Like Thelma and Louise but with more botany and less death

One of the things I like about my job is the variety. I don’t do financial or technical translation (because I wouldn’t know what I was talking about and you need your translators to know what they are talking about) and over the years I’ve shifted the focus and specialised until I am mainly doing… Continue reading Like Thelma and Louise but with more botany and less death

New premises

Well OK they are not that new. To tell the truth, I have been here a year now but I needed to make sure it was working and permanent. It is definitely working and it is definitely permanent as far as I am concerned.  Rather than working full-time from home, which was proving a little fraught amid three children under 13, I am now working in rented studio/office space a ten-minute walk up the hill. It is brilliant. The buildings used to be part of the Victorian brewery and look like this:

Wilt thou quite destroy us?

I am a competent second alto* and sing in a choral society. This term we were performing Mendelssohn’s Elijah and in dull moments during rehearsals, while the conductor was bashing the sopranos into shape, I was reading the introduction to the score, which provided background information about the history of the oratorio, including a chunk… Continue reading Wilt thou quite destroy us?

New

It’s a new tax year in the UK (well it was yesterday) and a new financial year for my business. I’m taking time off over Easter to recover from the busiest March I have ever had, and seeing as March is Scandinavian Annual Report Season, that is pretty busy. I don’t translate accounts, I hasten… Continue reading New

You know Scandinavian crime is a hit in the UK when people start making their own

This brilliant video crossover between Wallander, The Killing, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Midsummer Murders was made in the depths of Croydon. “No, I am the Swedish Wallander. I am much uglier and more miserable.” It has cheered me up greatly after an extremely hectic autumn of translation. I especially like the invisible… Continue reading You know Scandinavian crime is a hit in the UK when people start making their own

Alan Plater and translators in popular drama

Playwright Alan Plater died on 25 June. I grew up with The Biederbecke Affair, Big Al, Little Norm and Medium-sized Mrs Swinburne, suspiciousness of people with forward-facing haircuts and Peterson, the man with no name. He also wrote the screenplay for the 1982 adaptation of Trollope’s Barchester Chronicles that had Alan Rickman as the most… Continue reading Alan Plater and translators in popular drama

That’s the way to do it

Yesterday a client had questions about a translation. Normally an agency coming back with questions from the client results in a feeling of horrendous dread, especially when the e-mail is accompanied by a file in which the end client has completely rewritten the entire thing in a strange version of English which is entirely their… Continue reading That’s the way to do it

New routine

Finally, the now 2 year-old is sleeping all night rather than waking at three, and I am getting back to the work routine that suits me best. 5.30 – 7.15 a.m. Work 7.15-9.30 a.m. Breakfast with children, get everyone dressed, hunt for nursery bag, book bags and shoes that have unaccountably vanished since the night… Continue reading New routine

Twitter

I’m now on twitter as translatingkate. There are 14 other people called Kate Lambert. Perhaps I should have taken my husband’s unique Finnish surname after all.