Slamming translations ?

       Look, I support spreading the word about international literature -- and hence literature in translation -- as much as the next guy, and I realize that it's worth trying all sorts of things to help folks see the light in order to get them ... excited about it, but .....
       In The Independent Simon Usborne reports in Translation slam: A war of words on the recently-held Free Word/BCLT 'competitive translation duel' Translation Slam.
       Okay, I'm an old fogey who really doesn't appreciate 'slams' in any context, who is obviously in a foul mood (see above posts -- and just imagine what I'd be writing if The Independent had posted the article in the dreaded pdf format ...), but surely the accompanying picture is proof enough that this is maybe not the ideal way to go about, making a hard sell harder still insofar as suggesting anything about translation could possibly be 'cool'. No matter how you try to spin it:



       In the article, too: "[Daniel] Hahn concedes" that translation is: "a gloriously nerdy pursuit" -- which already seems to me to concede far too much.
       (The 'slam' idea is, on a fundamental level, pretty intriguing ... still, I have my doubts .....)