One of Tukinghorn’s scribes embarrassed herself in front of Lord Lester of Herne Hill last week,after she failed to translate basic Bengali phrases into English. The story goes as follows. At the end of Lord Lester’s interview, the high-profile silk decided to do a bit of questioning of his own and asked her if she could speak Bengali. The scribe answered yes, but very badly. Lord Lester then asked: “What does ‘shanda’ mean?’ The scribe replied: “Bastard.” Lord Lester didn’t seem very impressed with the answer and said: “No, it means rascal.” As you can imagine, the scribe was kicking herself for not paying more attention during her Bengali classes. Tulkinghorn trusts her reply was an answer to the question, not a comment about anyone else.