Skip to main content

EVERY CLOUD HAS A SILVER LINING

Judging by the quantity of Police Statements I am translating at the moment, Northern Ireland is not a good place to be if you're Portuguese.

But the more nationals from that country that get beaten up, fail to repay debts, steal each others' electrical equipment and have their windows smashed by gangs of hooded youths, the better for business as far as I'm concerned.

The tragedies of globalisation - and they say crime doesn't pay...

Comments

Ermintrude Fishlifter said…
I recently translated the website of a well-known debt collection company which made them sound warm and caring ... if that's not a crime then it certainly should be
8 February 2012 at 16:38
Anonymous said…
Sorry dearie, its Ermintrude Fishlifter... it seems I still don't have the hang of this blog thing
8 February 2012 at 16:43
Gadjo Dilo said…
For you it's a veritable gravy train of human misery, Wardy, though I imagine that you Brazilianos generally must be getting a great deal of pleasure from knowing that your snooty former overlords are skint and getting beat up by Orangemen while you are now one of the world's foremost Tiger economies. Enjoy!
18 February 2012 at 06:12
M C Ward said…
Ermintrude, I'm with you on that one. PR is the curse of the modern world.

Gadj, I am planning to ride that train for as long as the gravy is warm, and regarding the former colonists, a lot of them seem to be over here, causing all kinds of confusion with their missing syllables and barely disguised attempts to sound Czech. Oh how the tables have turned...
21 February 2012 at 11:39
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

FOOLING WITH SCHOOLING

One of the commonest figures to be found within TEFL is the aspiring administrator. This is a teacher who, often drained by years of repetitive, poorly remunerated clowning around in the classroom, seeks a position managing other teachers, such as Director of Studies (aptly and attractively known as "Doss"), from which they can sit in an imaginary TEFL director’s chair smoking a cigar, bellowing, “CUT!” and enjoying not having to pull a linguistic rabbit out of a hat twelve times a day, five days a week. I include myself within this TEFL subgenre, although my past experiences of administration have left me with an odd yearning to get back into the classroom and be king of my own modest sandcastle. In 2005, whilst I was working in HR at a local factory, my Brazilian friend Bert and I decided to start our own school. I had recently managed to wriggle out of a honey trap I’d set for myself, when I offered to give a free English course to my colleagues in the factory’s Training a...
19 comments
Read more

NO MORE A-CUSSIN'

In an effort to rid himself of the habit of using foul language at the slightest provocation , a Facebook chum recently asked for suggestions for harmless expressions he could use in front of his Gran and her bingo clique during moments of high stress, astonishment and/or extreme disappointment. I weighed in with, " Crikey! " and, " Great Scott! " Please feel free to add your suggestions, and help to make the world a tiny bit less like a trucker's stopover in Eindhoven .
12 comments
Read more

6 RANDOM THINGS ABOUT WARDY

The splendid Gyppo Byard has kindly requested that I write six random things about myself. I note that the adjective "interesting" didn't feature, thankfully, so here goes: According to my late father's genealogical rummaging, I am (very) distantly related to Sir Francis Drake (or Sir Walter Raleigh , I forget which); I've suffered two bouts of severe clinical depression (the last 17 years ago) and used to suffer panic attacks. I regained my fragile sanity without recourse to professional help or drugs, partly by reading Free to Be Human by David Edwards, a personal friend with whom I have shared many a beery night over the years. In fact, it may have been the beery nights that cured me, who knows?; When I was a baby I used to hum songs from the hit parade in my cot, way before I could talk, leading my father to predict that I was some kind of musical genius . Later attempts to learn the violin at primary school proved his optimism spectacularly unfounded ; De...
16 comments
Read more