Strange Translations
France is very good these days in putting up notices in various languages. This is unlike Montreal, which seems to avoid putting up anything in English at all. But then as they speak good English, it doesn’t matter to the Canadians. But it does to visitors like me with limited language skills. Especially as the Canadian French is not like I learned at school.
But look at this notice in the unisex toilet of the Picasso Museum in Antibes.
Strange Translations
Here’s the English.
Thank you to respect the cleanliness of these places. By measurement of hygiene, female protections must imperatively be thrown in the container reserved for this purpose.
You can understand it, but it does have a certain sense of the surreal about it.
I’m pretty certain that it was translated by BabelFish or some other computerised translators. Or at least when I type it into that site, I get this.
Merci respecter la propreté de ces endroits. Par la mesure de l’hygiène, des protections femelles doivent impérativement être jetées dans le récipient réservé à cette fin.
Which is not too far from the original French in the notice. Note that I can’t type that in directly, as it has too many accents.
Surely though, wouldn’t it be sensible if before the notices are printed, that they knock the translation into something that is better. Then they wouldn’t get pedants like me commenting on the quaint words.
I also feel that in the UK, we should perhaps put more notices up in other languages, but failing that we should all make sure that if there is a word that is the same in most languages then that should be used. For instance, on my trip I saw some French/English notices, where the French was completely understandable to any English speaker. So why put the English up as well?
Antibes and the Picasso Museum
I at least managed to get to the Picasso Museum in Antibes. When we had the house on the Cap d’Antibes, we did go a couple of times, but inevitably when we tried it was closed. And it was closed on our last visit in April 2007.
The museum is very much worth a visit as it is one of the best collections of Picasso’s work. I suspect too, that it has got bigger in the twenty years since I last visited. There is also a large collection of works by Nicolas de Stael, who is an artist, of whom I’d never heard.
But then what do I know about art?
As you can see in the pictures, there is still a lot of work being done around the museum.
Busway Humour – 2
There’s nothing like putting the boot into a project that has its troubles. So it is no surprise that the Cambridge Busway is the butt of humour in the Cambridge Evening News.
Dinosaur bones have been discovered on the guided busway – and tourist chiefs hope it could lead to the scheme becoming a major tourism attraction.
It’s not as funny as their previous attempt.
The Unusual Nice Tram
Nice trams are unusual in that they have batteries so that in areas like the Place Massena, the overhead wires don’t need to be erected to spoil the scene.
In fact the Nice Trams seem to be very much well-designed from an artistic point of view. It seems that the French have resisted the loud colours they like and have used subtle shades to contrast with the bright Nicoise buildings.
Wandering Around Nice
Nice was only a short bus ride away from Cap Ferrat and it was a Euro well spent.
How to Repossess an Aeroplane
I found this story on Popbitch.
It just shows that there are some funny jobs in this world.
But it also reminds me of a story about how to repossess a taxi, when the borrower is behind on the payments. You may know where he lives, but then you can never be sure whether he is in and if he knows you’re after him, he’s probably got the car and his livelihood securely locked away elsewhere.
So you go to a pub on an anonymous housing estate and phone his firm for a taxi. You say that you always have X and are prepared to wait. The firm are always happy to oblige if he’s working. If not, you say forget it.
Now taxi drivers usually pull up on the pub forecourt, leave the engine running and run into the pub shouting something like “Taxi for the Station”.
When they do, you just get in the taxi and drive away.
The Anonymous Widower 