I wish to speak to you about that great British cultural institution the pub quiz.

First of all, what is a pub?  For those of you who don’t know a ‘pub’ is an abbreviation for a public house. It is the equivalent to a tavern or a bar elsewhere in the world. A pub quiz is a quiz that is held in a pub or a bar. These events are also called ‘quiz nights’ and they may be held in other settings. The pub quiz is a modern example of a pub game and often attempts to lure customers to the establishment on quieter evenings.

The pub quiz has become part of British culture since its popularisation in the UK in the 1970s by Burns and Porter. However, it was first mentioned in print in 1959. It has become so popular that it has spread internationally.

Although different pub quizzes can cover a range of formats and topics, they have many features in common. Most quizzes have a limited number of team members. They offer prizes for winning teams and they have different rounds by category or theme.

In 1976 Sharon Burns and Tom Porter founded and organised 32 pub quiz teams in three leagues in southern England. The goal was to attract people to pubs on quieter or ‘off’ nights. From the time Burns and Porter began their weekly pub quiz in the 1970s popularity grew over the next few years from just 30 teams to 10,000 teams in their weekly events.

Pub quizzes are also known as ‘live trivia’ or ‘table quizzes’ and are often weekly events with an advertised start time in the evening, normally 7:00 or 8:00 pm. Generally, someone will come round with pens and quiz papers which contain questions or may just be blank sheets for writing the answers. A mixture of both is common in which case often only the blank sheet is to be handed in. Usually a team hands their answers in for marking to the quizmaster or to the next team along. It is up to the teams to form teams which are generally based on tables although if one table has a large group around it they may decide to split up. Some pubs insist on a maximum team size such as six. The team members decide on a team name, often supposedly a humorous phrase or a pun or something to do with current affairs. These must be written on all the papers that are handed in. There is often a small buy-in for the quiz which contributes to the winning pot at the end of the night. Many pub quizzes require no payment at all as the event is simply a way to get paying customers into the pub on quiet nights.

The person asking the questions is known as the ‘quizmaster’ or ‘quiz host’. The quiz hosts often also mark and score answers submitted by teams although sometimes teams will mark each other’s answer sheets. The questions can be set by the bar staff or the landlord or a third party such as a professional quiz setting company. Often, questions can be drawn from the realm of trivia that everybody knows sometimes leading to controversies where the answers are false or unverified. Generally specialist companies that set quiz questions have proof read and verified answers prior to supplying them to avoid such issues.

The rounds are typically between one to six rounds of questions ranging from 10 to 80 questions. Rounds may include the following themes:

1) Factual rounds. These are usually spoken either over a public address system or just called out.

2) General knowledge rounds. These cover topics such as history, geography, science and nature.

3) Sport. A sports round comprises the statistics and minutiae of well well-known and obscure sports.

4) Entertainment. This round covers general popular culture including films, television shows and music.

5) A true or false round. These have questions to which the answer can only be true or false.

6) A picture round. These use printed handouts of televised images consisting of pictures to be identified. They may use photos of famous people. Maybe they are snapped out of context or else  partially obscured. There may be logos of companies without the tell-tale lettering. There may be famous places or objects captured from a strange angle. Usually these rounds are completed across the duration of the quiz with a hive of activity at the start of the evening to keep guests entertained during breaks between the rounds and the picture round is often marked halfway through the quiz.

7) There can be a round called ‘Who am I?’ It’s a series of clues to the identity of a famous person or thing. Clues are often given in order of descending difficulty. The earlier a team can identify the correct answer, the more points they are awarded.

8) There may also be a music round. These consist of excerpts of songs played over the PA system. Usually the teams must identify the song, artist and/or the year the song was released. Variations include the use of film and TV soundtracks or classical music.

With the mass use of mobile phones and mobile Internet access cheating has become a problem for some pub quizzes. Covert calls, text messages and internet use in the toilets or outside in the smoking area happen. Also, recent newspapers or magazines brought along especially for the event are another form of cheating. It can also be seen in large groups posing as multiple teams. Most quizzes set a limit of team members to prevent large numbers of people collaborating but this problem is difficult to regulate. A lot of quizzes now ban the use of mobiles and nullify the score of any team found to be cheating. While this issue is more prevalent where large sums of money are concerned cheating can still be observed for relatively low stakes.

I am involved in two pub quiz teams. The first team is called the ‘Bags and the Baguettes’. It’s thirty years old. The founding member and captain, Marilyn, is still playing. The second team is called the ‘Strained Brains’.

I go to a pub quiz on Wednesday evenings at a local pub called the Ailsa Tavern and there I play with the ‘Bags and Baguettes’. The rounds that we have to do well in are: the picture round; the current affairs round; the general knowledge round; the true or false round; the music round which is often based on a particular theme; the alpha the links round; the connections round; the wipeout round and the jackpot question.  I am fond of the Alpha Links round because it’s quite logical and the Wipeout round because it can eliminate a leading team or reduce their margin. At the Ailsa Tavern there are four prizes for the teams. There’s a prize for the first, second and third team and there’s a prize of £5 for the team that is penultimate. It is very difficult to actually come second from last in a competition. Often, the ‘Bags and Baguettes’ team comes second from last and we win what we call a ‘cheeky fiver’.

