The Union Internationale des Avocats (UIA), the oldest international lawyers' organisation, loves to point out that it is multilingual, with seven official languages: French, English, Spanish, German, Italian, Arabic and Portuguese. Its working languages are English, French and Spanish. This is in marked contrast to the International Bar Association, which only operates in English. However, this multi-lingual environment caused a few difficulties at the UIA's annual congress in Fez, Morocco, earlier this month. In one session, faced with a seemingly interminable - and to Obiter's ears, rather dreary - contribution from a French lawyer, a translator spectacularly blew a gasket. 'Too fast...he's going too fast,' she complained bitterly. 'Oh and now he's just reading something from a text....' with a very audible sigh followed by muttering in the background. Cue laughter from those in the audience with their headphones tuned to the English channel. The French lawyer ploughed on regardless and appeared to be far from happy when the session chairman finally dared to cut him off.