Exercises in translation (II)

from: Avui, October 11, 2009, p. 23

Spain will continue being the EU's leader in job destruction

Editorial office, Barcelona

At year's end, 3 of every ten new unemployed in the EU will be Spanish. According to the "labor euro-index," elaborated by IESE business school and temp-work agency Adecco, Spain will continue leading the job destruction, though it will be more moderate if compared to earlier trimesters. The report analyses the job market's evolution of seven European countries: Spain, France, Germany, Ital, Portugal, United Kingdom and Poland (similar to Spain in population). Taken together, these markets have registered three million people less in employment, double the number than in the three months before. "Never before in a twelve-months span our group of seven countries had destroyed so many jobs," the authors of the document stress. Germany is the country that has had a better evolution, while Spain's is the most "dramatic."

The future jobless rate
Spain has lost within a year 1,480,000 jobs, a fall of more than 7%. That means it has counted for nearly one in every two jobs lost in the EU during the past year. As to the unemployment rate, the study published by IESE and Adecco calculates that the European community rate will rise by 2.5%, as as to be at 10.3% at year's end. That means an increase of 3% in two years. If you took out Spain of this calculation, the increase would be smaller, 1.8%.

(The original in Catalan is as confusing as to numbers and semesters, trimester, years,... observed...)

A ride on a regional train

About three weeks ago, on a sunny Saturday afternoon, I went by train back from the capital to our village on the Barcelona-Zaragoza regional train. The train model was that normally used as a local train: the overhead baggage racks were very small, so there were bags all over the place. The air-conditioning did not work properly and they train shuddered heavily at higher speeds. There was a homeless-looking traveller who tried to discuss the price of the fare with the ticket inspector; later on he was talking to himself while manipulating empty beer cans into objects whose utility I could not imagine. There were "internal immigrants" from other parts of Spain who led very loud mobile phone conversations and "real immigrants" with hardly any luggage but a bicycle they needed to leave somewhere. There were young parents adoring their shouting offspring. Then a guy with expensive clothing (e.g. Munich shoes, a luxury trainer fashion shoe brand from Barcelona)and a plastic bag of a local "hard" discount store (Dia, headquartered near Madrid but part of Carrefour of France; there are no local hard discounters; Lidl is ubiquitous in Catalan cities, Aldi only in middle-sized towns; Mercadona from Valencia is a very good local discounter as they avoid cardboard boxes in their stores and have a line of good exclusive products -- in the countryside where we live, there is only Dia:( ). Hardly anybody was looking outside at the fascinating landscape: first the Mediterranean at the feet of the rail tracks, then olive groves and vineyards...

Grape harvest deluxe

A cloudy day in late September. 7:30 a.m.: getting off to a 20 min. four-wheel drive into the mountains. Awaiting us is a vineyard around a mountain house with spectacular views. All in all we are three tractors and trailers, their drivers and four more co-workers/family and friends. These are well-kept vines in tidy rows with few rotten or reddish grapes. The owner likes big buckets: the first trailer fills rapidly but one's back also notes it. After about one and a half hours of work, it is time for breakfast: everybody brought their own but there is fresh coffee. After about three quarters of an hour, off to work again. Three hours later: dinner, the best part of the workday. There is meat roasted on a big grill: chicken for the timid like me, and a variety of local sausages, rabbit (?); accompanied by beans, grilled vegetables, roasted bread, cake, and wine, coffee, brandy.
All in all two hours of rest and another two hours of work.
Most interesting: the story-telling, experiences of the past, travel adventures from central Europe in the 1990s and Iran already in the new millenium (for breakfast). Complaints about a wife not letting her husband having a tv. Gossip from the past: a lot of stories about unwed women looking for and getting their satisfaction, even in times of state catholicism under Franco; these stories came after the alcohol-laden dinner...
[The blogger was interrupted by his daughter here, otherwise the later part could have been more exhaustive...]

Noah Gordon's "The bodega"

This is not a work of high-brow literature, but you would not expect it from this author anyway. It has the usual Gordon plot of a young person with a more than questionable future who then succeeds against all odds due to hard work, self-discipline and a lot of luck.
What distinguishes this novel is its setting in a Catalan wine-growing region in the second half of the 19th century. Gordon has a fine eye for the details of wine-growing and the various factors that lead to a good wine, such as terroir, climate, hard work, the right mix of grape varieties, storage, etc.
The story is set against the background of the "Carlist civil war". Gordon's hero undergoes a long preparatory process for a war in which he will finally not fight. The narration of how he gets out of more than one desperate situation makes for entertaining bedtime reading.
Recommended if your are interested in 19th century Spanish and Catalan social history and/or wine-growing in general, as a lof of the labor-intensive process still remains basically the same today.

