Thursday 28 February 2008

( nr 113 ) They are playing Games ! - I have heard soon after moving from Holland to UK. The part of the UK, which seemed to have nothing in common with the Albion I knew, or rather, I thought I knew. My last free-lance "job" in Holland: a telephone call from Britain brought the offer (accepted by me) to translate/interprete at the DE BURGHT CONFERENTIE 2002 (Eng-Ru part of it). As was often the case, participants or 'clients' would ask for the business cards of interpreters involved, and the British delegation did ask for mine. Under the watchful eyes of the Dutch organisers I could not do that, as interpreters had to represent the ( subcontracted) Dutch Agency.
So, having moved to UK and having had my naive intention of 'playing Mother Theresa' for money, which would pay the bills, rudely annihilated, I decided to send CHANGE of ADDRESS letters to recent UK clients. Here came a surprise....
I thought the "UK Gen. G. Johnson - voorzitter" could be easily found via MOD, but no address on its website was meant for outsiders. So, I sent my letter to Gen. G. Johnson via Room 222 Whitehall, which seemed to be a postal distribution point. The letter came back with a note: Returned to you as Gen Johnson cannot be traced by this office.
Another surprise was Return to Sender sticker on my letter to Adam and Katrina Noble, FCO, King Charles Street, London SW1 2AH. I was a Russian language teacher recommended to Adam by the British Embassy and via the Dutch-British Chamber of Commerce in the Hague.
Mr Hennesy was not in the office. And soon after that there was a non-verbal message from a Bosnian "prostitute" and a pure verbal suggestion from Mr. Robinson of InBiz, that it might be very useful to know somebody from MI6.
And, back to my post yesterday, an advice came from/via Gosport JobCentre to register with the Police as a free-lance interpreter, which I was never tempted to do in Holland. The reply informed me, that they had just changed their rules and they only use people from 'The List', and I need to be a member of the Institute of Linguistics. I phoned them and asked for the membership application forms to be sent to me. The young lady (with an accent) began persuading me ... not to apply (!), because.... I won't be accepted, she said.
This sort of rubbish is an effective turn-off, of course. What a world of difference with the Dutch NGV (transl. assoc.), of which I was a member for a number of years.
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On my first visit to Holland in 2002 I commented on
1.Something about women 2. local anthropology 3. deprived and depraved children 4. traumatised men and what I referred to later as S-Theater.
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Wrong parking yesterday - S-897-JTP.
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Next post tomorrow, 29th February - the last winter day.