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About me? Mad, disabled, in debt, feminist, radical, angry, pacifist, warrior, radio 4 listener, geek, flower-power chick... About Hippie blog? Ramblings, photos, fury, giggles and musings about love, peace, friendship, madness, happiness, the state of the world, my life, cool pics, my health and general ranting...
When officials asked for the Welsh translation of a road sign, they thought the reply was what they needed.
Unfortunately, the e-mail response to Swansea council said in Welsh: "I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated".
So that was what went up under the English version which barred lorries from a road near a supermarket.
"When they're proofing signs, they should really use someone who speaks Welsh," said journalist Dylan Iorwerth.
Swansea council became lost in translation when it was looking to halt heavy goods vehicles using a road near an Asda store in the Morriston area
All official road signs in Wales are bilingual, so the local authority e-mailed its in-house translation service for the Welsh version of: "No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only".
The reply duly came back and officials set the wheels in motion to create the large sign in both languages.
The notice went up and all seemed well - until Welsh speakers began pointing out the embarrassing error.
The sign was lost in translation - and is now missing from the roadside
Welsh-language magazine Golwg was promptly sent photographs of the offending sign by a number of its readers.
Managing editor Mr Iorwerth said: "We've been running a series of these pictures over the past months.
"They're circulating among Welsh speakers because, unfortunately, it's all too common that things are not just badly translated, but are put together by people who have no idea about the language.
"It's good to see people trying to translate, but they should really ask for expert help.
"Everything these days seems to be written first in English and then translated.
"Ideally, they should be written separately in both languages."
A council spokeswoman said : "Our attention was drawn to the mistranslation of a sign at the junction of Clase Road and Pant-y-Blawd Road.
"We took it down as soon as we were made aware of it and a correct sign will be re-instated as soon as possible."
With exception of the Roman Catholic Church, most mainline Christian churches offer their communicants gluten-free alternatives to the sacramental bread, usually in the form of a rice-based cracker or gluten-free bread. These include United Methodist, Christian Reformed, Episcopal, Lutheran, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and many others.
Roman Catholic doctrine states that for a valid Eucharist the bread must be made from wheat. [...] On August 22, 1994, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith apparently barred coeliacs from ordination, stating, "Given the centrality of the celebration of the Eucharist in the life of the priest, candidates for the priesthood who are affected by coeliac disease or suffer from alcoholism or similar conditions may not be admitted to holy orders." After considerable debate, the congregation softened the ruling on 24 July 2003 to "Given the centrality of the celebration of the Eucharist in the life of a priest, one must proceed with great caution before admitting to Holy Orders those candidates unable to ingest gluten or alcohol without serious harm."
In patients with an aggressive, evolving polyneuropathy or a specific paraneoplastic syndrome, additional testing for an occult malignancy is often performed(my bold - am I possessed by some kind of ghost with cancer?!)
Sic!
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"Don't most people know this already?" was Tom Gould's comment on a
front-page teaser headline advertising an article inside (what's
the newspaper term for these?) that appeared in The Tennessean on
26 March: "Don't expect smart car dealer soon."
What a difference a misplaced hyphen makes. Annie Clarke reports
that the London freesheet Metro included a headline on 27 March:
ANTI-YOUTH CRIME EVENT.
"The instructions on a carpet cleaner," e-mailed Pete Swindells,
"caused me momentary confusion: 'Empty when full'."
Department of athletic horticulture. Henry Drury was reading the
Home & Living section of the Sunday Telegraph for 30th March and
found this property advert: "Paradise Cottage, West Berkshire, a
glorious Grade II listed four bedroom hotchpotch of a cottage.
Gardens and a stream run through the property."
Bankers struggle against their reputation for unfeeling arrogance
but error messages like the one that Roger Jones encountered on the
Barclays Bank Web site don't help: "We suggest you try to log in
later and apologise for any inconvenience this may cause."
Homophobia rife in British society, landmark equality survey finds.
· Bullying in schools worse than for older generations
· Public bodies complacent, says gay rights charity
Britain's 3.6 million lesbian, gay and bisexual people see themselves confronted by huge barriers of prejudice at every level of society, according to the first authoritative poll of their views.
The poll, commissioned by the equality charity Stonewall, which said some public bodies were too "smug" about their record on discrimination, indicates that the schoolyard is the most entrenched bastion of prejudice.
The YouGov poll of 1,658 gay adults found homophobic bullying in schools is more prevalent now than in previous decades. Around 30% of lesbian and gay people expect to encounter discrimination if they were to try to enrol a child at primary or secondary school, and 80% believe they would have difficulty if they were to apply to become a school governor.
The NHS, police and courts are doing better than the education system in combating discrimination. However, a significant minority of gay people expect to be treated less well at a GP surgery or during an emergency admission to hospital.
One in four think they will be treated less fairly by police if they become a victim of hate crime, while one in five expect to find it harder than a heterosexual person to get social housing, and nine in 10 expect barriers to becoming a foster parent.
The poll also suggested prejudice is endemic in political life, with most lesbian and gay people expecting discrimination if they seek selection by a party to run for parliament. Nearly nine in 10 think they would face such barriers from the Conservative party, 61% from the Labour party and 47% from the Liberal Democrats.
Ben Summerskill, the charity's chief executive, said: "Too many public services are a bit too smug about the progress made towards fair treatment for the lesbian and gay taxpayers who help fund them.
"Last spring we heard from a 14-year-old girl who had - incautiously - shared with a teacher at a faith school the thought that she might be gay. Subsequently the girl has been required to sit outside the changing room at the beginning and end of sports lessons while the 'normal' children get changed."
