I heard a funny story at my German class the other night. The teacher, who is German, has an English friend who delights in writing to her in her Mother tongue.  The trouble is, he composes sentences in English and then puts them through Google Translate, then cuts and pastes the result into an email.  The finished letters are a comedy turn for anyone who undrestands the language because they bear no resemblance to the intended message..  This is why a good translation service is still essential for business if you are dealing with clients in other countries.  Otherwise your attempts to communicate could have extremely embarrassing outcomes.  Imagine if you inadvertently included suggestive wording or oaths, or addressed your target audience in the familiar person instead of using a more formal tone.  That could be the end of your huge overseas deal!  A translation agency can advise you on much more than the right words to use – the ‘mot juste’.  They can also tell you which media would be suited to your requirements, end even when to time your approach.  Other countries will not share the same religious holidays and translation agencies are experts on avoiding offence by making an overture at a sensitive time in the calendar.

Vintage Fever is a big thing, certainly in the area where we live.  Furniture and ephemera from the fifties and sixties is in big demand with kitchen ware that I remember from my youth fetching high prices.  When I first set up home, a  spice rack was on everybody’s wedding list.  These 1970s spice racks were mostly made of pine, with space for six matching containers, usually prefilled and labelled.  The first example that I ever owned was a wall spice rack and the great thing about this was that it had room for twelve individual bottles.  The word was rather a misnomer at the time, since most people’s taste buds did not tolerate spicy food and the kitchen spice racks sold in the shops were generally filled with herbs such as parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme to coin a phrase from a famous song!  Even oregano was considered rather outre.  Now, of course, most of us reach for coriander or cumin without a second thought.