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Tim Ingall of Scottsdale, Arizona (USA), is yet another viewer thwarted by the language barrier (C8): “While in Singapore on business, the hotel TV had limited channels, one of which was a local one, running a Malaysian soap opera. Closed captioning in English was provided but not in real time. For about 30 seconds a woman unleashed a verbal tirade against the offending male. No translation appeared as the tirade unfolded but when she stopped to draw breath, the closed caption ‘She is angry with him’ appeared. It was a case of ‘No shit, Sherlock’ on my part. I suspect the station’s budget could only cover ‘synopsis closed captioning’.”
Bryce Templeton of Mudgeeraba (Qld) went to see Paint Your Wagon in Italy: “As expected, it was dubbed into Italian, but I did not expect them to cut out all the songs! This kinda took the edge off it. After all, it is a musical.” Then again, Bryce, you might have dodged a bullet in avoiding Clint Eastwood belting out I Talk to the Trees.
“As an exchange school student to West Germany in 1972, my German exchange family delighted in showing me on TV that Skippy could speak German,” recalls Margaret Collins of Terrigal. “I have to say, I was surprised, too!” Was ist los, Skip?
“Nothing has cracked me up as much as hearing Hoges in fluent German in Ein Krokodil zum Kussen, sitting among a local Basel audience that did not laugh a lot,” says Frederika Steen of Chapel Hill (Qld).
Recent mentions of monotremes (C8) has Chris McKimm of Karangi in a flap: “Some years ago, on her morning walk, my wife noticed some agitation in the creek she was crossing. Closer inspection revealed we had a platypus in the stream that is the boundary of the back of our place. As recently as last week she saw ‘Polly’ swimming in the stream. It is an absolute privilege to have a monotreme in our stream.”
“Talk of the Australian underwater hockey team (C8) brought to mind the wonderful 1959 comedy film Some Like It Hot, which starred Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis, among others,” writes Paul Hunt of Engadine. “There was a scene when Marilyn naively said to Tony, ‘Water polo must be terribly dangerous?’ To which he replied, with contrived confidence, ‘I’ll say – I had two ponies drowned under me.’ Wonderful.”
Column8@smh.com.au
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