Timtranslates

Shortly after narrowly beating a nine-year-old girl at table tennis on Sunday (although I won 3-0, I only just won the final set, 12-10), I went to put my tracksuit bottoms back on, and when I pulled the lace to tie it, part of it snapped. One end was left inside the trousers, and I couldn’t manage to slide it to the opening. When I got home, I tried all sorts of implements to pull it round, but couldn’t do it. I considered opening up the seams to get to it, but then I decided it would be a better idea to pull the whole thing out, tie it to a rod (I handily had a long rod that had snapped off the clothes horse a few days earlier) and push it through. Big mistake!

Unfortunately at the seam where the left and right trouser join together the lace goes through a very small hole, too small to push through a rod with a lace tied in a knot around it. I then decided to open up some stitching so I could get my hand right near the part I couldn’t push the lace through, but I still couldn’t push it through.

I then saw a role of sellotape on my desk and had an idea. If I sellotaped the lace to the rod, there would be no need for a knot, and it might just push through the hole. After a lot of pushing, I managed to get the rod and lace through the hole and round the trouser to the other opening. Here’s how I did it:

Unfortunately I’ve made a right mess of some of the seams, and I’m going to have to sew it all back together now.

Acabo de ver este anuncio en el Facebook:

Pero con GolTV son tan solo 15€!

For professional translations, visit timtranslates.com.

I always get rather concerned when I go to meet somebody at the airport and I see this sign. I don’t know very much about aviation, but I do know that it is a Very Bad Idea to land a plane like this.

El dia 15 de maig, gent de tot el món comprarà pastanagues, per tal de crear-ne escassetat. Per què? Cap motiu. Simplement perquè farà gràcia. Més informació: http://www.panicbuyers.co.nr/

A rather amusing cartoon that appeared in the newspaper ADN yesterday (English translation below).

The text reads:

• Box 1: Confirmed: water found, but no think tanks.
• Box 2: Optimum conditions for intelligent life.

If you type =rnd() into a Microsoft Word document then press enter, then on your screen will appear a sentence containing all the letters of the alphabet once and only once. The The exact sentence depends on what language you have Microsoft Word in. In English, the sentence is The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. You can see what sentences are used in other languages here.

Now here’s my challenge for you. I would like to see who can come up with the shortest text containing all the letters of the alphabet in the correct order. Obviously in this case letters may be repeated. What you write must be grammatically coherent and spelt correctly. For the sake of clarity, each time you write the next letter of the alphabet, please use a capital letter. So, your sentence could begin like this:

ABraham Can DancE FriGHtenIngly quickly. James can maKe LeMoNade…

Complete gibberish, but grammatically correct. There will be a winner for each language: the person whose text has the least number of characters, including space bars and punctuation (but you cannot leave out punctuation if it makes your text grammatically incorrect).

For French, Catalan and Spanish, use the following alphabets:

French: abcçdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Catalan: abcçdefghijkl l·l mnopqrstuvwxyz
Spanish: abc ch defghijkl ll mnñopqrstuvwxyz

When you post your answer, please enter an e-mail address you haven’t used on here before (make one up if you like). That way, your answer will not be visible to others until I’ve moderated it.

Recently, scam e-mails have started using correct English. But then I got this one today:

Subject: Attention: Beneficiary
From: BEN IBE 
Message:

Attention: Beneficiary,

I want to bring to your Notice that the New President of the Federal Republic
of Nigeria, Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar\'adua has Mandated that all  the Ovadue
Payment should be Paid to the Beneficiary not Letter than 30th of November
2007.

We are very sorry for all the stress/Fees you spent to the Fraudulent
Officials who claim to be a Good Nigeria, Nigerian Image has been tarnished in
the eye of the International Authorities,so Mr. President Has  Promised the
International Authorities in the G8 Summit
Meeting held in Germany, that he will make sure that all the Payment owed by
Nigerian Government will be paid to the Foreign Beneficiary without any
further Delay.  I want to Inform you that A Draft of ($250.000.00) or ATM Card
will be Made  available to you, We therefore Request you to

Reconfirm the Information Bellow:

(1) YOUR FULL NAME/ADDRESS.
(2) YOUR DIRECT TEL/FAX NUMBER.
(3) YOUR NATIONALITY
(4) YOUR AGE
(5) YOUR OCCUPATION.

You should reply directly to my direct email: drbenibe_diamond@yahoo.fr ,
Immediately with
the nformation if you really want to receive this Draft before the Closing
Date. Reply and Let Me Know Your Stands as well as sending the Information.
Thanks For Your Understanding,

Dr. Ben Ibe.
Diamond Bank Nigeria Plc

// This email is sent by a U2.com member. U2,
Signatures Network and their respective affiliates and principals are not
responsible in any way for,  and do not sponsor, authorize,  or endorse the
contents of this email.

Per a traduccions professionals: www.timtranslates.com.

Aquesta nit queden uns amics meus per anar de copes a les 11 de la nit. Sí, queden a les 11! Per què no sortim a les 9, i així podem tornar a casa a les 12? Evidentment no els importa perquè segurament es poden permetre fer matinada mentre que jo em sento obligat a llevar-me de bon matí per a fer totes les coses que tinc per fer durant el dia. You’re only young once…

For professional translations, visit timtranslates.com.

I just gave myself a massive jump because I had my headphones on while spellchecking in Déjà Vu and I had the volume on full when I got the bleep with the “Spell check is complete” message. My whole body jerked, like those horrible spasms you sometimes get at night when you’re dosing off. Anyway, the bizarre thing was that my body seemed to jerk a split second before I heard the sound. The only explanation I can think of is that it was a spinal chord reaction before my brain interpreted the sound, since I know that the spinal chord reacts quicker than the brain. Is that scientifically possible? Can the spinal chord react to sound?