2026-08-01 13:13:02
Happy August!
Here are a few photos from my phone from the last month with neither rhyme nor reason to the theme.
2026-08-01 03:50:02
I have actually fallen in love with Mouth Ulcers. The band. Obviously. Seven-track EP "Silent Pictures" (a bargain at £5 on Bandcamp) is simultaneously fresh and 40 years old. Aside from the obvious comparisons to Joy Division and The Cure, the goth four-piece from London channel Long Blondes and Maven (ex-Nitzer Ebb); a confident swagger pervades the frosty guitar and militaristic rhythm section.
In the proud tradition of bands like Visage, Depeche Mode, and Mesh, we also have Actors — darkwave synthpop from Vancouver; the weather really infects the music up in that Pacific Northwest, huh?! Shannon Hemmett (from Leathers) adds that "Steve Strange" dispassionate murmur lost in the mix that feels isolating in a dreamlike way. Jason Corbett brings a lovely Bowie impression at times. One of those bands I am surprised I haven't come across before but will listen to again. The disturbing video for "Face Meets Glass" (YouTube link, sorry) is worth a watch.
2026-07-31 05:21:04
Lo Blackwell is an aspiring travel journalist who gets the gig of her career; the maiden voyage of an intimate luxury nordic cruise liner, and witnesses a murder — or did she?
Our erstwhile heroine is a borderline alcoholic with a head injury and so sleep deprived she's the end level boss of unreliable narrators, meaning this is not just a 'whodunnit' but a 'did a crime even occur?' — very "Woman in the Window".
There is quite a lot to enjoy about this book; I love it's a woman in her 30s. This is a demographic I feel is underserved in this type of fiction; plenty of youngsters, plenty of old dears.
I also have a deep love for the alluring combo of "Scandi + boat" setting — and I've seen enough "Below Deck" to be able to visualise the yacht without resorting to a Google.
The encapsulated boat setting miles out to see in international waters speaks to "solving crimes without cops" which is another genre I'm well into.
Isolation is a constant companion through the book; Lo doesn't speak the native language, there's a clear class divide between guests and crew, the physical isolation at sea; even down to faulty WiFi preventing outside contact.
Another neat writing device was including news reports at the end of each part to build a sense of dramatic irony and make me wildly speculate.
I don't want to come across cocky but I clocked the twist earlier than the reveal. It didn't spoil the end of the book for me though because it continues to twist and turn like a twisty turny thing.
A quick read, not too taxing. An interesting take on a genre but not mind-blowing. I can see a handful of these getting me through a holiday by the pool.
2026-07-27 05:09:31
The weather broke overnight. Woke to the blessed sound of rain on the window pane. The rush of cold air as I opened the back door as welcome as a lover's touch; the fine misting drizzle, a kiss.
A short week at work coupled with multiple project kickoffs and a pitch meant it was less like three days working but five days worth of work done in three days. The pitch we're working on is being framed as a "working session" so needs less slides than usual. On the other hand, I have been previously accused of heavily editing my technical approach back and cutting critical detail because it's obvious to me. lol. That resulted in me putting too much detail into this deck and having to whittle it into executive summary slides on my day off.
Someone in a group chat shared a post from GB News about the revival of an infamous Tango advert from the 1990s. Turns out they're not reviving it in any real sense. I came up with the phrase GB News is anti-woke nostalgia porn for Boomer-coded Gen-xers
and I'm quite proud of that.
Was really nice to see the change in weather didn't deter visitors to the monthly Makers Market. A healthy looking turnout if slightly damp. Had a delicious scrambled eggs on toast at a local bakery, "All Things Nice". 10/10 would recommend if you're ever nearby.
All this time I thought "Bittersweet" was my favourite Cliffords song but, it turns out, it's actually "If The Shoe Fits" … or maybe "Shattered Glass"…
I finished "The Binding" by Bridget Collins the day I got my refurbished Kobo Nia. I hadn't transferred anything onto it but Ruth Ware's "The Woman in Cabin 10" was unread in my Kobo library so I started reading it. Enjoying it so far. Found out later that it's been adapted into a TV Show (film?) starring Keira Knightley which has immediately gone on my watchlist!
The best time to start using an SPF moisturiser was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.
Me
2026-07-25 04:34:45
Why is it that when I see anime nerds discussing translations of anime/manga they use the term "localization" and not "translation"? Are they just trying to be fancy, or is there a valid reason?
David @ Setouchi
This came up recently in a conversation online and, following my rule of "if it's more than three tweets, make it a blog", I wanted to actually unpack it.
From my understanding, there is a subtle but distinct difference; "translation" involves turning the words from one language to another but "localisation" involves rewriting the text for the local market. Some may argue this is the same thing but it isn't — they are distinct tasks. We can see this by comparing a localisation between two countries that speak the same language.
In my British English copy of Julia Donaldson's Room on the Broom, the witch is said to have long ginger hair that she wore in a plait
but, in the American English version, she is described as having long ginger hair in a braid down her back
. Both accurate, both English; linguists call this "intralingual translation" as these are straight swaps; "biscuit" for "cookie", for example.
