see his work. His personality doesn't really interest me. Both of my attempts to see "Antichrist" have however been unfruitful. Unfortunately for different reasons I've ended up missing the screening. And so I've decided to go ahead and see something else instead. Although, to be honest, cinemas don't tend to show the best selction of films in Portugal (unless of course you enjoy big-budget, bloated, hollywood affairs). So I have seen "Up in the Air" and "Wolfman". I was desperate. Actually I haven't got the energy to even begin to describe quite how terrible they both were. Terrible, repetitive, shockingly cliched and just boring. Please, don't waste your time with either of them.

So this whole world of blogging is somethingI find quite challenging, as I've mentioned before. It's mainly the whole Real World/Internet balance issue. How to consolidate living with talking about living. I find it can stray every easily into the arena of pretentiousness. And I also feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information, influences and ideas I come across and want to record somehow, share somehow. I find it difficult to summarise and effectively and clearly put it all together. So instead I tweet bits and pieces, articles, music, art and so on that affect me, interest me and move me, on a daily basis, as much for my own records, so I can come back to things, as for whoever else may share the same interests. I sometimes feel like blogging is a waste of time. Like I spend so much time online for work purposes that writing online, voluntarily is just a bit silly and a waste of time. And, of course, it's easy to feel that you are talking to yourself. But I will continue to attempt to write. For two reasons. To create a scrapbook-esque record of what I am living and thinking and to attempt to make sense of it. And because I greatly appreciate the work of others that I read. And perhaps things I say or share will be of interest or relevance to somebody else. Or perhaps not. Either way, it's a release and a record.

Since I started working freelance full-time in July 09 I've had an almost uninterrupted stream of very large projects. Which is wonderful from a professional point of view but it can be emotionally, intelectually and physically very exhausting. And as anyone who is self-employed/freelance knows, work never stops. The line between home/work blurs very quickly and we work too much and burn ourselves out. That's why I've gone away for the weekend quite a few times in recent months. To Braga, Guimaraes, Vigo and Marseille to date. All of which have been marvellous. I went to Guimaraes last weekend and enjoyed it. Lots. I had the most wonderful food, walked, explored somewhere new and relaxed. Being in Northern Portugal, there are so many places accessible by train/bus and I want to see them all. And also, Ryanair have a base at Porto airport. Which makes cheap weekend trips a possibility. Which makes me very happy indeed. It's cheap to get to the airport by metro (unlike in London!) and there are a good selection of destinations (unlike Belfast!) so the opportunities are endless and I intend to take advantage of it. After coming back from Guimaraes we hadn't intended to go anywhere until our Algarve trip with my family in April. But then Ryanair had to go and make flights to Gran Canaria, Spain only 30 Euros return. So we'll be there for a long weekend mid-march. Very excited to visit Las Palmas. I have been to Lanzarote, Tenerife and Fuerteventura in the past and although they are all very naturally beautiful and interesting places, they have been more than a little bit ruined by mass tourism from Northern Europe. So it will be interesting to stay for a few days in Las Palmas, which is the capital of the Canary Islands and therefore hopefully a functioning, Spanish(!) city.

Guimaraes- it reads "Portugal was born here"

Today I had a level test in the Goethe Institute. I did a written test and got a lower intermediate result and then spoke to one of the teacher who moved me up four levels after my oral test. I've forgotten how to write in German and my level of comprehension and oral expression have dropped significantly since I last studied it, 6 years ago, at A-Level. But I did reach a relatively high level so hopefully, with a few classes it will return quite quickly. It was very odd and disorientating to speak German. For the first time in six years. It's a language I associate with a very different period in my life- with being at school, being a teenager and living at home, before travelling, going to university and leaving home. So it was a strange feeling. Then after I came home I met up with a Northern Irish woman who was applying for jobs in Portugal, teaching English and is hoping to move here later this year. I met some of her Portuguese friends who were with her also and who live very near to where I live, one of them actually in the same building! It was nice but strange to meet someone from where I'm from, here. I feel like they are such seperate places in my mind even though they aren't so far apart from one another. So, an assult on my senses today then. Back to a huge translation project now. Dinner soon. Roast trout maybe...

in absentia

2010-02-04T12:34:00.009Z

things to share-

cookery, music, work, balance, age, growing.