The jackpot prize at the Ailsa Tavern is made up of all the money that quizzers have paid over the months and weeks. Currently, it is about £200. All the teams are eligible to win, even if they haven’t performed well. The jackpot question is a very hard question. For example, when was the hadron collider invented? (1971) All the teams have a guess and the team that gets the answer right or has the closest guess, is given the opportunity to find the ace of spades in a pack of cards. If the team gets the ace of spades, they win the prize money.

Back in the summer of 2025, there was a resident cheat at the Ailsa Tavern. The jackpot prize money was about £800.  The cards that teams had to chose from were not held in a pack which the quizmaster held in his hand but spread out over a board and pinned to it. A member of the bar staff who was friendly with the resident cheat bent a corner of the ace of spades card on the board so that the resident cheat knew which card to select. He answered the jackpot question correctly and selected the ace of spades. He pretended to be shocked. One month later, the prize money was at £200. He got the closest answer to the jackpot prize question, selected the ace of spades and won £200. None of us were impressed. However, a few weeks later, the ‘Bags and Baguettes’ came first in the pub quiz! I broadcast our achievement all over social media, especially as we were fighting against a cheat! I boasted about our achievement to a member of the bar staff and shortly afterwards the cheating stopped.

The other pub quiz team, the ‘Strained Brains’ doesn’t have a particular pub quiz to go at the same time every week. We are part of a WhatsApp social group and we will chat to each other on the WhatsApp and agree on a pub. I like to go down to the ‘Anglers’ pub because it’s a beautiful riverside pub and because even if you don’t win, all the teams who participate get a prize. Very often the prize is a packet of biscuits but nevertheless it’s a prize. A lot of the pubs in the area where I live are quite lovely because they are close to the River Thames and very scenic. What’s interesting about this team is that one of our members is German and although she has lived in the UK for a long time, when there are questions about well-known British television programmes or films, she is completely stumped.

I think that pub quizzes are a lovely way of socialising, faraway from screens. The whole evening is made up faces and voices and learning new things. This is how people used to socialise before the advent of mobile phones and it is a salutary remainder of wholesome living.

As a  City of London Guide and I would like to tell you about the Central Criminal Court. I gave tours of this building. It is one of the most famous buildings in London and the most famous Court in the world. It has featured in Charles Dickens’ ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ and such films as ‘Witness for the Prosecution’ and ‘V for Vendetta’. However, before I tell you about this Court and its trials, I would like to provide a historical context.

History

This map shows the City of London and its perimeter in red. This area is within Greater London and the two should not be confused. The City of London is a square mile and was founded by the Romans in the first century. It was a walled settlement and continued to be a walled city through the Middle Ages. Back then, if a person wished to enter or leave the City of London he/she had to pass through a City gate.

 

This second map shows five of the City’s eight gates. If you look to the left of the map you will see a city gate called Newgate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This third map provides a close-up of Newgate. The street takes its name from the City gate. The black object lying across the street is where the old City gate stood. It replaced the original, Roman west gate of the City.

There was a prison on this site from the twelfth century onwards. Newgate Prison incorporated the City gate into its structure as you can see from this eighteenth century illustration.

Hell on Earth

The prison was rebuilt many times because of the overcrowding, squalor and disease. It was a byword for hell on earth.

On the third map above you can see a street called Old Bailey. Just where the word ‘Old’ is written there is a small building. This was the Old Bailey Session House built in 1539. ‘Session House’ is another term for ‘courthouse’. It was the first courthouse built near Newgate Prison. Like the prison it was rebuilt several times.

Bailey is an ancient word for enclosed area of castle or other fortification. The street of Old Bailey runs along the same course of the City’s original fortified roman wall.  This is where the Central Criminal Court gets its nickname: Old Bailey.

Newgate Prison stood on the corner of Newgate and Old Bailey from 1783 to 1902.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below is a photo of Newgate Prison just before it was demolished in 1902. Its replacement was the Central Criminal Court, built between 1902 and 1907.

The Ceremonial Entrance of The 1907 Building

The Central Criminal Court is a building of two halves. The 1907 building and 1972 extension. There is a main ceremonial entrance of the 1907 building. It was first used for the opening of the building by Edward VII on 28^th February 1907.

The photo below shows what the ceremonial entrance looks like on the inside. Please note that to the left of the doors is a lift. A few days before the Central Criminal Court’s inauguration, the Court administrators were informed that the King had been ill and might not be able to manage the stairs so this lift was hurriedly installed and still exists alongside the entrance. As it happened, the lift was not needed as the King managed the stairs easily.

The Central Criminal Court is the fourth courthouse that has stood on Old Bailey. The Central Criminal Court has the status of a crown court. The lowest criminal courts in the land are the Magistrates’ Court which hear 95% of all crime. The remaining 5% of cases are referred to the Crown Courts because of the seriousness of the offences. The very worst and most serious cases within the crown courts’ jurisdiction are sent to the Central Criminal Court. The Old Bailey’s jurisdiction is the City of London, Greater London, England and Wales.