If, for the sake of argument, the witch is replaced with a trucker and the broom for a truck because of a specific country's supernatural/pagan sensitivities, that becomes localisation; the message ("found family and cooperation") remains the same but the mechanics have been culturally adapted. This is localisation.
Jussi Adler-Olsen's "Department Q" novels were translated from the original Danish into English but when Netflix then adapted them for the screen, they relocated the setting from Copenhagen to Edinburgh. This, I feel, is a clear example of localisation.
If you take "Wuthering Heights" and simply change the words into French, that's a translation — Heathcliff and Cathy would still live in Yorkshire. But if you want your French audience to feel more empathy, or find the setting more recognisable, you might go through a localisation process instead: find the French equivalent of Yorkshire, and relocate the entire story to somewhere like Bordeaux.
In anime, as well as translating the Japanese into, say, English, alterations to the script may have to be made; replacing an obscure reference to a Japanese historical event with a similar European or American one. This would be an example of localisation.
Dubbing introduces a third, largely unique, constraint; translations have to sync to the character's mouth movements. If the straight translation takes longer to say in English, the translators have to shorten the dialogue without losing meaning.
In the case of Manga, dialogue may need to be altered to fit within the original speech bubbles. This is a particular concern when translating to German or Finnish, for example, because of long words.
Historically, direct translation has sometimes caused hilarity, outrage, or confusion. I'm reminded of the (likely apocryphal) tale of "Come Alive with Pepsi" finding its nearest translation in Mandarin as "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave." Sometimes a straight translation can cause embarrassment, upset, or worse.
I work with pharmaceutical companies that are heavily regulated, so translation alone may not actually be legal. For example, content written for the US — which allows a direct-to-consumer style of advertising — may use language that's simply verboten in Germany.
Globally approved content may be translated; the exact same text from English to German. US approved content would need to be localised; message retained, but (for example) more heavily caveated or couched in less certain terminology.
Taking that into consideration, just because the text is translated into French doesn't make it suitable for Canada and France, just because it's Spanish doesn't make it legal in California, Mexico, and Spain. Even content for Saudi Arabia that remains in English may need localising without being translated because of the difference in regulations between the UK and Saudi.
The clearest example I can think of here is editing a piece of UK content to adhere to laws in Switzerland (localisation) then translating to French, German, and Italian (translation).
As David himself notes, these terms are often used interchangeably — good translation is localisation to some extent. There's a sliding scale between those who feel translation should stay as close to the source as possible, and those who believe it should be as close to the destination culture as possible. Both approaches are valid in different circumstances.
I'm not pretending my explanation here is the explanation — just how we handle these terms within our industry.
Localisation may be a service or consideration of a good translation partner but, at least in my experience, they are treated as two related but distinct steps. One is language; the other is culture, legal, and compliance.
2026-07-24 04:26:48
What Collins does impeccably is plainly state the magical element: some people can extract memories from people and store them in books. There's no real history or explanation for how or why — it's simply a universal truth and unexamined.
The book is split into three acts, all written in first person. Emmett, our classic unreliable narrator, vaguely alludes to an incident that's happened to him, with no details of any sort. We know he's been ill, a shadow of his former self — but we have no idea what the incident was, or how it came to pass.
Collins pulls a masterful trick by flipping the literary mode part way through; the first half of the book has us trying to piece together the past, then flips to dramatic irony which is a trick I haven't seen before — but it gives me life.
While managing to not stray into effulgent purple period prose, Collins isn't shy of an evocative phrase. Despite, or maybe because of, the narrator we get flowery descriptions and metaphors aplenty.
The misery was a grey river, dragging me over and under and through a life so quickly that I only caught glimpses of it.
Bridget Collins, "The Binding"
The Victorian setting is well rendered, even with the addition of magic; I imagine real historians would pick holes in it, but I am not one. Having also read Collins' The Silence Factory, I can see this in the same universe; it's an interesting space I've not previously encountered and I'm excited for more!
The book is long, but incredibly well paced for such a long book. I didn't feel rushed, and I didn't feel it was lagging at any point.
There are some content warnings to be aware of. There's an unpleasant scene with some animal cruelty. And, as you might imagine from a book with a dark urban fantasy feel and the magical ability to erase people's minds, there's a fair amount of abuse. Knowing that up front wouldn't necessarily have stopped me from reading — it helps that Collins treats the subject with gravity and pathos. It's not gratuitous, it's not glorified in any way, it's not done for the vibes. It's all really rather in keeping with both the characterisation and the level of villainy, and completely in service of driving the story forward.
As much as it's set in a magical Victorian world, this book examines exploitative abuses of power under a microscope. The wealthy never having to face the consequences of their crimes is as present in our world as it is in theirs.
Extracting memories turns from an ostensibly, objectively good thing — we're helping people forget horrific events — into something truly uncomfortable: exploitative body horror. We meet people selling their memories of holding their own babies; the ghoulish horror of people paying for that sort of book, and people stripped of those memories.
Because in the end, memories are all we have.