by Mike Garner on 28/02/2010
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
This is a completely subjective list. It features albums that, with one exception, were all made between the mid-seventies and mid-eighties. I’ve been listening to them for years and when I really need to concentrate, I shut the door and put this playlist on. I make no excuse for the fact that it’s exclusively Eno (et frère) and Budd, the two have shaped relax music single-handed in recent years. Most discerning people will already have them or at least know about them. If you don’t, enjoy.
Brian Eno with Daniel Lanois and Roger Eno:
Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks
The so-called (although not by himself), inventor of ambient music. This album was part of the soundtrack to For All Mankind, a film that documented the Apollo space mission to the moon. The film itself wasn’t released until many years after the album, by which time it had taken on a life of its own. A mixture of styles from the broody, atmospheric beginning to the country-tinged steel guitar of the later tracks, this was the first real ambient album I listened to. Like On Land, it evokes landscapes that are bleak and grey, not just lunar. As good a starting point to ambient music as you’ll get. Especially if you want to clear your head for any reason. [click to continue…]
by Mike Garner on 17/02/2010
I get a childish excitement when I discover a new technology. It might have something to do with watching Tomorrow’s World and other new technology programmes when I was a kid. All the cool kids may just think communicating without wires is run of the mill, but I thought it it was pretty good.
When I started translating I didn’t even have a fax machine. I delivered the first few jobs I did to the one local client I had on my bike. It was a good distance away and up and down hills, so at least I got fit. I got a drink when I arrived and sometimes even lunch. It wasn’t however the best and most efficient way of running a business.
In 1998 I bought a modem
I’m not sure whether it was 1200 or 2400 bit/s, but even then, it was an antique. I was however able to send faxes. And receive them. Faxes had been around since the 1970s but these were the first time they had been sent directly to me – sad perhaps. [click to continue…]
by Mike Garner on 09/02/2010
I gave up on the job I was doing last night at midnight and went to bed, shivering. I haven’t had that feeling for about 10 years and in fact, I don’t do ill. Then I started burning at the same time that I was shivering. Oh dear. The trouble is that your mind starts racing away with all kinds of ideas at that time of night. I had the flu jab in October for the first time in my life. But I didn’t have the swine flu jab! This morning it was worse. Headache, cold sweat, no energy. I had to finish the job (and a horrible one at that), but as soon as I had, I went back to bed with the idea of sleeping it off. A doorbell ringing and a couple of phone calls later, I was beginning to think that was a silly idea.
To be honest, I’ve felt terrible all day. Just in case you’re thinking, this isn’t a case of man ‘flu. I work through that – I can’t afford not to. Which leads me to a question. What do freelancers do when they get sick? Do they get sick any less than anyone else? Do they deserve any sympathy?
Post scriptum: It’s Sunday 14th now and I’m over the bug; the phone did ring a few times and I tried to be as professional as I could (if only they knew I was in bed!), I read a lot, watched a couple of films and reset my body. The world didn’t collapse but I’ve had to work all weekend to catch up.
by Mike Garner on 01/02/2010
I did a silly thing the other day. I accepted a job from a regular client without asking what the subject was. It’s the kind of bread and butter job that translators rely on. 3500 words is not too short and not too long, the kind of stuff that keeps us going. All the PMs in the agency know what I like doing and what I don’t, but for once it was the big boss who called me. Perhaps I was so surprised it was him, I didn’t think to ask. More fool me. When I opened the file, I realised what the subject was. Refrigeration. Oh deep joy. I think I’d rather have my teeth pulled.
Let’s face it, life as a freelancer isn’t always perfect and we all get boring jobs to do from time to time. So how do you manage a day’s work without yawning? [click to continue…]
by Mike Garner on 18/01/2010
I had a rant last week about never having time to do anything. Not very professional really, so I thought I’d better redress the balance.
One of the beauties of being a freelancer is the ability to work when you want. Or that’s the theory anyway, the reality is that you’re generally rushed off your feet (if you’re any good anyway) and you don’t know what a weekend is. I’m generally a useless time manager, I fall into these pitfalls from time to time, but when I’m on a good day, this is what I do. [click to continue…]
by Mike Garner on 15/01/2010
Last week I finally cracked. My Windows XP partition had lasted two years on my MacBook Pro, for as long as I’d had it. It had come close to being wiped a few times in the past but had always won a stay of execution because there had always been a job on so I didn’t have time to reinstall all the applications. I’d cleaned out the temporary files more times than I cared to remember but they’d gradually eaten up all the free disk space like spam in an email Inbox causing the thing to grind to a halt again. It was going to have to go. [click to continue…]
by Mike Garner on 12/01/2010
Who said that the advantage of being a freelancer was that you could choose the hours you worked?
I’m lying in bed at the moment writing this on the Wordpress app on my iPhone. Luxury eh? The alarm’s on for 5 tomorrow morning so I might have a sporting chance of finishing a project by the end of the week. I’ve been at it since last week, all over the weekend and 10 hours yesterday and today. And I turned some more work down yesterday.
The good bit is that I’m taking Friday afternoon off. And Saturday (well, I’ll be formatting my Windows partitions on my Macs), and Sunday and most of Monday.
So that’s what they meant about chosing when you worked…
by Mike Garner on 30/12/2009
What with plummeting rates and ever-demanding clients, life can be a bit tough for translators at the moment. Lots of businesses think that computers can produce acceptable translations, so why bother employing someone to do it?
I sit here in my comfortable Western European economy, albeit one that’s struggling a bit, and it’s easy to see the arrival of low-fee translators working in emerging economies as a threat. Quite frankly, I don’t. So what’s the best way of surviving in this new world situation? [click to continue…]
by Mike Garner on 28/12/2009
So you’ve decided to make the big move. You’re going international. There’s one problem with that though, in most places abroad they don’t speak English.
So you just get a translator… Simple, eh?
I was talking to someone recently who was surprised to be told that, no, computers don’t do all that on their own. Google Translate or any other machine translation program will be fine if you just want to know the rough meaning of a text, but if you want something a bit more crafted and even more, sound like an original, a human being will still be your best friend. [click to continue…]
by Mike Garner on 26/12/2009
Once Christmas Day is over, my thoughts turn to the New Year. What’s going to happen? What are my plans? This year, I’m taking what has worked best over the previous 12 months and using that to develop things next year. So any bankers or benefactors out there with deep pockets, here’s my business plan! [click to continue…]