I told you earlier that the Central Criminal Court is within the City of London. Its local government is called the City of London Corporation which owns and administrates the building. The staff who run the courts are employees of the Ministry of Justice.

The ceremonial entrance is used four times a year by the Lord Mayor of the City of London (in his or her capacity as Chief Justice and Chief Magistrate of the City). He or she comes in procession and sits in Court 1 to hear a non-controversial application. The Lord Mayor does not take part in any trial or contested proceedings.

The Penn and Mead Plaque

The Central Criminal Court’s archive dates back to 1674 so it is a goldmine of trials and stories. All of it is online and you can read about cases at www.oldbaileyonline.org.

One of the most famous early trials on record was the trial of William Mead and William Penn. They were tried at the Old Bailey Session House in 1670. Willam Penn and Willam Mead were Quakers who were accused of illegal preaching in the City of London. The jury did not return the unanimous guilty verdict desired by the authorities – four of them disagreed. The judge berated the jury. Jury locked up for two nights without food or warmth but they remained adamant. On the third day both accused were found not guilty and the judge accepted the verdict but fined the jury for not heeding advice. The judge ordered the jurors to remain imprisoned until the fines paid. Four jurors spent months in Newgate until one of them, Edward Bushell, was able to get the case brought before a higher court where Lord Chief Justice set aside the fines and the judgment.

This case established that juries should give a verdict according to their conscience and could not be fined or penalised for not complying with the wishes of the authorities. This is one of the cornerstones of the jury system wherever used throughout world.

What became of the acquitted defendants? William Mead went on to become a prosperous merchant in London. William Penn was the son of Admiral Penn, who was Samuel Pepys’s colleague at the Navy Office. Penn Junior eventually went to America to take possession of land granted to his father, after whom he named the colony he founded – Pennsylvania.

Court 1

This is probably the most famous courtroom in the world. It will be familiar to you as the setting for trial scenes in numerous films and television programmes. However, none of them were filmed here because filming is not permitted. The film and television studios built sets to recreate the courtroom. Among the most famous films is Witness for the Prosecution starring Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton and Tyrone Power. Court No.1 also frequently featured in the TV series Rumpole of the Bailey.

Judges here have what is known as a ‘murder ticket’. They have at least 20 years’ experience of hearing dreadful rape and murder cases. Other judges are specialists in other types of crimes such as complex fraud.

So where do people sit?  The central chair on the bench is always reserved for the Lord Mayor of the City of London. Although the Lord Mayor is ex officio the Chief Justice of the City he does not take part in any controversial case.  On the Lord Mayor’s right sits the presiding Judge.  On the Lord Mayor’s left sits the Recorder of London (the city’s principal law officer). His office dates back to the 13th century. To the right of the presiding  Judge sits the Common Serjeant of the City (effectively the Recorder’s deputy). This office dates back to the 13^th century too.  The other three seats are for a City Alderman (1 of the Aldermen is in attendance each day) and the two City Sheriffs who are responsible for the administration of the Central Criminal Court on behalf of the City. The office of the Sheriffs has existed since before 1066. They are responsible for taking care of the judges and advising the Lord Mayor.

If you look at the centre below the bench sits the Clerk of the Court.  Facing the bench is the large dock to which the accused is brought at the start of proceedings via steps which lead up directly from the cells. In the well of the court is where the legal representatives of the prosecution and defence are accommodated and behind them at a raised level is the public gallery. The prosecutor sits near the Judge’s bench and the defence barrister sits near the defendant(s). There is no direct communication allowed between the public gallery and the floor of the Court. The jury sits facing the legal representatives with the witness box at a raised level between the jury and the bench.The victim’s family and friends sit over there near the jury box and the dock.  Members of the Press have their place in front of the jury box.

Among the legendary and historic trials which have taken place in Court No 1 are those of Hawley Harvey Crippen 1910 and John Reginald Christie 1953. In 1969, the East End gangsters the Kray twins were tried and convicted here. In 1979, Jeremy Thrope and his lover Stephen Ward were tried and acquitted. Did you see ‘A Very British Scandal’ a few years ago? In 1981 the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe was tried and convicted here. Did you see ‘The Long Shadow’ on ITV in 2024?  The Sutcliffe trial is an example of the Central Criminal Court taking a significant case from outside London which it has done since the passing of the Central Criminal Court Act 1856, prompted by the case of poisoner William Palmer (the Rugeley Poisoner, as it was felt that he was unlikely to get a fair trial if tried locally).

Oscar Wilde was not tried here because his trial was in 1895 and took place in the Sessions House before the construction of this building in 1902.

I told you earlier that the Old Bailey is a building of two halves. Well, now I’d like to talk about it. The new part of the Central Criminal Court was first proposed 1960. The plans of Donald McMorran and George Whitby were approved November 1962. The original brief was for 6 courts but this was expanded to 12. It was a complex brief requiring separate street entrances and the need for people to be able to circulate in the building without coming into contact with others (defendants/jurors etc). The remains of the Roman wall and a collapsed portion of the wall from the 1902 Newgate Prison building were found during construction. Roman wall was left in situ although it is not visited on the tour and the prison wall was re-erected and is visible from the judge’s entrance at the rear.  McMorran died in 1965. The project was completed by Whitby who died in 1973 just before the bomb exploded outside this Court.

