In 1987 I was hired by NHK, Japan’s national broadcaster, to help co-present a daily Japanese-language news programme based in London, covering world affairs for a Japanese audience on a 24-hour satellite news channel. After two years in front of the camera I formed my own production company, Simon Prentis Associates, and for the next 20 years coordinated bilingual research and local production for more than 250 programmes commissioned by network TV channels in Japan.

These ranged from political documentaries and travel programmes to documercials and game shows, but much of the work involved negotiating and then interpreting at interviews with specialists and other people of interest all over the world, providing a variety I greatly enjoyed. In parallel to this I worked freelance as a technical translator, translating patents for the European Patent Office and other agencies, who also employed me as an expert witness in legal disputes. For three years from 1991 I was the national coordinator for J-Net, the Japanese translators’ network of the UK Institute of Translation and Interpreting, and still contribute regularly to their professional journal.

I have also translated and interpreted widely in the arts world, both for artist clients such as Paul McCartney, Yoko Ono, Frank Zappa and Stanley Kubrick, and institutions such as the Royal Academy, the National Film Theatre and the RIBA. I have contributed to international conferences on translation and interpreting, and taught and lectured at institutions as diverse as the Oriental Institute at Oxford University, the School of Oriental and African Studies, the London School of Economics and the Oriental Society at Eton College. I have also written in depth about the work of Frank Zappa, who I worked with over a period of ten years.