Sometimes Things That Get Lost in the Translation May Be Best Not Found

Mention was made here of a poached eggs dish described as “embezzled eggs” on a menu in Spain. Which prompted Pam Palmer of L.A. to recall some memorable translations she encountered while living in Japan. For instance, she saw a map of mountains that referred to a “Dirty Water Punishment Place.”

You know, a sewage treatment plant.

Thanks for the warning: Jeffrey Allen and his grandson Jonathan Fajardo spotted an automotive garage that seemed to specialize in dismantling (see photo).

Come one, come all: “That about covers the possibilities,” said Susan Baker of L.A., referring to a parking sign she noticed (see photo).

Strange Juxtapositions Dept.: While touring an aviation museum in England, Gavin Feehan of Granada Hills came upon a couple of signs that probably shouldn’t have been so close together (see photo).

Disorder in the court: Some oddities saluted in California Lawyer magazine’s 2002 Legal Follies issue:

* Pop guru Mike Batt, who created the 1970s group the Wombles, was sued for allegedly stealing a song called “A One Minute Silence.” The song consists only of silence. “The plaintiffs’ lawyers claim that Batt’s silence sounds exactly like a 50-year-old piece by the late composer John Cage,” the magazine said.

* Singer James Brown (a k a the Hardest-Working Man in Show Business) “was sued by two of his daughters for $1 million because he refused to pay them back royalties for songs that the women say they co-wrote with the soul legend when they were 3 and 6 years old.”

* An accused drug dealer told a judge that “his name was copyrighted and that he wanted to be paid $500,000 every time court personnel addressed him. ‘You do not have my permission to use my name without compensating me,’ he said.” (With my expense account, I don’t dare name him.)

Trashed by the stock market: A security guard who worked the recent Hollywood Christmas parade reports that one of the most eye-catching attendees was a bystander of “a very weird nature. He had taken a black trash bag, cut out holes for his arms and head and placed a paper bag over his head with eye cut-outs.”

The character wore a sign advertising a Web site. “I watched him stand there for over four hours when, out of the blue, he went over the rail and was marching in the parade,” the guard said.

Officers chased him back to the sidewalk. The guard said he then asked the guy to explain himself. “He said, hey, he had burned through $5 million in his last dot-com,” the guard reported, “and was starting over from scratch.”

Let’s hope the guy’s latest venture doesn’t go down the drain to a Dirty Water Punishment Place.

MiscelLAny: Today’s “Duh!” award winner comes from Steve Lowe, who bought a disposable camera that contained this warning: “Camera operates only when loaded with film.”

*

Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LA-TIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A. 90012 and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.