Sadly, we’re not all things to all people. For example, we haven’t yet found a way of forging lasting working relationships with tourists who seek the translation of letters from their Greek or Turkish lovers.

We have a tragic record of debt recovery with those who went on to need translations of the resulting marriage certificates and divorce decrees.

We’re not miracle workers: there are limits to what can be professionally translated overnight (it can range from 500 to 2500 words per project, per translator, depending on complexity) and unusual, impossible challenges are sometimes found.

One day, we received a call from a potential customer who needed an annual report and accounts translated from Italian. The enquirer asked: “Will you check and correct the figures?”

The answer was: “We will faithfully copy all the errors.”

Faithfully translating what was written is actually what we’re paid for (although we do point out any mistakes in the original).

Another day, another call out of the blue. It involved about 5000 words from German to English, and required an estimate. When the potential client was told the price, he said: “My usual translators could do it for 10 percent less than that, but they can’t do it right now.”

And we said: “OK, we’d charge 15 percent less, and we won’t do it either.”