Today, in the recording studio

Today we received the rare instruction to record the script exactly as it stood - not making any attempt to repair the numerous omissions, illogicalities, mis-spellings, and Chinglishisms in it.

I suppose I should be thankful. Even though my regular partners and I have now become adept at spotting and amending such howlers almost at sight, in a bad script I'd guess that it can slow us up by at least 10% - and we only get paid for the amount of usable tape we lay down, not the amount of time we spend in the recording booth, so that's all "lost income". It's writing up these corrections that really takes the time, something that we do purely out of a sense moral uprightness, not because we think anyone is ever going to pay them the slightest bit of attention (much less actually incorporate our improvements into subsequent versions of the tapescripts). Such a proof-reading/re-writing process really ought to be quite generously reimbursed; but in practice we are doing it for free.

So, I ought to have been grateful for the greater efficiency, the saving of time and unrewarded effort that the 'NO corrections' policy brings us. But, really - it's just painful reading some of this stuff. My partner DD finds it great fun, but something in me recoils in disgust from this unnecessary butchering of the mother tongue (however hilarious it might sometimes be).

A lot of the time I find myself 'auto-correcting' without even realising it. For instance, it was only with difficulty that, when playing a tour guide warning his party against getting too close to the local fauna, I was able to force myself to say that this was because the animals might lose some of their natural "fearlessness" through too much human contact, even though it was fairly obvious that "fearfulness" was the right word. However, I refused to warn them against "reproaching" the animals when it was clear that "approached" was meant (one wonders if this passage on eco-tourism hadn't been ineptly mashed up with an article on Chinese parenting; the loss of "fearlessness" through too much "reproaching" might have fitted there). And it was only on a subsequent re-reading (idling away a couple of minutes while DD read a long solo passage) that I realised I had unconsciously amended "wide life" to "wildlife".

Ah yes, and this tour was taking place on the Golab Gist islands (essence of Indian dessert-making??). It took a minute or so for the penny to drop: Galapagos!

The plague of inappropriate naming of characters seemed even more rife than usual too. Can Nancy ever be a surname? Even in French? (The character was a male university lecturer - Professor Nancy!) A little while later I had to put up with being addressed as Brine. The highlight of the day in this particular genre, though, was when I found myself playing an elderly American gentleman being delighted to receive a phone call from his married daughter - "Why, it's so nice to hear from you, Crusty." I am a seasoned professional at this work now, quite the trouper - but I just could not keep a straight face through this, and it did require 3 or 4 'takes'.