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Full-page advertisements in European newspapers have triumphantly announced
the launch of Euro-Hermespace, the consortium of French, Italian and German
aerospace companies intending to build the Hermes spaceplane. Hermes is
a sort of junior space shuttle which appears to have as its sole purpose
the transport of a French – sorry, European – astronaut into orbit and back
again.

The only problem is that the cash-strapped members of the European Space
Agency, while not cancelling Hermes outright, stopped well short of promising
to build the thing. This, however, did not stop Euro-Hermespace announcing
that the ESA ‘has confirmed its decision to go ahead with the Hermes spaceplane
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The truth is that France wants Hermes but the rest of Europe doesn’t.
The decision must be taken soon if the project is to go ahead. ‘We are creating
a united Europe in space,’ crowed Euro-Hermespace. But will Europe unite
in time to create Hermes?

* * *

Just like the rest of us, pigs are sensitive souls and need lots of
hugs and cuddles. Graham Coleman and Paul Hemsworth, two researchers in
Melbourne, Australia, have just completed a two-year study of productivity
in piggeries. They say that if people are horrid to pigs and push them around,
the pigs develop stress, and productivity declines. The pigs do much better
if they’re given regular physical affection. The researchers, despite not
being Californian, particularly recommend ‘a friendly pat and a smile’.

* * *

Translation can be a useful way of adapting the truth to suit the reader.
For example, there’s a curious difference between the Japanese and English
versions of a new report on the Multi-Function Polis (MFP), Australia’s
much-ballyhooed city of the future. Earlier this month in Tokyo, a team
of Japanese investors released the report, stating their opinion of the
MFP, which is to be built on swampland near Adelaide.

The Japanese used the phrase tannaru yume no dankai, which means that
the MFP is at the stage of ‘being a mere dream’, a notion which would have
delighted Australian critics of the scheme.

The first draft of the English translation of the document followed
this wording literally. But by the time the Australian embassy in Tokyo
released its version of the report to the press, there had been a subtle
change. The MFP, it now seems, ‘still remains at the planning stage’.

* * *

Insight into different national characteristics and attitudes is another
benefit that can flow from translation. Consider the programme for the conference
on ‘The Rational Use of Energy and the Environmental Benefits’, which is
being organised in Strasbourg by Britain’s Watt committee on energy. It
is published in four languages and the organisers’ concern for the environment
extends to the paper it is printed on.

In Italian, the paper is described as carta ecologica, which is high-sounding
but perhaps a little vague. The French description of the paper is papier
recycle which is both precise and concise. The German (translated) reads
‘environment-friendly, non-chlorine-bleached paper’, which is even more
precise but wordy – and at odds with the French.

And the English? Hopes for a definitive answer to the question of what
the paper is are sadly disappointed. Siding with the Germans, but losing
grammar and chemical accuracy in the process, the text states ‘This programme
is written on ecological beneficial, non-chloride bleached paper’.

* * *

Our hearts go out to the environmentally concerned cab driver. One Feedback
contributor was surprised to find two advertisements in the back of a cab
urging passengers to join Greenpeace. The driver said it had been quite
a battle to carry ads with an ecological message.

First, the Public Carriage Office had turned them down because they
were ‘political’, even though he wanted to run the ads for free. Having
finally pursuaded officialdom, he went to Friends of the Earth and put the
idea to them. Sorry, FOE told him, but we’re running a campaign against
diesel at the moment, and since black cabs run on diesel, carrying an FOE
ad in one would hardly be appropriate. So it was Greenpeace that ended up
being promoted in the eco-cab.

* * *

Ostriches, which use their long necks like periscopes, have exceptionally
good eyesight. An ostrich can focus on an object directly under its beak
or spot a moving animal at a distance of 3 kilometres.

Now corneas from ostrich eyes are being given to humans in transplant
operations in the US. The news comes from a reader in South Africa, Alex
Hooper, who breeds ostriches near Oudtshoorn in Cape Province.

Hooper tells of a visit recently from a Missouri man who claimed to
have been one of the first to receive an ostrich cornea. He told Hooper
he could now see very well again and wanted to say thank you to the ostriches.
Hooper pointed out that he didn’t keep any sightless birds – only flightless
ones.

* * *

How’s this as an example of ‘aidbabble’? The following advertisement
appeared recently in the Zimbabwe newspaper The Herald: ‘The Agency for
International Development is soliciting proposals from Zimbabwean firms
to est-ablish a precompeted mechanism to facili-tate USAID /Zimbabwe ability
to access Zimbabwean technical assistance/expertise in the broadest range
of project/program design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation activities
in Zimbabwe and the SADCC region.’

Perhaps it’s all an initiative test. If you can understand the advertisement,
you’ll naturally be a candidate for whatever it is the advertisement is
offering.