Utterly Lost in Translation: Even More Misadventures in English Abroad

CHARLIE CROKER is an author and journalist whose inbox regularly pings with emails from delighted readers of Lost in Translation and Still Lost in Translation. He has written for The Spectator, The Times and The Daily Mail, among many other publications. Details of his other books can be found at: theimportanceofbeingtrivial.com.

The search for the globe's funniest language howler continues apace. As with his two previous volumes, Charlie Croker has trawled hotel foyers in Kazakhstan, South Korean supermarkets and Argentinian airports, plucking from the mistranslation tree only the very choicest of fruits for your delectation. There is the French hotel advising that 'pets are not allowed in the breakfast'. The bar in Rome requesting that you 'use the arse-tray for your fags'. And the bookshop in China boasting a section titled 'sports and hobbits'. Who can tell what the Japanese camera manufacturer had in mind when they included 'beware the weatherly swell' in their instructions? Who would brave the Barcelona hotel where the pillows have 'firmness to take care of your cervicals'? Who could resist the Austrian restaurant offering 'Saddle of Rabbit in a vortex sheet'? This delightful book is an affectionate trawl through the gems that arise when people all round the world graciously indulge English speakers' shunning of any language but their own. In fact, some of the gems are home-grown: a Hertfordshire restaurant warns that 'any person consumed in the restaurant without paying will be prospected'. So eat some 'chicken soap' in Bulgaria, drink 'Jack Denials' in Italy, stay at the Budapest hotel offering 'non-sliding mates for the bathtubes' - and find yourself Utterly Lost in Translation.