5 reasons book translations are rubbish

Translated books are, on the whole, duff. I am currently engaged in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and it is only the story that persuades me to continue.

5 reasons translated books are rubbish…

Spiral Notebook: The saints and the winners

I left one newspaper after about seven years and I got a Simpsons mug. A Simpsons mug! Sheesh.

I had played a significant part in turning around that newspaper. I had won awards and the rest. Indeed, for the purposes of literary neatness, I’d like to think I’d worked miracles.

Spiral Notebook: 32 signs of a lifestyle gone wrong

32 tell-tale signals that your lifestyle may not be all that you imagined for yourself.

■ When you stand up, bits of dry breakfast cereal avalanche from the creases in your sweat top.

■ Your attempts at the Downward Facing Dog are followed by letters of complaint from the RSPCA.

■ You're not immediately repulsed by the thought of reclaiming that chest of drawers by the roadside.

■ You avoid visiting a dentist, Gap or doctor's surgery because there's not enough money in the world sufficient to compensate someone for studying you.

■ Floor food feels more nutritious.

■ Your pension plan has five numbers and a bonus ball.

■ Your belly button is a better source of surprises than iPod Shuffle.

■ You add a week on to Best Before dates for meat and dairy and add a year for Super Noodles.

■ The TV Times is a better guide to your week ahead than iCal.

■ You spend longer looking for new slippers than brogues.

■ You stop getting pizza delivered because you can't remember which parts of your hallway should be a cause of embarrassment.

■ Free stuff is unfailingly brilliant.

■ Water tastes funny and wrong.

■ Your computer mouse has evolved to incorporate the gunge in its tracking.

■ You watch University Challenge solely to cultivate people to hate.

■ Every day is a bad hair day because it's started collecting in balls under your bed.

■ Food tastes funny and wrong. Best add more curry powder.

■ You use the defence "you see monkeys doing it" much too often.

■ You've changed the setting on your weighing scales from stones to kilos because you the figures are meaningless and, at a pinch, 120kg could be good.

■ The dust on the window sill has begun to lithify.

■ Fresh air feels like a bath.

■ Five a day might be possible, if you could just get more time to yourself.

■ Your handkerchiefs are in 3D.

■ Global warming, poverty, religious division, conflict - let both sides come to a consensus, then you'll get on board.

■ Getting your hair cut is the closest thing you get to meaningful health care.

■ It takes a week for your sink to drain.

■ Shame replaces magnolia as your go-to hue.

■ You keep paying missold Payment Protection Insurance because you can't be bothered to stop the direct debit.

■ If it doesn't come away with a squirt of bleach, it must have been part of the pattern.

■ Weirdly, there's a lot of blue cheese in your diet, even though you've never bought any.

■ You find the crying child somehow cathartic because life is tough, everything is miserable and they might as well get used to disappointment and pain.

■ Modern life is funny and wrong. Best add alcohol.

Spiral Notebook: The Meaning Of (East London) Liff

It is the 30th anniversary of Douglas Adams' and John Lloyd's The Meaning Of Liff, the much-loved dictionary which uses place names for words that should exist but don't.

As a tribute to the work of genius, an east London homage:

Aldgate (n.) Unit of distance between you and the person behind which marks whether or not you should hold open the door for them.

Bermondsey (n.) The sudden and infectious smile of a lost-in-thought train passenger when they remember something funny.

Blackwall (n.) The precipitous loss of appetite that follows the discovery of a strange tube in a piece of steak.

Dagenham (v.) To drum on the steering wheel to an '80s rock classic.
 
Gallions Reach (n.) The hopeful but pointless lunge towards Tube doors that stay open as a tempter but then close in your face.

Greenwich (v.) To pull in your elbows from the armrests when the neighbouring Tube seats are taken.

Leamouth (n.) Moment of sublime synchronicity when the lyrics of the song on your MP3 player perfectly match what you're seeing or experiencing.

Limehouse (v.) To shuffle uncomfortably around in a lift to accommodate new passengers.

Newham (n.) Unit of measurement that accords to the light pressure placed on a toilet door to check if it is actually engaged.

Plaistow (n.) The spare button sewn into the hem of a shirt.

Plumstead (v.) To settle on the sofa after having cleared the ironing basket.

Rotherhithe (v.) To mumble your choice from a foreign language menu on a first date.

Shoreditch (n.) The person you least wanted to come to a party but you're most likely to end up with.

Southwark (v.) To repeat a piece of gossip to the person who told you in the first place.

Spitalfields (n.) The improvised network of fabrication required to make the original lie viable.

Stepney (v.) To adjust your posture slightly to avoid an energetic child who is likely to punch you in the crotch.
 
Stratford (n.) The thin layer of dust on everything that is so uniform it appears dull rather than unclean.

Surrey Quays (n.) The polite smiles you receive from strangers that you immediately assume will lead to marriage.

Tower Hamlets (n.) The moment of serenity that overcomes someone contemplating throwing themselves out the office window.

Walthamstow (v.) To crumple up a very expensive bag in order to get it in an overhead locker.

Wapping (v.) Of an iPhone. The obsessive updating of apps to clear all the numbered red discs.

Victoria Dock (n.) Sly glance downwards a woman makes to check her cleavage.

Woolwich (n.) The annoying span of time between waking and the alarm.

Westferry (v.) To travel on the front seat of the DLR pretending to be the driver.