ITI problems

The ITI retirement issue story is set out at The ongoing ITI retirement/resignation saga on Lisa Simpson’s blog – many thanks to Lisa for hosting this matter.

The post contains a letter which ITI members including myself sent to the ITI Bulletin but which was not permitted to be published.

My problem with this is not that I want to retire yet myself, but the way others are being treated if they do, and the fact that the letter was not published. The retired category does not permit any paid translation work at all, in this age where people expect to work after retirement. As for those who leave, who include founding members (the ITI was founded 30 years ago), they are asked to return their certificates.

See also the post at Herbert Eppel’s blog.

Complete poems of Du Fu published in translation

Steve Owen has translated the complete poems of Du Fu (1400-odd) and they are published together with the original Chinese, the Harvard Gazette reports: Translating Nine Pounds of Poetry.

What’s more, the complete work is available in an open access version free online in PDFs.

As Du Fu might have written if he’d been writing English:

Meng of the Granaries Section Comes on Foot to Give This Old Man Full Pots of New Ale and Bean Sauce

Chu shores gave passage to autumn clogs,
as my folding chair faced the evening fields.
Having strained the lees, you separated the liquid from the dregs,
the pot of bean sauce spills over as you carry it.
One will add fragrant flavor when I dine on coarse meal,
as for the other, when friends come we will get drunk.
How can one avoid ordinary things in managing life? —
please tell my rustic wife how to make these.

Saitenwürschtle at Daimler: insult or slander?

There was a row between Daimler shareholders at the AGM buffet, because one of them was packing a doggie bag of frankfurters, which have more names than I realized, and the Stuttgart one is Saitenwürschtle, Saite being their skin. This was in Berlin, where perhaps there was fear of missing out on the sausages. There were 5500 shareholders present, and 12500 frankfurters had been ordered.

Wikimedia image:
120px-Wiener_Wuerstchen_fcm

Ein Aktionär habe mehrfach Würstchen vom Büfett zum Mitnehmen eingepackt, sagte die Sprecherin. Eine andere Anteilseignerin habe ihn darauf angesprochen – dies habe zu einem verbalen Schlagabtausch geführt. Um die Lage zu entspannen, habe man die Polizei gerufen. Die Aktionärin habe eine Anzeige wegen Beleidigung erstattet.

It seems that the gentleman helping himself insulted the lady who objected, since she is charging him with Beleidigung.

This story has been widely reported in the British press too. The Guardian:

The row broke out when one man repeatedly went to the buffet and began wrapping up several sausages to take home, whereupon a female shareholder intervened to tick him off, resulting in a shouting match and the police being called.

Answering shareholder questions at the meeting, Daimler board chairman Manfred Bischoff said: “We had to call the police to settle the matter.”

A Daimler spokeswoman said it was a verbal altercation and the police were called to calm matters – because the female shareholder wanted to file a complaint for slander, and did so.

They call Beleidigung slander, but more information is needed. A big legal translation problem!

Internet resources for English law

At the very bottom of the homepage of this blog, there are links on English law, including Delia Venables‘ site.

Note also the Internet Newsletter for Lawyers, edited by Nick Holmes and Delia Venables. (I’m not sure I realized this had a website). Both Delia Venables and Nick Holmes can be followed on Twitter, and Delia yesterday tweeted links to two articles by her:
Free case law resources online
Free current awareness legal resources
For example, there is Current Awareness from the Inner Temple Library, and Halsbury’s Law Exchange:

Halsbury’s Law Exchange is a legal think tank, hosted by LexisNexis. It aims to communicate ideas on reform or legal direction to decision makers and the legal sector and promote debate through papers, reports, events and media pieces.

Current awareness is obviously a thing.

An article by David Allan Green (who blogs as Jack of Kent) in the Solicitors Journal on The revival of legal blogging, in which he points out how many barristers blog, and how few solicitors.

A new resource to me is Lawbore, a resource site for law students created and maintained by Emily Allbon, who is a lecturer at the City Law School, City University, London. She writes about it in Lawbore: legal education made fun. One item on Lawbore is a guide to reading a law report: Anatomy of a Law Report:

Paul Magrath talks us through Hunter v Canary Wharf Ltd [1997] AC 655 providing us with pointers throughout. We also have a copy of the case in full, with no audio.

There’s also a guide to blogging lawyers.