The 1970s Bomb and The Shard of Glass

In the photo above you can see a commemorative wall (behind the light bulbs) that was created for the inauguration of the new extension on 27.9.72. Above it you can see a tiny shard of glass embedded high on wall. This is reminder of the IRA car bomb left outside on 8^th March 1973. One person was killed and 200 were injured. The bomb blew in many of the windows but the Portland stone exterior survived almost unscathed.

I have the dubious distinction of interpreting for one of the terrorists who planted the IRA bomb and put that shard there.In 1973 an eleven-person active service unit from the Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade was responsible for the bombing. Nine people were tried and convicted of the crime, with sentences ranging from eight years to life. One of the convicted terrorists was Gerry Kelly. He had a very eventful time as a prisoner. In 1989 he was released from prison and went straight to mainstream North Irish politics. He played a leading role in the Good Friday Agreement and presently he is Member of the Northern Irish Assembly. As such, during the 2000s, he met a Colombian politician who wanted to know about the Northern Irish peace process. The Colombian came to the UK as a guest of our Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I used to interpret for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The Colombian politician wanted to compare the North Irish experience with the Colombian negotiations for a similar peace agreement. I interpreted for the two men.

 

I know that my hair’s a bit messy in the photograph above but I had just been running for 13.1 miles. The day was 21st September 2024 and crossing the finish line that day took much, much more than I bargained for. Reflecting on the last eleven months I can most definitely say that it’s been a year of challenges, four to be precise.

My Left Wrist. 

On 17^th December 2023, I fractured my wrist.  I wrote about this in an earlier blog. Over the winter I diligently ate bone-healing foods and did all the low-key physiotherapy I was allowed to do. By Easter 2024, the cast had come off and I was having physiotherapy appointments with lots of exercises for homework. I was back on the towpath running, too. As good as my progress was I knew that no summer beach holiday would be possible. Every now and then on the way back from the supermarket I would carry a bag for too long and I really felt it when I got home. I would have to rest my wrist for a couple of days and lay off the physiotherapy exercises.

The photo below shows me when I haven’t been running 13.1 miles or doing any running at all. It was on my birthday last year. I was determined not to let my fracture spoil my fun. The colour of my sling may not have matched my party dress but it matched my coat beautifully. I was injured but still looked chic!

The Change in My Anti-Epileptic Medication.

On 5th March 2024, I agreed to changing my anti-epileptic medication because I had been on it for a long time and my neurologist had been advising me for some years that I should consider switching. Therefore, in good faith, I began a drug transition plan where the consumption of old Medicine A was gradually tapered off and I slowly started taking Medicine B. By June I was on the full dose of Medicine B and experiencing the side-effect of significant insomnia three nights a week but I didn’t realise it. At first I thought it was because I had eaten too much chocolate or been on my phone for too long. It took a month for the penny to drop. I nearly had a seizure in mid-July and asked to be taken off Medicine B. My neurologist put me on Medicine C which gave me just as much as insomnia as a side-effect and made me very forgetful when I was on the full dose. I left the house without my purse. At work I made minor mistakes. Nobody else noticed but it was very troubling. By early September I was on the full dose of Medicine C but there were few benefits and so I asked to return to the medication that I had been stable on. For me, it was a complete medical fiasco and a very frightening time. There were some nights that I had so little sleep I thought that I was going to go mad. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Had I known in March what lay ahead of me I would never have agreed to the switch and I don’t think that my neurologist would have suggested it either.

My Running Challenge: ’12 in 12′.

In May 2024, before the pernicious effects of Medicine B took hold, I gave myself a personal running project. My view was that it would cheer me up and that I wouldn’t miss my beloved beach holiday. I decided to run 12 half-marathons in 12 months. However, it wasn’t really in twelve months but five months. At the end of 2023 I was grounded from running until late March 2024. I needed to make up for lost time and I knew that running would strengthen my wrist’s bones and muscles.  By the time I finally started running regularly again it was late April. I knew that I didn’t want to spread the ’12 in 12 Challenge’ over the autumn and winter months, so I decided to run them over the spring and summer months from May to September 2024, hence five months.

This ’12 in 12 Challenge’ was being offered by Phoenix Running as part of Global Marathon Challenges. I’ve run with them before and enjoyed the marathons and half-marathons that they’ve organised. Phoenix Running is a well-oiled machine. Everyone at the Race HQ tent, including the Race Director, Rik Vercoe (aka Mr Cheeky Half), run a half-maration or marathon before or after they’ve volunteered for a few hours. Phoenix Running has a ‘rock up and roll’ system which I love. Runners are not herded into groups, made to wait for an hour, given a pep-talk and then sent off together. Oh no. At Phoenix as soon as you have written your bib number on your hand, dumped your bag by the ‘Bag Tree’ and chosen your preferred refreshment for the cup in your bib-numbered holder, Rik counts you down and you are off!