Of those polled, two-thirds of lesbian and gay people under 19 said they were bullied at school on grounds of sexuality, compared with half of those aged 35-44 and only a quarter of those over 55.
Stonewall said the problem was exacerbated in schools when teachers were banned by Section 28 of the 1988 Local Government Act from doing anything that could be perceived as promoting homosexuality. Section 28 was repealed in 2003, but the charity says the education system is years behind in its efforts to tackle prejudice.
Across Britain, one in 14 lesbian and gay people expect to be treated less well than heterosexuals when accessing healthcare. Gay women are almost twice as likely to expect discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation.
There are big regional differences in perceptions of discrimination in the NHS. In Wales, 16% thought they would get inferior treatment if they were admitted to hospital in an emergency, compared with 2% in the south-west.
Summerskill said: "The research highlights the one remaining gap at the heart of Britain's legislative equality framework. There is not yet a duty on public bodies requiring them to promote equality of service for gay people in a way that already exists for gender, ethnicity and disability. We'll now be pressing the government to honour its outstanding manifesto pledge to introduce such a duty."
Summerskill said he regarded the debate about the size of Britain's lesbian and gay population as having been settled by the Treasury's actuary department, which said it was 6%, or 3.6 million people.
Cancer Patient Loses Visa Battle
A Ghanaian woman who came to the UK five years ago and became a student is being flown back to the African country, despite being terminally ill.
Ama Sumani was taken by immigration officers from a Cardiff hospital where she has been receiving dialysis for a year after cancer damaged her kidneys.
Ms Sumani, 39, whose visa has expired, said she cannot afford care in Ghana.
Her solicitor said they had pleaded compassionate grounds. The Home Office said it examined each case "with care".
Before leaving, she had been comforted by a nurse in a day-room at the University Hospital of Wales.
The immigration service arrived at 0800 GMT.
Ms Sumani was tearful but calm when she left hospital in a wheelchair with five immigration officials, one carrying her suitcase, and she was driven away.
She left on a flight from Heathrow to Ghana at 1435 GMT.
The cancer she is suffering from - malignant myeloma - would ordinarily be treated with a bone marrow transplant, but she was not entitled to the treatment.
The dialysis treatment she has been receiving is helping to prolong her life and her last treatment was on Tuesday evening.
Legal status
But it needs to be repeated regularly and there are concerns she would not be able to access dialysis treatment centres in Ghana.
Health care there is also private but Ms Sumani said she could not afford it.
A spokesman for Ghana's high commission in London said the country had two fully-equipped hospitals in Accra and further north in Kumasi.
He did concede that access to treatment was costly but said that if Ms Sumani was a member of the Ghana national health insurance scheme she would still receive treatment.
A friend Janet Simmons said Ms Sumani was a widow and a mother of two children, who were currently being looked after by members of her church in Ghana.
She first came to the UK as a visitor in 2003, but then changed her status to student and attempted to enrol on a banking course at a city college, her solicitor explained.
Ms Sumani's lack of English prevented her from pursuing the course and she went to find work which contravened her student visa.
In 2005 she returned to Ghana to attend a memorial service for her dead husband.
But when she came back to the UK her student visa was revoked and she was only given temporary admission which effectively meant she was given notice she would be removed, her solicitor said.
She did not keep in touch with immigration officials and was first taken ill in January 2006. Without the dialysis doctors fear she only has weeks to live.
Her solicitor said she accepted her removal was fair but said they had made representations on her behalf on compassionate grounds.
Ms Sumani is being removed from the country rather than deported because of her expired visa which means she has no legal status in the UK.
A removal means that in theory she could apply to return to the UK in the future.
A spokesman for the Border and Immigration agency said said it would not remove from the UK anyone who they believe is at risk on their return.
"Part of our consideration when a person is removed is their fitness to travel and whether the necessary medical treatment is available in the country to which we are returning," he added.
"Removals are always carried out in the most sensitive way possible, treating those being removed with courtesy and dignity." (my emphasis. Bastards)
*Example. Cash loan amount £300.
56 weekly repayments of £9
Total amount payable £504
Typical
183.2% APR
is a national campaigning organisation made up of local activists and public organisations. We aim to end extortionate lending and ensure universal access to affordable credit and other financial services. To this end our objectives are to:
* Publicise the extent and impact of extortionate lending on low income groups
* Lobby Parliament, assemblies and other decision makers to end extortionate lending
* Research and promote models of affordable credit
* Provide a platform for people on low incomes to comment on the impact of debt
We are part of a growing international movement for responsible lending and have been involved in the planning of a series of national conferences throughout Europe which culminated in the launch of a European Coalition for Responsible Lending in Brussels in 2006.
Debt on our Doorstep was the first organisation in the U.K to call for a 'responsible lending' duty to be placed on lenders, and this has since been introduced into the new Consumer Credit Act. We are expecting a consultation exercise on the requirements for lenders in the near future. Unfortunately, our campaign for interest rate ceilings to be introduced has not been successful, although the Government has pledged to keep this matter under review, and our work to bring about a competition commission inquiry into the Home Credit industry has recently brought about a real possibility for price caps in that market.
We are also working to develop local financial inclusion partnerships, and are calling for requirements to be placed on the banking industry to disclose, and then improve, the level of financial services available in low-income communities. In this respect, our work has been informed by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition in the U.S, with whom we are closely involved in our international work.
Debt on our Doorstep is also calling for excessive default charges, made by credit card lenders and banks to be refunded to borrowers - a total of £1.8 billion has been overcharged in the past 6 years for credit cards alone - and is working with the Bank Charges Action Group to recover these..