The Worst of Paris

This is a photo of Charlles de Gualle airport AKA Roissy AKA Dante's 10th circle of hell.

Your experience of it can vary depending on which terminal you're in but if you're unlucky you'll be faced with navigating through a huge ugly concrete mess of a structure with endless passegways and a maze of escalators seemingly leading nowhere.

If you're arriving in Paris for the first time it can be a shock. Not only do you have to put up with the worst major airport in the world but no doubt you'll end up on the train that leads you to Gare du Nord through some of the worst neighbourhoods of Paris. It's not quite the city of light that you imagine.

This weekend I had to fly out of Paris from Charles de Gualle airport. I got past the passport and security checks and had half an hour before I had to board my flight. Unfortunately, in my haste, I had forgotten to pack some essential toileteries. I wandered into the shops in the airport shopping mall and found, much to my annoyance, that you are able to buy indispensable items such as Beluga Caviar and metre long bars of Toblerone but you cannot buy a toothbrush!

Bad Menu Translations

Having dabbled in the black art of translation back in a previous career I'm always curious to see how signs, instructions, and notices are rendered from one language to another. I can hover over a packet of washing powder for 20 minutes trying to decipher the mode d'emploi in various languages. On holiday I'm forever photographing signs with bad English.

One thing I find particularly irritating are restaurant menus that have been over translated. I'm not referring to bad translations but rather over translations when the word or phrase would be more clearly understood if it wasn't translated at all. Examples of this I have seen recently are cappuccino being translated to "coffee with milk and foam" when it's known the world over as - cappuccino. I've also seen the familiar quiche lorraine turned into "ham and cheese pie" whatever that is and croque monsieur become "Welsh rarebit" (which is not correct).

On of the most bizarre examples of the genre I discovered recently at Charles de Gaulle airport. I went over to the café to grab a coffee and on glancing the menu I saw they were offering crescent milkbread pastry (see photo above) it was several seconds before I realized that what they were referring to in their mixed-up, nonsensical way was simply a humble croissant and the milkbread pastry with chocolate filling was none other than our old friend the pain au chocolat.

Translators like these should note that sometimes less is more.