Poor Mojo's Newswire

HERE'S A QUESTION FOR YOU: what is the German for “careers officer”? A quick dip into Babel Fish, the translation website, comes back with the immediate response Karriere-offizier. Sounds fine to me - I always like it when foreign languages give the impression that they are just actually English with a bit of an 'Allo, 'Allo spin. But should any of you make the unlikely decision to read my first novel in German, you will find this innocuous phrase translated as Wiedereingliederung-in-den-Arbeits-proze-Betruer. Put that into Babel Fish and it comes up as “Reintegration into the Working Process Responsible Person”. Which, even for German, is pushing the compound word thing a bit far, especially when just to hand is Karriereoffizier. There is an explanation for this. On a recent reading trip to Frankfurt, I asked my translator why “careers officer” had become such a long word in her languague; she replied, with that particular German smiling complacency: “Oh, I made up a word, to sound kind of sarcastic.”

Now, say what you like about the irrelevance of authorial intention but the truth remains that I never meant the phrase “careers officer” to be heard in the reader's head a bit sarkily. And even if I had, I like to think that my command of sarcasm might have extended to something a little more subtle than making up an absurd new title for the occupation. And besides: calling him “the reintegration into the working process responsible person” doesn't sound sarcastic. It just sounds mental.

The year is 2008.

An eighteen year old today was born in 1990.

They don't remember Margaret Thatcher. John Major stopped being Prime Minister when they were seven. The huge political scandals of the last conservative government are history.

Labour are the natural party of government and fiscal prudence. They're also in favour of nuclear weapons, privatization of what's left of the public sector, and friends with George W. Bush (who is the only American president they really remember).

The Soviet Union, the East German Stasi, Nazi Germany, and Napoleon Bonaparte are all boogymen out of ancient history. The Apollo Project — wasn't that an old Tom Hanks movie?

They probably remember 9/11 vaguely, and all the grown-ups being very upset. They were ten at the time.

The Simpsons have always been on Sky.

Kylie Minogue has always been a singer.

AIDS has been around forever, but there are meds you can take to cure it [not true, but a common misconception among the young].

Every adult had, and has always had, a mobile phone. They've had one of their own since they were eleven.

The internet has always been around. Cable or satellite TV has always been around. CDs and DVDs have always been around (and are boringly bulky). Freeview has always been around. iPods have been around since they were ten. They've never seen a Sony Walkman, though they've probably heard old farts mention them. And what did the coffin dodgers do with those big black round things, exactly?