Language

  • Ask Crapita awkward questions, lose work

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics

    Reposted from Linguist Lounge.

    On Wednesday, 7th August 2013, Hammrammr wrote:

    Some time ago Capita TI implemented the so called JSA – new contract which was rather unclear and detrimental to interpreters. After several weeks of wrangling with their completely untrained workers I managed to get hold of someone dealing with legal matters. I forwarded several emails regarding inconsistencies and unclear issues within that ‘document’. Finally I received a rather short message that their legal team acknowledges my concerns and I can basically get lost. My concerns were not only about insurance but focused on special deals granted to a small group of Polish interpreter at Westminster MC. My further enquiries resulted in a message from an individual calling himself Commercial Manager at Capita HQ, that my profile was deactivated, which means that they do need my services any longer as they have now enough docile, new breed of ‘interpreters’. They are not going to grant any special, ‘bespoke’ contracts to anyone else.

    Conclusion: As this “de facto employment” agency enjoys a monopoly in the CJS sector of interpreting they became a law unto themselves – arrogant, abusive and biased. Such action basically barred me from working in the courts. I conducted another survey focused on awareness of various court staff regarding the use of interpreters without middlemen. I called and/or visited 14 courts in Northern and SW areas of England. The same reaction: from disinterested, to onward hostile. Most of relevant court employees were not even aware that FWA is not a closed shop and they are allowed to use other methods of booking interpreters. Some of them mentioned that such a decision is outside their remit, each case to be authorised by their court manager. Several still keep their own records and book proper interpreters when and if required though.

    Let us hope that so called FWA is terminated sooner or later. I am going to seek legal advice from an employment law specialist in order to enter legal proceedings in the future.

  • Bristol Post Balls – let it rain

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media

    Certain parts of the country suffered from very heavy rain earlier this week. Where I was camping in the Black Mountains for the past week, we had some 3 inches of rain over the weekend.

    image of a row of umbrellas
    Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

    The Bristol area was also affected by the torrential downpour. Sit back and marvel at the mathematical genius of an anonymous Bristol Post reporter in this report posted in the online version on Sunday and bearing the headline “Met Office issues severe weather warning as Bristol poised for 12 hours of heavy rain“.

    The forecast is for heavy rain from 10pm tonight, stretching through until 10pm on Monday, before heavy rain showers persist until 7pm.

    Excluding the heavy showers, I make that at least 24 hours. How about you? 🙂

  • Sea greens

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Oddities

    Yesterday I left the confines of Bristol and travelled down to the Bristol Channel coast.

    While there I was there I made time to visit an area of salt marsh to forage for marsh samphire (also known as glasswort), which is currently in the midst of its short season, which consists of the months of July and August only.

    image of marsh samphire
    Marsh samphire (Salicornia europaea)

    Samphire can be eaten raw or cooked. In the latter instance, no salt needs to be added to the cooking water as the plant has an inherent high salt content. It has a fresh, salty taste, crisp texture and makes a great accompaniment to fish and shellfish dishes, eggs or such specialities as salt marsh lamb. As samphire gets older and larger, the core of the plant becomes more stringy and the succulent flesh has to be stripped off the stringy core.

    Until the start of the 19th century, marsh samphire also had industrial uses: before the introduction of the LeBlanc process for the industrial production of soda ash, marsh samphire ashes were long used as a source of soda ash (mainly sodium carbonate) for making glass and soap.

    As regards the origin of the noun samphire, it is believed to be a corruption of the French name herbe de Saint-Pierre, i.e. “St Peter’s herb”.

  • Bristol Post Balls 4 – a classic homophone

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media

    Today’s cock-up by the Bristol Post, from a story entitled ‘Man on lilo rescued after drifting out to sea off Weston-super-Mare’, has gained Bristol’s newspaper of record a seat in homophone corner.

    For the benefit of passing Post journalists a homophone is “a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose (flower) and rose (past tense of “rise”), or differently, such as carat, caret, and carrot, or to, two, and too.”

    Now let’s see (or sea. Ed.) what landed the Post this particular accolade.

    screenshot of homophone from Bristol Post
    What did he drift out to see, Bristol Post?

  • Crapita’s lack of integrity revealed again

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics

    Evidence continues to stack up on the Court Delays website about Capita Translation & Interpreting’s continuing failure to meet the terms of its courts and tribunals interpreting contract with the Ministry of Justice (posts passim).

    This blog has previously highlighted Capita’s tactics to save its own skin when challenged; back in May it seemed to imply that the Clerk of Nottingham Crown Court was being untruthful when it failed to provide an interpreter for a murder case (posts passim).

    That is, however, not an isolated case, as shown by the following comment posted on the Court Delays website by Tim Sapwell.

    One whole day of Court time wasted.

