F't grin as they say up North

These are the people that did Mark Thomas's calling cards for bribing MP's. Well worth a look.

http://www.b3ta.com/

My favourite Twitter spoofs to date;

Its the stupid economy

Saw Mark Thomas tonight at the Y Theatre. Pure genius. Obviously there is plenty to rant about in the current political climate. His lawyers have already written to the Speaker (soon to be ex), Michael Martin, with the threat of legal action if he doesn't create an independent review.

His stand up routine is now focusing on trying to create a political manifesto and then buy a peer to raise the issues in the House of Lords as a bill.

To this end he has set up an independent not for profit company to accept pledges of money that if successful could see your policy tabled in the Lords. You can pledge money at http://www.comparethemarquis.com/ No money will actually change hands unless he can actually buy one of the buggers. In which case he'll be round for the dosh on Monday. Also check out this site for the fake calling cards that Mark and friends put in the phone boxes around Westminster. Classic.

To check on the manifesto statements for the cities he has covered so far visit his website at http://www.markthomasinfo.com/

The audience tonight managed to get Leicester's Manifesto statement to read; 'All people who sell homeopathic medicine should not be allowed to get conventional treatment on the NHS. They must be treated using homeopathic remedies.' So if they are in a car crash get the dock leaves out.

He's playing at the Y again tomorrow night so we should actually get two statements for Leicester. Oh and he's going to be outside the Tax offices at 4.30pm tomorrow (20th) on Causeway Lane campaigning for us to invade Jersey. Apparently we lose £100 billion in taxes to rich people, companies etc shoveling their money away in tax havens. So the £400 million in alleged benefit fraud is minor in comparison. The only solution seems to be invade Jersey. At least we know we could win that one.

Mark Thomas at his best. If you get the chance go and see him. He's more an investigative journalist disguised as a comedian.

What's in a name?

I should probably explain why I'm posting as Shepherd.

It's not some esoteric desire for anonymity. Rather more mundane actually. My best mate is getting married in August and I'm part of TBM (Team Best Man). This is an idea that should be copyrighted. Why have one best man when you can have 3?

You can check out other blogs by another TBM member at http://wd-150.blogspot.com/ and of course follow the blog of 'The Groom' at http://latetolife.blogspot.com/.

Anyway, I've known 'The Groom' for 21 years now and taught Karate to him and the other members of TBM. Good blokes, one and all. As you may notice if you check the other blogs instead of a traditional stag do we are making a short film. A creature feature if you will, called 'STAG!'. This entailed us all going camping in Rutland over the Bank Holiday weekend and filming various scenes and strapping cameras to cars with masking tape, the gadget that holds your sat nav thingy and prayer. All highly enjoyable.

And yes, beer was consumed.

I'd like to add that no sausages were harmed in the making of the film but this would be wholly untrue. In fact I'm not sure I've ever eaten as many sausages as this before.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, Shepherd. TBM all have code names. In the best traditions of English film and theatre we have Preacher, Shepherd and I can't remember the other one. I personally think we should have gone for 'Broadsword' and 'Danny Boy' but they only use two codenames in 'WED' and there are three of us. It's all very 'boys own' vintage stuff which is cool as I'm 40 but feel 109.

Preacher obviously gets to make the speech and Shepherd gets to do crowd control. Which with my temperament maybe isn't such a good idea...

A Matter of Life and Deaf

One of my main areas of interest is in the ethical code of the professional bodies involved in sign language interpreting. Many such codes follow a deontological route and simply proscribe or recommend certain actions.

Deontology comes from the Greek word 'deon' and means duty or obligation. As such it reads like a list of responsibilities. In many cases these responsibilities are about not doing certain things. You could almost interpret it as 'do not ology'

This is not to be confused with 'donutology' which is ethics for policemen.

An alternative and diametrically opposed theory is that of teleology. This is focused toward the end result or outcome of any given situation. An example of this theory is consequentialism and the branch of consequentialist thought outlined by J S Mill, utilitarianism. Now, whilst 'the end justifies the means' can lead to huge problems, to discount it as a basis for ethics is a slippery slope argument.

If we look at teleological ethics as a possible alternative to the established deontological codes sign language interpreters currently have we can see that it has resonance with interpreting theory.

When discussing translational action, Reiss and Vermeer (1984) state that it is the skopos which determines this and that ‘the end justifies the means’ (p101). This is clearly a teleological approach to translation.

The question remains though, that if we give interpreters the power to decide what to do in any given situation to give the best result we open ourselves to many differing interpretations of what the 'best' result is.

We could say that 'best' is a successful interpretation and use the formula for successful interpretation: SI = CMI+DC+ACE+FI(+PI)+PB+ATL
where;
SI = successful interpretation
CMI= core meaning and intent
DC= discourse cohesion
ACE= appropriate cultural equivalence
FI= framing information
PI= personal information(optional)
PB= professional integrity and behaviour
ATL= acceptable target language


As a body of professionals, sign language interpreters are skilled and intelligent workers who charge a premium for their services. They should be given the authority to make decisions on ethics and outcome on their own recognisance.


Reiss, K and Vermeer, H. (1984), ‘Grundlegung einer allgemeinen Translationstheorie’, Tübingen, Niemeyer.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe...

Well actually, I haven't. I might have seen some things you haven't seen but then you will have seen things I haven't seen. So it all balances out in the end. Unless of course nobody has actually seen these things which means we can't be sure they even exist. In which case we just have to wait for the waveform to collapse before we can determine its actual nature.

The line above is of course from BladeRunner, as is the title of the blog. Why? Why not. In legend Tannhauser was a German Knight who built an underground shrine to Venus and spent a year worshipping her. He then sought forgiveness and redemption. Read into this what you will.

Or you may prefer the reference to life being a struggle against heavily fortified barriers. Its entirely up to you.

Welcome to my blog. Nice place to visit, wouldn't want to stay there though.