Happy 30th to us!

Happy 30th to us!

1992-2022 At 23 years of age, I sat down at my new desk, in my new office to start my first venture. It was 8th January 1992: I had a £3K bank loan, a beaten up green moped for essential transport and a mobile phone the size of my forearm. By 8th Feb I had approx 40...
Literary Revolution in User Manuals

Literary Revolution in User Manuals

In Machines Like Me, Ian McEwan talks about a poorly-translated user manual that came with a robot. “Its language was mostly clear and precise,” the narrator tells us, “but Adam was created across different agencies and in places the instructions had the charm...
Best Language Apps 2020

Best Language Apps 2020

Here is a list of our favourite language apps in 2020 (feel free to suggest any you love): Grammarly (Chrome extension or keyboard addition) – Grammarly is an AI-powered writing assistant which checks your spelling and grammar across documents, emails and social...
Covid and Translation

Covid and Translation

Translation: A sure-fire investment for the future I’m 52 years old today (… why thank you – it’s all that clean living) but, I can still recall the classroom dust motes, the smell of polish and wood, and the pain and anguish, 40 odd years ago, as I sat there, utterly...
Mild Fantasy & Children’s Literature

Mild Fantasy & Children’s Literature

Stories that politely pretend that everything is perfectly normal when it’s clearly not. In 2015, I spent an enjoyable summer with an excellent production company (Warpline Films), quietly pottering about the British Isles making a documentary on British Fantasy...