In the May-June issue of the ITI Bulletin (in fact circulated in print), Chris Durban, the Momus (or is it Moma?) of crimes and misdemeanours in translationsville, reveals a messy home goal from Trados in her Onionskin column. In nuce, it appears that a senior Trados manager in German admitting to ‘translating’ an invoice himself from German into English, after the mangled result (e.g. “Please consider the reverse of the VAT obligation to the recipient of this document”) had caught the eye of the English freelancer who had purchased a software update. The manager’s defence? That translators are not sufficiently specialized to handle texts involving V.A.T. issues! Michael Kidd, Trados’ California-based Vice President for Desktop Products, had the good grace to acknowledge the error, and admitted that translation can be a ‘challenge’ for Trados. What a stroke of luck for them that their customers happen to be some of the best translators in the business.