Igenlode Wordsmith

I think this is about as good as my translation attempts at the Наша честь song ("Our Honour") are going to get; I haven't made any more changes for a week or so. So here it is.

It's a rather different challenge from Boyarsky's red horse song, partly because the metre (dactyl line endings) is just so beastly to write in English -- plus every single line is supposed to be either a rhyme or a half-rhyme -- and partly because it isn't even vaguely humorous. I need to try to get the elegaic but elevated and affirmative tone rather than sounding inadvertently like Byron's "Don Juan", and the metre really doesn't help in that respect. I have compromised and not attempted a full rhyme on any of the dactyl lines, but I have put a lot of effort into attempting at least an assonance on all of them; life would have been a good deal easier if I had not!

Original lyric (with very unsatisfactory translation): https://teksti-pesen.com/lyrics/12/Mushketery/tekst-pesni-Nasha-chest

My attempt at a literal translation:( Read more... )

My attempted 'singing translation':( Read more... )
I made a conscious choice, after much agonizing over the issue, to change the translated title from the literal "Our Honour", because the song isn't *about* 'our honour' (and moreover that reiterated phrase doesn't actually occur anywhere in my version of the lyric, because it doesn't fit the scansion...) It's not a song about the possession of honour, as such; it's a song about honour being the one thing within our control in a world where we have no influence over the events that happen to us. So I went for the phrase that I did use at that same point in the chorus, the repetition in my case being of "ours" rather than of "our honour".
I am *still* not happy with the translation of the chorus as a whole, but have consistently struggled to do any better :-(

(I have also, of course, deliberately chosen to translate the Russian 'soul' with the more English concept of the heart
in the context of such idioms!)

I did my first (and probably last) ever Parkrun this weekend, mostly to prove that I could stay the course. Being somewhat sceptical as to the latter I started off at an extremely slow jog and managed to get round in 34 minutes without feeling out of breath at all (I sprinted the last twenty feet or so but with hindsight could have started sprinting far earlier than that final corner!)

Apparently this is the average time in my age group for "males that run on average 2 or 3 times each week", which is a pretty decent result for someone who has never run a course at all! (Frankly, how can you possibly be classified as a 'beginner' if you are already running two or three times a week? That sort of commitment is taking it pretty seriously if you ask me...)

I didn't realise you were supposed to 'warm up' but did have to walk a brisk two miles to the park before starting, which probably counts as the same thing :-p

But I'm afraid running as a hobby has about the same appeal to me as cycling considered as a hobby; the purpose of both, so far as I am concerned, is to get you to your destination faster than 'normal' progress on foot, and considering the process as an enjoyable end in itself, to be engaged in while travelling in random circles, doesn't come into the picture...

I made blueberry sourdough bagels, which were extremely purple inside!

According to the figures I have cycled 263 miles since I got my new cycle computer configured at the start of June (I hadn't realised it was so recent). 33 of those miles have been over the course of the last two days, 43 in the past week, and I am definitely feeling the burn -- so much for those stupid radio promotional slots saying "anyone can do our sixty-mile charity bike ride, 'it's not your wheels, it's how you use them'". It doesn't matter how experienced a cyclist you are or how accustomed you are to propelling along a heavy bike, if you're not used to covering long *distances* you're not going to be able to do it. Ten miles with a following wind I can do at a cruising speed of 13–14 mph. Sixty miles is completely out of my league, and I've been cycling seriously since I was seventeen.

I am getting better at managing the new cycle computer. ( Read more... )

( Signalling arm strength )

( The vanishing luggage strap )

( Oil stains )

At least when it comes to food and drink my experience with Russian recipes comes in handy for vocabulary purposes ;-)
( Read more... ) So someone was apparently taking the opportunity to do some creative film-making while commissioned to do what is on the face of it a very simple project -- like good books for very small children, this material is actually more sophisticated than it needs to be.

I realised this morning, on coming across a copy of "Jo's Boys", that I couldn't actually *remember* the crackfic idea that I'd had for a crossover of something or other with Jo's school set-up in "Little Men" -- who were the couple I'd vaguely envisioned as filling in for Amy and Laurie as the generous rich relations, and what canon had it been?

Light suddenly dawned again in the middle of my singing practice tonight (concert in a week and a half, alas). It was of course the crackfic idea about Athos' school for gentlemen( Read more... )

Russian for Beginners, 1977 -- this is about the level where I can actually understand every word (almost) that they are saying :-p
(Except the numbers -- I never could keep the difference between, say, fifteen and fifty straight.)


Though I can't help feeling that being landed with an unexpected kitten brought home from school (especially when you already have a dog in the flat) might be a mixed blessing so far as the parents are concerned...

I have been trying to harvest the seed from my marigolds,( Read more... )

I have picked the first ripe fruit from my catch-up towel-tomatoes, which should give me an idea as to how long it will take any fruit from the new, healthy spurs on the old plants (which are now in flower) to ripen. Maybe a month at this time of year, if I am lucky?

( A Swan River daisy in the mesembryanthemum pot )

At the moment my 'garden' is dominated by rudbeckias, blue Swan River Daisies (no sign of any more pink ones), the last of the marigolds and some self-sown alyssum opposite the original pot (now going over).

The first of my rudbeckia flowers has finally died and gone to seed, and I managed to extract a decent handful of good seeds from it based on this half-remembered method: https://growitbuildit.com/harvest-rudbeckia-seeds-black-eyed-susans/

( Read more... )
So I now have a brown paper bag of bits which, as before, contains *some* rudbeckia seed, but also a little paper packet which contains largely rudbeckia seed only :-)

Apparently Soviet Bagheera is female :-)
( Read more... )