EAT YOUR HEART OUT JAMES EARL JONES

I have discovered a new and lucrative sideline to my teaching career, courtesy of the translation department of Language Link. One of the girls there, Jo, got me a contract recording the English language voice-over for a short film. So I spent one afternoon last week in a recording studio in North-East Moscow laying down my part.

I am sure you are dying to know what future blockbuster it is that I was working on. It is yet to be titled, but it concerns mineral deposits in a Siberian lake called Kuchuk. I am sure that it will take the box office by storm.

Actually, the text that I read was so full of scientific terminology that I doubt I understood much more than the Russian recording studio staff.

Me: What's this? 'Astrakhanite'? How do I pronounce it?
Russian: How do you think you should pronounce it?
Me: Er. Astra-KHAN-ite? AST-rakhanite?
Russian: Yes, one of those. In three, two, one...

Also, I'm not sure who translated the text from Russian in the first place but it wasn't exactly racy. I recall that it began: "Lake Kuchuk. A meridionally elongated body of water...." Plus I had to read it at an incredibly fast pace - four pages of typed A4 in nine minutes, including pauses. So I sound more like a horse-racing commentator than anything. "LakeKuchukameridionallyelongatedbodyofwater!"

The recording studio was a converted flat, and we had to keep stopping the recording while the neighbours flushed their toilet, slammed their doors, did the vaccuuming... Russian professionalism at its best.

Still, for some of us, fame beckons.