I've spent most of the last few weeks working, cooking and eating. And trying to balance my life with my work and to manage my time effectively. To be productive during "working hours" and to switch off during "time off". Problem is, when working on a freelance basis, from home, neither of those concepts actually exist and time can work against you in so many ways. I find that either, the clock is ticking and deadlines are looming or, in stark contrast, I am worrying after one day of no work. It's a rather draining cycle of feast vs famine sometimes. I suppose it's simply a case of accepting the way the industry works and dealing with the (extensive) to-do list in the quiet periods.

On the agenda for the next few months-

First tax return in Portugal (FUN!). The Portuguese tax system. :shakes head: In the tax office you ask a question. Instead of giving you a straightforward, direct answer they find the HUGE book of tax law, look up your query and basically read you the clause relating to your question. That's a good image to sum up Portuguese bureaucracy in general. :sigh: If it's all just overwhelming and confusing I'll have to find an accountant...

Finding a new apartment. I've probably spent longer actually physically IN this apartment than anywhere else I've ever lived. Due to working from home. One of my many reasons for moving to Portugal was that, from a financial perspective it makes sense as a place to set up as a freelance translator. Living costs are low. However I think that a really nice apartment is one thing that I should see as an investment as opposed to trying to in any way economise on that front. Where I live affects my mood and productivity much more than I'd previously realised. I've been lucky enough to live in some beautiful apartments. This one isn't horrible but it also isn't exactly beautiful. It could be better, but it could also be worse. And again, from a financial point of view, it's the cheapest rent i've ever paid, anywhere. Hopefully we will find something more suitable for our move date in July. Definitely staying in Greater Porto for the foreseeable future.

I'm going to the Algarve for a week in April and hoping to go to a translation conference in Lisbon in May.
...

racism, identity, ignorance. enemy of all of us.

I had the decidedly unpleasant experience of becoming involved in a facebook group dealing with immigration to the UK recently. This is the sort of thing I would normally stay well away from as I'm aware of how futile it is to try to reason with people who have a skewed, distorted and frankly ignorant view of themselves and the world. I could not however restrain myself in this case. I looked at the group after reading that a relative of mine had joined the group which has a rather aggressive title. After scrolling through some of the posts I felt angry and offended. I'll just post my major contribution to the group and leave it at that.

"This is one of the most offensive, ignorant and revolting things I have ever come across in my life. I really should refrain from commenting as quite frankly the comments already made by the members of this group speak for themselves. I would just like to echo some of the remarks made by others here who are equally disgusting by the fact that there are people in Britain who think in this way. I am British and my first language in English. Before you ask. I also speak several other languages and am resident in Portugal, having also previously lived in Argentina, France and Quebec (Francophone Canada). I speak Portuguese everyday to everybody I come across as I live in Portugal. However I speak English everyday with my English fiancée who I live with. Now, the logic of this group is not simply that people living in a country where a language is spoken other than their mother tongue should speak the national language, which I agree with, but that one should refrain from speaking one's native language with other native speakers of this same language. That baffles me somewhat, I must say. In every non-Anglophone country I have ever lived in I have never initiated a conversation with anybody from that country in my native language, English. I have, however, spoken English with Anglophone friends and my fiancée. And I have never, ever been discriminated against or treated negatively in any way whatsoever because of this. Quite simply this is because of the fact that anybody with any vague semblance of intelligence should know that if I speak my language with other native speakers of this language in a non-Anglophone country it is nobody's business. Would the members of this group ask of me, living in Portugal, that I speak to my fiancée and any other Anglophones in Portuguese in order that people around me (who I should point out have no real business in eavesdropping on my conversations, regardless of what language I am conducting them in) can understand what I am saying, out of fear that I am hiding something from them? This is an absurd, ignorant and offensive idea. And it is, without any doubt whatsoever, incredibly racist. I feel the need to bring up also that there are many hundreds of thousands of British people (and people from other Anglophone nations) living in countries such as Portugal, Spain and France as well as outside of the EU, who speak English and only English despite being legally resident in a non-Anglophone nation. Which, going by the founding principle of this group would most certainly be deemed not only "weird" as these people speak English among themselves, but also unacceptable, as they are fundamentally disrespecting the country in which they reside. Why is it acceptable for this to occur? Should we deport all of those frail, elderly mono-lingual British people living in Southern Europe? The reason it occurs is because the people in the nations who put up with ignorant, mono-lingual British people residing in their country in order to enjoy all its benefits without being prepared to make the effort to learn the national language is because people are kind, open-minded, educated and welcoming, even towards lazy foreigners. This is a racist group and it is shocking how many people are professing to agree with these abhorrent views. People who make the decision to live in another country should, out of respect for that country, learn the native language and integrate into the host society. I agree. But I do find it deeply hypocritical that this is coming from Britain-the country known, across Europe and the globe as mono-lingual and culturally ignorant. It works both ways. The point made about people speaking their mother tongue with other native speakers of that language, regardless of what that language may be and regardless of the country in which they are, is absurd and pathetic. Why is it that you feel you have any right to determine the language is which a private conversation is conducted? Just one more point I'd like to mention is the irony inherent in this group. Speak our language, the language that we have quite clearly demonstrated that we have a woefully bad command of. I could go on, but I'll leave it at that."

