Tidal Wave

I well remember - how could I ever forget? - my single disastrous foray into the world of simultaneous translation. My client had hired a professional interpreter from Paris to handle the fancy stuff and my job was simply to do a bit of desultory translation in the corridors, at the coffee bar, etc. Unfortunately, on one occasion the Paris wiz kid was called out of a plenary session and I was asked to take over in her absence. I listened carefully to what the French speaker was saying and formulated in my mind how I could best render his drift in English. Very soon I noticed that the audience was looking at me expectantly and I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to translate WHILE THE FELLOW WAS SPEAKING!

Why am I telling you this now? Because nowadays I experience much the same sensation of feeling completely out of my depth when I listen to the news on the radio. No sooner has my mind started to get to grips with, say, the BP oil spill disaster (if only it could have been Total or Exxon) than I am engulfed with the enormity of the public deficit and the national debt - or should that be the other way round? - the economic crisis in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the United States.

Wave after wave crashes over me and after about a minute I give up the unequal struggle. How to explain this sorry state of affairs? One explanation is that my brain is not what it used to be. Another is that the news is much worse than it used to be. A third is that newscasters nowadays read "at the speed of summer lightning". This is certainly my impression of French radio where journalists speak as if they were rappers. In the words of Anthony Newley: "Stop the World, I Want to Get Off", or in the words of Bruce Forsyth: "Stop the Clock!"