Odd is that Gordon sets his novel in a Catalan landscape and then uses the Spanish word "bodega" in the the English title, instead of the Catalan "celler". Odder still is its German title "Der Katalane" (the Catalan).

Back to school

Today was the first day of the new school year for about 1.2M students in Catalunya - after 85 days of summer holidays. Related topics on the news were the fear of the new flu spreading through class-rooms, and the introduction of laptop computers replacing traditional textbooks for the first 130.000 (?) or so of students.

My encounter with Ted Kennedy

When I heard of his death on Wednesday morning, I remembered that I really met Senator Edward M. Kennedy (1932-2009) once, i.e. I saw him “live“.
It was in the fall of 1995 when I studied American Foreign Policy and American Politics at American University in Washington, D.C. Part of the studies was a semester-long internship at some typical “Beltway institution.“ Following the advice of a college professor from Texas whom I knew and who at that time worked for the State Department in D.C., I did not end up in the Senate or with some lobbyists but at the offices of NBC News’ “Meet the Press,“ at that time present by Tim Russert. During the intership days I had to cut out a lot of stories from newspapers from all over the US that had previously been scrutinized and marked by the producers of the show. Another task was to register incoming calls from viewers. And photocopying, of course. Not too exciting all in all you might think.
The real perk was to be able to be present before and while the show was on air on Sunday mornings. It meant showing up at around 7 a.m. at the studio in case there were some last-minute photocopies to be made, etc., and to meet the guests at the door, and show them to the make-up room and the lounge. This way I met, among others, Newt Gingrich, Steve Forbes, Bob Woodward, Bob Dole, the Reverend Jesse Jackson (“Good morning, brother!“), Al Gore, and Ted Kennedy.
Though I don’t remember having exchanged any words with him or shaken his hand, I remember his spectacular, young second (?) wife and his daughter from a previous marriage and her family who accompanied the then sprightly 63-year-old with the typical Kennedyesque full shock of hair. The encounter wiht his daughter was slightly embarassing as she asked me: “Could we have a peek?“ (at the lounge where her father and Bob Dole were waiting for their appearance at the 48th anniversary show) and I understood: “Could we have a pee?,“ and sent them to the bathroom. After she had been to the bathroom door she didn’t make a fuss but repeated her request, and that was it, I thought.
The next morning, when I was on my way to the intership, the NBC studios were near the AU campuses so that I could walk there, I saw her in a car (maybe a light blue Saab) waiting at a red traffic light while I was crossing the road in front of her – and she greeted me!
I am not sure if by a honk or just waving her hand, but I really appreciated the gesture (and probably fell in love with her for a while).
So, this is in reality more a memory of Ted’s daughter than of the patriarch himself but for me a cherished one. And the only serious jobs I had after university both dealt with John F. Kennedy, one of Ted’s older brothers, and the Kennedy family. That’s why this American dynasty is special to me and why I mourn the recent deaths of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founder of Special Olympics, and of Edward M. Kennedy.

(Due to enormous stress before an important exam, this will be the last entry for a while. This blogger will miss the therapeutical effects of blogging.)

A visit to the employment office

After an absence of about two years, yesterday I finally went to the employment office again as I had heard about a job offer of a public entity that "administers" a nearby mountain range and I wanted to know more about the offer.
The people attending those looking for jobs were more relaxed and friendlier than I remembered them though their workload has increased a lot recently. There was a long line of people waiting but about half of them only had to show up to affirm that they were still looking for a job; otherwise they lose their benefits. Quite a lot of them looked unemployable to my prejudiced eyes.
Then there was a woman who was astonished when she learned that as long as she is on benefits she cannot leave the country for more than 14 days.
Another came to complain either about her low wage or about the little she gets in unemployment benefits as she allegedly has to care for her grandchild, too, I could not hear her; but I heard the staff's response who explained to her that about 80% of the population, even people with university degrees, live on 1,100 EUR or less - working full time.
And I had thought people came to the employment office to enquire about jobs...
Finally it was my turn and I learned that they had not got all the information about the job offer I was interested in yet. They renewed my status as "unemployed AND looking for a job" and told me I had to return another day if I wanted to know more.
Not a really successful visit for me - but very interesting as to watching a piece of the social situation of this country.