This is fun – Mats Wiman, total points at www.proz.com 16,013, writes Confessions of a ‘Kudoz point grabber’.

bq. If one is at all curious and if one wants to learn it is almost impossible to withstand the challenge put on one’s table by a person in need. It is impossible because there is always that chain of thoughts:
“Of course the answer must be….! On reflection, one could also say…., or is it possible to use….?
Let’s check it! Hm, that’s funny! Let’s check what YYY says. Hm, that’s interesting! Let’s see what Google says! Hm, maybe XXX is right after all. I think I’ll call my friend at SKF. That’s it. I knew it was something special. etc. etc.”

I must admit to being a KudoZ addict myself, although what goes into the glossary is not always good. But answering the questions is more addictive than doing a crossword puzzle.

Carlos Ferrero Martín links to new(ish) translation blogs:

365 traducciones: José Luis Justes Amador, in Mexico, publishes a poem a day, with its translation into Spanish.

Internet: un nuevo mundo: Gloria Fiorani, a student of translation in Italy (Italian and Spanish)

Traduciendo el mundo: Jelen, a student of translation in Madrid

Versión Original: Eva Ruiz, a translator and interpreter who specializes in subtitles, voice-overs and dubbing)

TraduBits is in Catalan: Josep Tarrés has been blogging for a bit longer.

(Thanks to Trevor on the Night of the Tarantula)

Ingmar Greil’s weblog Aktenvermerk has received some attention recently, but this entry of November 7th has not got the publicity it deserves. Unlike much of what he writes, this sorry tale is not satire.

Viennese tortoises (Landschildkröten) must hibernate from November until the dandelions flower in April, according to experts. If a person prevents this, he or she may be given a penalty under the Vienna Animal Protection Act (Wiener Tierschutzgesetz). The chairwoman of an association had to pay a penalty of 80 euros when she was found to have several (actually the association had 60 tortoises, to say nothing of 90 turtles, but the administrative action related only to 59 tortoises).

The woman appealed to the Austrian Verwaltungsgerichtshof (administrative court), stating that no statute prescribes hibernation. The court held that it is sufficient if expert witnesses and treatises such as the Reptilienatlas give information on keeping animals in their natural environment (artgerechte Pflege). But the court held that wild animals have to be left in their natural environment, and tortoises have to have their hibernation (Winterschlaf) – I’m not quite sure about the turtles.

At all events, their winter temperature should be from 4 to 8 degrees Celsius, not 28, as they were found in, all awake and eating, in a 50 m² room.

This reminds me of a tortoise I had when I was a kid. We put it in a box with a lot of straw in the garage in the winter. In the spring, we opened the box and the tortoise was dead, but a live hedgehog jumped out and ran away. But times have changed since then, or is it just in Austria that people may not keep tortoises, if the court is to be believed?

But another link casts doubt on the legal position of tortoises in Austria. It’s a forum on courts and the justice system and has an unanswered message of 2003:

bq. rusische landschildkröte
ich suche eine mänliche rusische für meine wilma.kann mir jemand helfen.

(Article in Die Presse, German)

The Higher Labour Court in Düsseldorf today held that Wal-Mart’s ethics code (Verhaltenskodex) for Germany is incompatible with the Basic Law (Grundgesetz).

The code forbade ‘inappropriate behaviour’ among employees, and there was a telephone hotline which employees were encouraged to use to snitch on their colleagues. The works council took legal action against this.

(From WDR via Handakte WebLAWg)
Press notice (German)

The European Court of Justice is to decide whether Germans born outside Germany and given hyphenated last names there can keep them. FAZ some months ago:

bq. Das Rechtsgutachten beschäftigt sich mit dem Fall des Kindes Leonard Mathias Grunkin-Paul. Der Junge wurde 1998 in Dänemark geboren und lebt auch überwiegend dort bei seiner Mutter in der Ortschaft Tønder. Seine deutschen Eltern haben verschiedene Nachnamen, aber selbst keinen Doppelnamen. Die dänischen Behörden trugen deshalb nach dortigem Recht einen Doppelnamen in die Geburtsurkunde ein.

The Independent reports:

bq. German bureaucrats fear a hyphen pandemic. A child with a double-barrelled name, they point out, could go on to marry someone with a double-barrelled name. Their children would have four linked-up surnames, and the next generation might have eight.

Apparently there has been an opinion by Advocate General Jacobs, but I haven’t succeeded in finding it. It sounds as if the Germans will have to give way. But I think anything that can be done to stop Germans having eight-element hyphenated names can’t be all bad.

Today I am busy, so I offer this slightly off-topic entry – it does have to do with living abroad.

There is a wonderful British website called sausagemaking.org. (Molesworth admirers: be careful not to misspell sossages).

It has sausage-making kits at a range of prices, recipes, ingredients, a shop, and a forum where recipes and problems are discussed. You can see pictures in the forum of the making of a pork pie, and read about the dangers to avoid, why the centre is pink (is it cure or is it anchovy essence?). Haggis is also discussed.

For any Germans still reading: German sausages are not neglected (nor are haggis, salami and merguez)

bq. Complete sausage making kit… Just add meat
Everything you need to start making sausages at home
# Includes mincer,
# hog casings,
# 2 different spice blends,
# 3 filling tubes,
# instructions and recipe guide.
Price: £54.00

I found this site once when I was thinking that, although Nuremberg sausages are very good, they are too salty to really enjoy cold. I expected to find information on the Web, but I did not expect a whole forum of enthusiasts (started by Franco Sotgiu, whose Italian father immigrated to Lancashire).

Here’s an article about the site (PDF).