Everybody is entitled to their opinion. But the sort of things being said on groups like that are just vile. We'll leave that there.
-------------------------------
summer. spring. life cycles. activity. joy. family.

I had an incredible time in Marseille. I met Julia Kent and talked to her. She was incredible live-absolutely wonderful. I just wish I'd had more time in Marseille. It was beautiful. It's on my list of places to return to in the Summer, along with Vigo, Spain.

new leaf. new life. new start, every day.

yesterday is irrelevant. tomorrow is irrelevant. today is all there is.

Between two lungs

2010-01-12T14:45:00.011Z

I'm currently reading the third and final English translation by Reg Keeland of Swedish writer Stieg Larsson's Millenium Trilogy. Although I don't speak Swedish, I do believe that Reg has done an excellent job on, what is very much a literary masterpiece, albeit in a genre I am not familiar with and which I would not normally enjoy. I'm interested in these books for a few different reasons- I was introduced to Larsson's oeuvre by the first of the filmic adaptations of his novels. Which I blogged about and thoroughly enjoyed. A few points to make on this. Keeland has stated that he had little control over the titles given to the books and the films. That is, despite being the translator of the work and therefore in the most suitable position to translate the original titles of the work or to create a more apt English title, commercialism won over and the title was changed from "Men who Hate Women" to "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". Now. That second title may be more palatable and easy to market to the masses but it conveys nothing of the story of the film/book and actually initially put me off, in combination with the terrible film poster(probably engineered by the same people behind the title), seeing the film. So. That irritated me. Second point. Whilst buying the English translation of the final book in FNAC in Porto, Portugal I was slightly horrified to see that the Portuguese translation of the book had been translated, not from Larsson's original Swedish text but rather from Keeland's English translation. I can't even explain how foolish and irritating this is. There was one and only one reason for this. The Portuguese publisher or whoever commissioned the translation into the Portuguese language obviously didn't want to pay the fees of a Swedish-Portuguese translator (most certainly a rarer language combination and one which would therefore demand a significantly higher fee) and consequently came up with the idiotic idea of just getting the Portuguese translator to work from Keeland's text, probably without ever even looking at the original novels. This is catastrophically ignorant. From reading just one page of the Portuguese book I can confirm this to, unfortunately, be the truth. Firstly a translator should have, not only excellent linguistic knowledge of his source language but also of the culture, heritage, politics, history and so on of the country or countries where the language is spoken. Secondly they must be able to write extremely well in their own language. They must be an author. They are, after all, writing a piece of literature. The Millenium Trilogy deals with Swedish society and more than any other piece of writing I can imagine it is intrinsically and profoundly linked to the country in which it takes place and the language in which it was originally written by Larsson. Keeland, having studied Swedish language and spent time in the country therefore had the task of translating not only the language, but the meaning, the context and the significance of Larsson's text and rendering it comprehensible to Anglophones, linguistically, politically and culturally. Which I believe he has achieved. And he should be commended. Now, the problem lies in the Portuguese translator, or anyone else for that matter, working solely from Keeland's text. Keeland has undoubtedly, as is the job of a translator, altered, amended and adapted the source text linguistically and culturally and targeted it at Anglophone countries. Therefore it is an adaptation. For an English to Portuguese translator, from a Lusophone country, having studied English language alongside, most likely Anglophone culture and heritage, to tackle this text is all and well if it had been written by an Anglophone for Anglophones. But there is a barrier created by the fact that the Portuguese translator, I am assuming, does not speak Swedish and does not therefore have a profound knowledge of and intimate relationship with Sweden and all thing Swedish. A translation of a translation can only be a disaster. I read an article in The Times entitled "To convey the writings of other languages is a noble and necessary art" which gives an interesting overview of translation and how important and influential it is, without most people ever realised it. I should also say, still on the topic of the Millenium Triology that I think that the treatment of Larsson's partner by his family is absolutely despicable.