You run along the towpath from The Weir riverside pub, Walton-on-Thames to a turning point which is between a mooring and the end of somebody’s back garden. The other runners always seem to be running before I arrive. They’re friendly and offer loads of encouragement, with smiles, thumbs-up, high-fives and / or a “Well done”. I’m very impressed with their accomplishments. There’s one runner who’s clocked up 2,128 marathons. Another recently finished his ’52 in 52 Challenge’: 52 marathons in 52 weeks. That’s a marathon every weekend for a year! Last weekend, a runner achieved their 100th half-marathon. A lot of the runners are so swift that you’ll miss them if you blink twice!

On one particular half-marathon, I forgot which, I was reflecting on life as I trotted along the towpath. It occurred to me that all the runners across all the running association events that I’ve encountered are disciplined, motivated, punctual, healthy, fit and very modest about their accomplishments. From a freelancer’s or small business owner’s point of view they are dream clients.  Why hadn’t I noticed that sooner?

My Seven x Seven Dream

The eve of my last half-marathon was 20th September and that was when I stopped taking any more doses of Medicine C. I ran Phoenix’s ‘Pirates Run’ on 21st September and received my Pirates Run medal, ’12 in 12′ t-shirt, certificate and medal. The latter is a whopper! I had to mark the auspicious achievement with lots of photos and even if I say so myself I was rather chuffed to have crossed the line with all the insomnia that I was suffering from.

That night I slept naturally with no insomnia. It was divine! I slowly returned to my usual sleep pattern. However, it was flawed because on some nights I found nodding off quickly and naturally quite difficult. The status quo was not good enough. Emboldened by my ’12 in 12′ achievement I decided to give myself another goal: seven nights of seven consecutive hours’ natural sleep. I wanted and want to say that every week I’ve clocked up 49 hours of natural sleep.

My research took to me to Dr Michael Mosley’s book, ‘Four Weeks to Better Sleep’. Yes, the same Michael Mosley who went on holiday to Greece last summer and never came back, unfortunately. He’s famous for curing himself of his type 2 diabetes and chronic insomnia. His book is a wonderful education on how your brain works and what sleep does. Dr Mosley recommends a sleep plan which involves increasing your Mediterranean diet, practising deep breathing and eating sleep-inducing foods. The latter was a revelation!! Who knew? I still haven’t quite finished the first sleep plan but the signs are promising. I may well return to seven consecutive hours’ natural sleep for seven days a week. This is my Seven x Seven Dream and hopefully by the anniversary of my wrist fracture this December I’ll know whether it’s a dream that’s come true.

 

 

In January 2024 the Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Unión Europea y Cooperación (MAEUEC), the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, awarded me the title of Traductora jurada de inglés y español, a sworn translator for English and Spanish. This allows me to provide official and sworn translations from Spanish into English and English into Spanish. Most clients use my services for visa applications to the Spanish authorities and for job applications in Spain.

I find that the nature of the work is quite different to what I have been used to. Gone are automated offers of work. Gone are huge files that need to be translated online on a client’s dedicated translation software platform.  Real human beings telephone me and they do use so as often as they email me. I am able to guide them on what they need to do to get their documents translated and what order they should do things in. It’s a piece of client education that I am thoroughly enjoying. The telephone calls, in particular, are giving me a lot of satisfaction because I feel that I am part of the solution to a specific person’s problem. Several clients have told me how helpful my advice has been to them. Real feedback from real human beings in real time! Marvellous!

A big and unexpected aspect of sworn translations is that it is standard practice for all translation work to be paid in advance before even a single letter has been struck on the keyboard. I like this so much. I thank all my colleagues in translation who have fought and worked to get this accepted as a good practice. It is excellent. It’s so refreshing not to have to wait for two or three months to be paid. I am paid in under twenty-hours. Advance payment concentrates my mind too and encourages me to be as thorough and careful as possible.

Although I love interpreting because I love working with faces and voices, being a sworn translator brings me further contact with voices. I feel that I am back in my element.  Translation work can be quite isolating but this is completely different. I am so glad that I persevered with all the bureaucratic paperwork and the postal delays. It’s all been worthwhile and I am chuffed to have this new string to my bow!

 

 

It’s taken a while to write this post for reasons that shall become obvious but better late than never.

On 17th December 2023 I fractured my wrist. How did I do it? Earlier in the day, I had been at my big birthday lunch that I had organised for my family. It was an important weekend because everyone expects you to celebrate a milestone birthday well. My birthday proper was (and is) on 18th December and I was going to celebrate with a tea at the Ritz with girlfriends. Since my birthday falls so close to Christmas, my relatives gave me birthday presents and Christmas presents. One of the Christmas presents was a poinsettia plant. 

On returning home, I decided to put the poinsettia plant into a nice vase which was sitting on top of one of my kitchen cupboards. To get there I used a chair and stood on the kitchen counter to retrieve the vase. I usually am barefooted when I do that but, on this occasion, I was wearing woolly socks. Big mistake! Once I put the vase on the counter, I turned to step down on the chair. However, I misjudged how much space there was behind me on the counter. My woolly socks made me slip and lose my footing. I must have only flown through six-seven feet of air but it was clearly enough to harm me. I landed on my left side, with my left forearm taking the brunt of the fall. My wrist snapped on impact. 

