Letter to Count Smorltalk Dear Count Smorltalk, This could be the beginning of a wonderful friendship. Because I believe you need a friend. I believe you must be terribly lonely. In your Trolley Folly post, you painted this sad self-image of a suitcase-lugging, colleague-bugging conference interpreter who had to wrestle through the work day. What...
Count Smorltalk asks the question: is this the end of the road? When I was little, nobody had had the genius idea of adding wheels to suitcases. I reckon that the late dawning realisation that you could add wheels to bags is a prime example of linguistic determinism: we called it luggage because we lugged it. End of. I was lucky to...
Conference interpreter, Paris-based member of AIIC, EN<>PL, EN<>FR, PL<>FR, RU>PL, RU>EN, RU>FR. Former semi-professional chess player, author of several original mathematical theorems, globetrotter. Canadian, Polish and British national, a Pole by choice. Monika: Jan, let’s first talk about your working languages and...
A beautiful find from a holiday in the Algarve. Spotted in the Old Town of Albufeira, a town on the Atlantic coast. I have been trying to find out what this place is exactly but no luck so far…
Count Smorltalk raids the minibar – again! British waistlines are testament to the fact that we are a nation of foodies. If any further proof were required of quite how food obsessed we have become, the runaway success of the BBC television show The Great British Bake Off, now in its sixth series and emulated around the world, speaks volumes...
As spotted in an Esselunga store in Florence.
So here I am again, leaving home at an ungodly hour, somehow tired already (and the journey hasn’t even started properly!). Not having set foot in the booth for almost four weeks, I admit to myself that I am feeling anxious, dreading the challenge ahead in the City of La Tarte Flambée. As I’m trying hard to relax and catch up on sleep, I remember...