In other news, I have resolved to study German again. I spent six years studying German at school and did GCSE and A-Level's in that language. I always enjoyed it and almost ended up doing a German and Spanish undergraduate degree instead of Portuguese and Spanish. In hindsight, from a financial perspective, in the translation market German is more profitable however I don't regret learning Portuguese. If I hadn't I probably wouldn't be living in Portugal now. And anyway, six years of study and various trips to Germany is an excellent foundation for further study. I'm hoping to begin to use German professionally after a period of intense study to improve and refresh my knowledge of that language. My classes will start next month at the Goethe Institut in Porto. I'm also rather tempted to consider studying a Scandinavian language, again, mostly for financial reasons, but also because I am intrigued by the culture of that region of Europe. After reading an article on Norwegian and how "easy" it is for Anglophones to learn, I am indeed considering this as a very real possibility for the next few years. We'll see. For the foreseeable future I'll be in Portugal. In fact, I can't really imagine leaving Portugal anytime soon. But studying other languages, continuing to learn more and more Portuguese every day, working, learning to play cello and travelling are all on the agenda for the near future, for me. My Algarve rendez-vous with my family is in April and before that, as mentioned below, I'm going to Marseille for a weekend. Right now, back to work for me. Translating a Belgian IT website from French into English. I'm also hoping to see Florence and the Machine, Yo Yo Ma and the Cranberries, who are all playing in Lisbon in the next few months (not together, although that would be quite amazing!). Plans, plans, plans. What are we made of but memories and plans?

Ramp

2010-01-10T21:15:00.004Z

Happy new year. First and foremost. I wish you hope and change and growth and maturation et all.
I worked over most of the holidays. Aerospace engineering text, 30000 words, Portuguese-English. I actually found it quite interesting in the end. The greatest (and possibly also the most infuriating) thing about working freelance as a translator is that you are let into very specific, very specialised little worlds that you would otherwise not ever experience. You learn interesting and undeniably strange facts and figures. Sometimes it feels like the majority of my work is research. Research into a particular field or industry. It's interesting at it's best. Irritating at worst. I prefer to work in areas where excellent resources are available and in those areas I have worked most in, in the past. Such as the EU and law.

So I took three days off for christmas/christmas eve/boxing day and three more for new years eve/new years day/the day after. Christmas for me is Pomplamoose-Always in the Season. I did enjoy it though. Food, loved ones etc.

So. Julia Kent. Her "Cello music for the emotionally weary traveler" and her "solo record inspired by the disjunctions of travel" have been a major influence and inspiration for very obvious reasons. Not obvious enough. I'll spell it out. I am obsessed with Cello and desperately trying to learn to play although my cello is in Ireland and I am in Portugal. I'm hoping we'll be reunited in April this year. Zoe Keating, Rasputina(in which Zoe and Julia both previously played), Jorane, Yo Yo Ma, Apocalyptica and so on are among some of my all-time favourite artists. And travel. I have travelled a lot. Packed up my life and my soul and moved. Over and over again. Cello and Travel are two words which would be included in any biographical text on my life. If such a self-indulgent text was ever written. So Julia's work is, for me, extremely pertinent. It just resonates with me. So, for these reasons, I will, rather appropriately, fly to Marseille, France, to see Julia play in two weeks. I. Can't. Wait.