Initially, I thought that I had hurt my tendons and not broken any bones, although I could see that my wrist was not straight. I think that I was in shock because I stood up and put the poinsettia plant in the vase, as if nothing had happened! However, doing that minor task was so excruciatingly painful that I realised it wasn’t muscular pain, so I telephoned the National Health Service’s telephone helpline. They sent me to a small, local hospital but its x- ray department was closed, so I was bounced to a large, local hospital with a 24-hour x-ray department. There, I was triaged and x-rayed. Sure enough, I had fractured both bones at the wrist. 

Unfortunately, because my birthday loomed so large in my mind, I didn’t have medical thoughts nor did I contemplate my injury’s implications on my translation work. All I could think about was my social life.  Would I be able to make tea at the Ritz with my friends the next day and would the sling’s colour clash with my party dress? 

 We have two bones in our forearm: the ulna and the radius. The ulna is wider at the elbow than it is at the wrist. It is a bit cylindrical in shape and comes to a tip just below our wrist. Well, I fractured the tip of my ulna. The radius is slimmer than the ulna at the elbow but when it reaches the bottom of your hand, it becomes quite bulbous and chunky. I managed to break that completely. The doctor, Marco, who showed me the x-rays was very transparent, if you’ll excuse the pun. He showed me exactly what I had fractured. I could see a wavy, horizontal line across the width of my radius. He said that I had a distal ulna and radial fracture. He was satisfied that I wouldn’t need an operation. That hadn’t even occurred to me. He was satisfied that plates wouldn’t need to be fitted. I hadn’t conceived of that idea either. He felt that the factures could be healed by realigning the displaced bones and putting them in a cast for at least six weeks. 

I didn’t realise it at the time but realigning displaced bones is quite a skill. Doctors and nurses don’t have the benefit of a camera in your arm to guide them nor a live x-ray to guide them either. They do it by touch and sight. Before the realignment, I was given an anaesthetic in the form of an inhaler. Marco injected very little liquid into it as far as I’m concerned. Marco turned to the nurse and asked her, “Are you ready?” I didn’t know what he was talking about. Now, I know he was asking her if she was ready to manipulate my displaced bones and realign them. She was and they began. 

There’s an English expression, “I saw stars”. It usually describes people who have been concussed but it also covers eye-watering pain. During the realignment I not only saw stars but the entire constellation in the night sky. I swore so much! Nevertheless, I had the presence of mind to ask Marco to stop. I said, “Stop. This is extremely painful” twice but the nurse said, “Keep puffing”, so I puffed as if I were giving birth! 

Then, I had to have the cast put on. That was made of plaster of Paris. On the one hand, it is brilliant. It is a simple, cheap and low-tech method for immobilising bones that’s been used for decades. On the other hand, because plaster of Paris comes in the form of a wet bandage that needs to be applied not too loosely and not too tightly when Marco applied it I saw the Milky Way! After the anaesthetic had kicked in, Marco returned to check the plaster of Paris cast was rock hard and that my wrist had been immobilised. My pain level dropped markedly, thankfully. He sent me off to the x-ray department and when I returned, he was very happy with the x-ray. The bones had been realigned into their original, neutral position. He gave me a letter for my follow-up appointment, all the self-care instructions that I needed and mostly importantly his blessing for tea at the Ritz. My sling was navy-blue and my party dress was pink. 

 A few weeks ago, when I was discussing my accident with a friend, she asked me, “What have you learnt?” I have learnt two things.  Firstly, the human body is absolutely amazing! As soon as a bone breaks, stem cells from the surrounding tissue, bone marrow and blood migrate to the fracture. The cells start to grow on the edges of the fractured bones and in the direction of the void to form a bridge of soft cartilage. This is replaced by a hard, bone-like callus and that, in turn, is replaced by new, mature bone. The immediacy of this healing process means that it is crucial to reset fractured bones as soon as possible. I’m very impressed that it only takes six weeks for bones to heal. I’m grateful that my arm wasn’t in a cast for longer. The day that my cast came off the doctor, Toby, said that the condition of my bones’ repair was “excellent”. 

I saw a physiotherapist for the first time yesterday. Of the ten physiotherapy exercises that Toby said I could do, the physiotherapist retained one, modified two and jettisoned the remaining seven. He didn’t want to irritate the wrist. Therefore, instead of doing ten exercises three times a day, now I must do three exercises every two hours. It’s quite demanding to do them during a working day. I do what I can. I do feel that I am making incremental improvements for which I am grateful.

 Secondly, I have been reminded how wonderful people are. In a situation like this, I would expect my family, friends and neighbours to rally round. They have and I have felt loved and cared for. However, it’s been the kindness of complete strangers that has been touching and heart-warming. On the night of the fracture, two taxi-drivers volunteered to tie up my shoe laces for me. A few days later, on the way to the pharmacy, when I asked a newsagent for help, he couldn’t tie up my shoe laces quickly enough for me. On the trains, lots of passengers have given up their seats for me and offered to carry my drag bag upstairs. At work, one barrister ferried my bag and coat between the courtroom and consultation room. Another barrister opened doors for me for the entire two weeks that we worked on the same trial. I could go on. So many people have been so kind. Now, it’s not the first time that I have been ill. Unfortunately, in the past I have been taken very ill in public and it was complete strangers’ knowledge of first aid that saved my bacon. This recent wave of compassion has just served to consolidate my view on the fundamental goodness of human nature and people. 

