I started tinkering with one of the pieces he had there, making a translation based on La Barceloneta, an original by Alexandre Plana; Ben has now added my draft translation to his blog as a guest post. (You can also read the original and Ben’s translation)
I’ve always thought that you need to feel some empathy with a poem to make a good translation. But now I’m beginning to wonder what happens if you feel too much empathy.
Continue reading “transcreation”
Yesterday I complained that the weather had taken a turn for the worse. In fact it turned out that really I was just up too early for my own good: once the sun got up, the wind blew most of the clouds away.
This reminded me of the times when we would be on holiday at the seaside when I was a child and the days almost always seemed to start off looking unpromising. I remember my parents assuring us it was “only a heat haze”, and it’s true it often seemed to burn off by middle morning.
It’s perfectly clear that yesterday’s cloud wasn’t a heat haze, but it got me thinking about weather, about how vocabulary is so often tied to location, and about how both weather and the words we use for it have personal connotations.
Continue reading “hazy thoughts”
When I wrote the post about the PP’s Rescate game earlier, I visited their web site to see if I could actually see or play the game myself. The page (http://www.ppcatalunya.com/rescate/) loads but there’s no game there. What there is, is a little diagonal strap across the top left hand corner with the slogan hablando claro – speaking clearly:
Clicking on it takes you to a ten-point survey.
Continue reading “plain speaking”
I know I try and keep away from politics on the blog, but because of the Catalán elections, there have been a couple of Spanish stories in the news this week and they are really too good to ignore. The first, reported by the BBC under the headline Spain outrage over migrant bombing game centres on a video game – Rescate (Rescue) – that the Partido Popular launched a few days on their website.
I haven’t played the game, which seems to be no longer available on the website, but have read a few of the reports in both Spanish and UK national press. The tag line for the game appears to be:
Ayuda a Alicia y a Pepe, su gaviota, a rescatar a Cataluña de la crisis
and it features Alicia Sánchez-Camacho (President of the PP in Catalonia) as Alicia Croft, perched on a great white seagull shooting at illegal immigrants and symbols of Catalán nationalism.
Continue reading “political polemic”
An interesting story on the BBC website under the headline Spanish hairdressers rebel against radio tax. It’s all to do with the fact that here in Spain the SGAE (Sociedad General de Autores y Editores) is determined to protect the intellectual property rights of its members.
The SGAE are the people responsible for the Canon por copia privada, a tax imposed on recording devices (both storage media, such as cds, and reproduction devices) in Spain.
Continue reading “it’s all Greek to them”
don't confuse the narrator 