    Warwick sitting at Leamington Spa

    9/7/13
    Defendant in robbery trial not produced from custody. Then no Punjabi interpreter for witness. Capita claim on telephone to CPS that no booking has been made. This is clearly not correct, because they later send an e-mail giving the exact details of the booking as the subject heading! They say they only have 2 Punjabi interpreters, one of whom is busy and the other cannot be found (!). It is suggested that the interpreter cannot attend before 12 noon the following day because he/she is based 100 miles away. Options offered are that the interpreter could be available at “around 12″ the following day or else a possibility that another could be found who might be available for 10.15 am.

    Identity of defendant withheld – case not concluded.

    First Capita T&I tell an untruth to the Crown Prosecution Service and then contradict themselves: you couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried!

    As far as I can see, honesty and integrity are important qualities to possess for undertaking work in the courts. Capita T&I clearly has neither.

  • Farewell to The H

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Open Source, Tech

    Today’s a sad day in the IT news world: The H is closing down. For the last few years it has been an excellent source of IT news in the fields of free and open source software, security and software development, or as it said in its own words: “The H brings you the in-depth coverage of the world of IT, communications, data security and the politics of technology.”

    Earlier today editor DJ Walker-Morgan (aka Codepope. Ed.) posted the message below on The H’s website.

    Although The H has produced many widely read stories, it has not been possible to effectively monetise that traffic to produce a working business model.

    Because of this, after four and a half years as The H and six years online, The H is, sadly, closing its doors. We thank all our readers for their deep interest and engagement. Work is taking place to create an archive to ensure that the content of the site will remain publicly accessible.

    Best regards

    DJ Walker-Morgan and the entire team at The H

    The H was produced in association with Heise Online, a major German IT news site and one I’d recommend.

    So farewell, The H and thanks for providing quality news for the last few years and best wishes for the future; you’ll be missed.

  • Boycott bingo

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Oddities

    The second Ashes Test match is currently underway at Lord’s in London between England and Australia.

    Over the years I’ve become a fan of the live coverage provided by the Test Match Special team on Radio 4 LW; local Bristol community station BCfm interferes with the signal on Radio 4’s FM signal where I live.

    portrait of Geoff Boycott
    Geoff Boycott
    As a consequence, I’ve got to know and appreciate the consummate broadcasting skills of Aggers, Blowers and company, including Geoff Boycott, regarded by some as the ‘greatest living Yorkshireman’.

    One of the joys of listening to the coverage is the banter between the team, especially the ribbing of Boycott and the interplay between him and Aggers in particular.

    Now Geoffrey is not known for keeping his counsel to himself, being a man of strong opinions. Like all of us, he’s got little foibles in his speech and recurring phrases, affectionately known as ‘Boycottisms‘. These Boycottisms have been used to produce ‘Boycott bingo’ cards like the example below.

    image of a Boycott bingo card

    You can get your own Boycott bingo card at http://boycott.gdb.me/.

    Play along and enjoy the game!

  • Chinese interpreter jailed for helping people cheat driving theory test

    Steve WoodsLanguage

    West Midlands Police has announced that a Chinese interpreter has been jailed for helping driving test candidates cheat on theory exams in a scam that’s believed to have netted him up to £100,000.

    Interpreter Peter Hui was approved by the Driving Standards Agency (DSA) to guide foreign applicants through the exam and provide a Mandarin voice-over for its multiple choice questions and answer options.

    However, a joint West Midlands Police and DSA investigation revealed Hui had helped more than 200 candidates pass by agreeing a cheat’s code, which involved him saying “shi” – Mandarin for “yes” – before reading out the answer he believed was correct.

    DSA officials became suspicious of the increased number of prospective drivers choosing to be represented by the 55-year-old interpreter as his client list expanded rapidly towards the end of 2011 and into 2012.

    They appointed their own Mandarin language expert to assess audio recordings taken from 27 of his translations and found he repeatedly used the “shi” prompt to steer candidates to the right answer.

    Hui was arrested at the Birmingham test centre on 21st August 2012 and, faced with the evidence, admitted conspiring to defraud the DSA.

    On Monday 15th July 15 Hui was sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court to 12 months in prison.

    Police finance investigators will look to recover cash and assets Hui is believed to have gained illegally.

    This is believed to be the first time an interpreter has been jailed for such a fraud.

    Two candidates who admitted paying Hui to help them cheat also admitted a charge of conspiracy to commit fraud and were ordered to carry out 80 hours of unpaid work and pay £100 costs.

    Theory test candidates that cannot speak or read English can ask for a ‘voice-over’ in one of 21 different languages provided by the DSA-approved interpreters.

    Furthermore, on 10th July officers from West Midlands Police’s ECU arrested an Urdu interpreter suspected of helping bus and lorry drivers cheat on theory tests. He was bailed till a date in September pending detailed enquiries.

Posts navigation