 

In 2016 I was robbed of my EU citizenship. As a holder of a British passport I had been free to circulate around the European Union freely, offering my services without hinderance. I was also able to benefit from free hospital care when I fell ill on holiday in Venice in 2012. As soon as the hospital established that I was a bonafide EU citizen, I received all sorts of care and tests. When Brexit came into effect on 1st January 2020, all of that ended.

This year on recent business trips to Helsinki I was asked at least six questions at Helsinki Airport’s Passport Control about the nature of my visit, where I was staying, how long my trip was for, the name of my hotel, etc. I found it all rather intrusive. Was this my lot as a British citizen? Did I have to put up with it? No.

I found out about La Ley de Memoria Democratica de 2022 (The Democractic Memory Act 2022). To cut a very long story short, it enables Spaniards who were in exile after the Spanish Civil War to recover their Spanish citizenship, as well as their children’s and grandchildren’s citizenship. It also provides for Spanish ladies who married foreign nationals to have their children and grandchildren recognised as Spanish citizens too. Therefore, I visited the website of the Spanish Consulate in London and read the numerous pages to double-check that everything that I had heard about the LMD really, truly applied to me. It did, so I began the application process.

First, I had to obtain birth and marriage certificates from the General Register Office.  Three weeks went by. Then, they had to be legalised by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Three weeks went by. These certifcates needed to be translated. Fortunately, that was done in a jiffy. So far, so good for the British documents. However, the Spanish certificates that I needed to present had to have been issued recently so that they were valid for six months. The most important certificate was my mother’s birth certificate. The Civil Registry in Ejea de los Caballeros, Zaragoza, Spain had a skeleton staff during July and August, so it took three months to obtain the certificate. However, when it arrived there was no date stamp on it showing that it had recently been issued. Many telephone calls and a huge phone bill later, I finally received the dated certificate in September.

I put all the certificates and translations into a lovely folder. It looked like a work of art to me. On 4th October I had my appointment with the Spanish Consulate. There was an office set aside for LMD applications. The door sign said ‘LMD’. This looked very organised. Everything seemed to be going very smoothly until the civil servant saw that my father had been born in Tangier, even though he was a British citizen and had had his birth registered at the British Consulate in Tangier the day after he was born. The civil servant asked me to find a birth certificate for my father from a Moroccan civil registry office. I explained that back in the 1930s Tangier was an international zone governed by numerous countries. Foreign nationals in Tangier always registered the birth of their children at their countries’ consulate. While the civil servant agreed with me, she said that I needed to provide written evidence to that effect. It was so disheartening. However, I was not going to be defeated. Within a week I sent her evidence from the Moroccan and French Consulates confirming that no such person as my father existed in their respective archives. Moreover, a Spanish historian specialising in nineteenth century architecture in Tangier confirmed that there was never a Moroccan civil registry office in Tangier in the 1930s. This proved to be sufficient to advance my application. The civil servant telephoned me personally and gave me the good news.

Initially, I became excited all over again. I have always felt that dual nationality is a fair reflection of my background and life. I felt like I was within touching distance of fulfilling this long sought-after aspiration.  Three or four weeks later, I received a Spanish birth certificate and a consular registration number. The latter enabled me to obtain an appointment with the Nationals Department of the Spanish Consulate and make my passport application. The appointment was on 10th November and my passport arrived today! I’m so looking forward to travelling freely around Europe again.

 

During the lull of the summer holidays I decided to put my spare time to good use by doing some research on becoming assessed by the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI) to be a translator for official translations. I have been a translator for over thirty years and have translated birth, marriage and death certificates, as well as academic transcripts for clients. However, I wanted to go the extra mile and apply for the Qualification Supported Assessment (QSA). It is a process that endorses your qualifications, translation experience, professional references, continuing professional development and a good working knowledge of the ITI’S Code of Conduct. My application was approved very quickly and I was offered Qualified Membership as a translator, which complements my existing Qualified ITI Membership as an interpreter nicely.

Now, I am able to offer official translations. What does that mean exactly? Well, an ‘official’ translation is usually defined as a translation that has been stamped by an authority. However, this definition varies from country to country. In the UK, I can translate a document from Spanish into English and can affix an ITI Certification Seal (seen above) to certify the translation. Normally, my translation would be accompanied by a statement from me attesting that the translation is a true, complete and accurate translation of the original document that I received. That’s a certified translation.

There are three other types of ‘official’ translations: a legalised translation, a notarised translation and a sworn translation. A legalised translation can also be known as an apostilled translation. The competent UK authority for issuing an Apostille on the back of an original document or translation is the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s Legalisation Office. I had some of my own documents legalised recently and the FCDO returned the apostilled documents much quicker than I expected. What you need to know about these documents is that the FCDO doesn’t attest to the veracity of the contents. It authenticates the signature and ensures that the document is recognised by all countries that are signatories to the Hague Convention of 1961.

A notarised translation has a statement from the translator that has been signed by the Notary too or the Notary writes a declaration concerning the original document and translation. These notarised translations are normally intended for overseas use and for offering translator accountability. The Notary cannot endorse the quality of the translation, unless he/she is a Qualified ITI Member in the relevant language combination.

Finally, there’s the sworn translation. Most Spanish-speaking clients ask me for this type of translation and I always have to explain that the UK doesn’t have such a thing as a sworn translator. It’s due to different legal systems. In Spain, ‘sworn’ translators with a degree or equivalent qualification are appointed and accredited by the Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores y Cooperacion (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperacion). The Ministry then places them on its official list of ‘sworn’ translators who may produce a ‘certified’, ‘sworn’ or ‘official’ translation.

After my summer holiday, from 1st September I shall be open for business to translate your documents from Spanish into English. Go to the Contact page to get my details and send me an email or telephone me. I’ll be happy to hear from you.

 

 

 

 

I have a close connection to Salamanca, Spain because the capital of the province is my mum’s hometown and she still has a lot of family in the province. Between 1986 and 1988 I lived and worked in Salamanca. I got to know my mother’s cousins and their children well. I am still in touch with some of them today. One of my mother’s cousins, Antonio Gomez, undertook a genealogy project on his retirement around the time that I was in Salamanca. He visited all the churches in the province and made a note of all the births, marriages and deaths of Gomez relatives. It resulted in two volumes of the Gomez family history and it is thanks to him that I can trace my Gomez ancestors back to 1670 and know about my ancestor Roque Gomez. Who’s he? Read on.

The Battle of Arapiles, also known as the Battle of Salamanca, was held on 22 July 1812 in which an Anglo-Portuguese-Spanish alliance under the command of Earl Wellington defeated Marshal Auguste Marmont’s French forces at Arapiles, south of Salamanca during the Peninsular War 1807-1814 and the Spanish War of Independence.The Earl rose to prominence as a general during the Peninsular War and famously defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Afterwards, he became the Duke of Wellington, served briefly as Prime Minister and then was Commander-in-Chief of the British Army.

So, how is this relevant to me and my intepreting life? Well, it just so happens that my ancestor Roque Gomez fought in the cavalry brigade of Julian Sanchez which Earl Wellington was in charge of during the Battle of Arapiles. Antonio Gomez, my mother’s cousin, found out that Roque was a scout for Julian Sanchez.

Fast forward a couple of centuries and nine generations. It was November 2022 and I was interpreting for a delegation of Colombian Senators in the UK Parliament. They were about to sit down with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Colombia, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Latin America and the Parliamentary Friends of Colombia to have a discussion about Colombian matters, principally the peace process.  The day before this meeting I saw on my programme that one of the UK parliamentarians attending would be Charles Wellesley, the Ninth Duke of Wellington. He inherited several of the First Duke’s titles, making him, at present, the Ninth Prince of Waterloo, Tenth Duke of Cuidad Rodrigo, Ninth Duke of Victoria and Ninth Marquis de Torres Vedras. I could not resist the temptation to introduce myself and tell the Ninth Duke about the very distant family connection. He knew about the Battle of Arapiles, having visited Arapiles Grande and Arapiles Chico, like me. He asked me about the role that Roque Gomez played. I wished to talk for longer but the roundtable discussion needed to start.

At the end of the meeting as British parliamentarians broke off into little groups to have individual conversations with the Colombian senators and take photographs, I took another chance and asked the Duke whether he would mind having a photograph taken of the two of us. I am delighted to say that he agreed and the result is above. My mother and Antonio Gomez’s daughter, my second cousin Belen, were over the moon when they heard about my encounter with the Duke. I confess that I am too! I love it when family history comes to life!

Last week I genuinely felt that I was part of the solution. Colombian senators visited the UK, meeting their counterparts in the Houses of Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly. There were many discussions about the Colombian and North Irish peace processes. Similarities were found but there were also differences. The Colombian senators learnt a great deal from their trip to Belfast. It was a privilege to be involved and I hope that both countries achieve a lasting peace for their people.

This year I have been endeavouring to improve my consecutive interpreting skills by attending practice sessions with David Violet to work on how I take notes while listening to a speaker. For most of the year I was taking notes using biro and notepad but then in September another classmate, Eric Liao, gave a presentation on digital note-taking. He talked about Notability software and Apple Pencils. This was like manna from Heaven for me because I had been wanting to return to using my iPad for consecutive note-taking. I got the software and pencil and then dived into this new modus operandi at the Bloomberg Philanthropies’ CityLab Conference on 10th October 2022. The lady next to me in the photo above is Nathalia Sanchez, aka GLeo, a Colombian muralist, who was being interviewed by Barratunde Thurston about her work. The slide is taken from Eric Liao’s presentation on digital note-taking for consecutive interpretation which he gave at the American Translators’ Association on 15th October 2022. Congratulations Eric! I am delighted to have been included as a success story too! The extract that he has highlighted is in yellow is the video clip below. GLeo was a wonderful artist to interpret for because her work is so inspiring.