Ein Tipp für das heiße Wetter, aber nur, wenn Kundenbesuch erwartet wird.

If you have some dead flies on your windowsill, consider using a larger plastic fly as a decoy to attract attention away from them. Only necessary if you are expecting visitors.

Apparently it’s illegal to fly a flag in England except on a proper flagpole, and I am the last to know. Guardian today, BBC earlier.

Possibly breaking the law in Upminster two weeks ago:

The Guardian:

bq. Under current planning regulations, it is illegal to fly any national flag without permission from the local council, unless it is hung on “a single vertical flagstaff”.
As part of a shake-up of planning rules connected to advertising, the government is issuing new advice to councils allowing any national flag to be flown without permission, however it is displayed.

Not giving it a rest, Fürth last Saturday:

Zur deutschen (österreichischen und schweizerischen) Version von Monopoly siehe Wikipedia.

bq. Interessant ist die Entwicklung der deutschen Monopoly-Version: Die erste deutsche Ausgabe, die in den 30er Jahren auf den Markt kam, enthielt als hochpreisige Straßennamen auch die Straße aus dem Berliner Nobelviertel Schwanenwerder. Dort wohnte auch Propagandaminister Joseph Goebbels. Er ließ das Spiel 1936 offiziell wegen des jüdisch-spekulativen Charakters verbieten, jedoch ging es ihm wohl mehr um die schon erwähnte Insel Schwanenwerder als teuerste Straße. In der allgemeinen deutschen Monopolyversion von 1953 ging man diesen Problemen später einfach aus dem Wege, indem man fiktive Straßennamen verwendete. Mittlerweile ist auch wieder die Originalversion mit den Berliner Straßennamen aus den dreißiger Jahren erhältlich. Im Gegensatz zum Schweizer Monopoly sind nur Straßennamen, jedoch keine Städte aufgeführt.

Apparently Hasbro is bringing out a version of Monopoly with a toy credit card and reader instead of paper money (Sky News, via Gizmodo). Some commenters on Gizmodo are adamant that they won’t play any version without the streets of Atlantic City – a problem that doesn’t worry those of us who learnt the game in Britain. AC doesn’t feature on the Monopoly pub crawl route.

bq. Monopoly Here and Now Electronic Banking costs around £24.99, compared to £12.99 for the standard “cash” version.

I’m not sure how new this is, as an electronic banking version appeared in 2005, even in Germany, together with an updated Berlin version.

But apparently there are many versions of Monopoly now. Wikipedia has useful information, including on the online version, and links to other language versions.

What worries me more is the impression I get that Mr. Potato Head, one of my favourite toys when I was a child (I must have been one of the earliest users), is now – for PC reasons? – played without real potatoes. It was invented in 1952, and a plastic body was added in 1964. What an impoverished world we live in.

bq. In 1974 the main potato part of the toy doubled in size and the size of its accessories were similarly increased. This was done mainly due to new toy child safety regulations that were introduced by the U.S. government. Hasbro also replaced the holes with flat slats, which made it impossible for users to put the face pieces and other body parts the wrong way around. In the 1980s Hasbro reduced their range of accessories for Mr. Potato Head to one set of parts. They did however reintroduce round holes in the main potato body, and once again parts were able to go onto the toy the wrong way around.

I should think so too. Where’s the fun if you can’t put the body pieces in the wrong way round?

I take the liberty of reposting this email from an ITI list:

bq.
Imperial College London is currently conducting the TM Survey 2006, which is a survey on perceptions and usage of Translation Memory tools. It is addressed to all translation professionals (translators, terminologists, project managers, translation company owners, subtitlers, etc.) and its aim is to discover ways of improving these tools through users’ input. We would be grateful if you would be happy to distribute the link of the survey to your members or publish it where you think appropriate, so that we can get as many responses as possible. We hope that with your help we will be able to produce some very interesting findings for the translation (technology) industry.

bq. Link to the survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=114952270405
The survey will close on 31st August 2006.

LATER NOTE: this looks like one Ph.D. student’s work, although I may be wrong. Translators are constantly being asked about TM by students doing projects on it!
The survey doesn’t make it clear if multiple answers are required, and if you say you do use TM and go into detail on it, you still get asked later why you don’t use it.

Der unermüdliche Per Döhler hat ein paar Seiten für Übersetzer zur Umsatzsteuererhöhung 2007 geschrieben.

Da weder das Finanzamt noch Steuerberater sich immer in diesem Zusammenhang auskennen, sollte man sich das anschauen, und auch noch Pers Einführung in die Mehrwertsteuer.

Anlass der Arbeit war diesmal, dass der ADÜ-Nord schon Seminare für 2007 anbieten will und sich fragte, wie hoch die MwSt sein sollte. Da die Seminare erst 2007 stattfinden, kann man schon bei Zahlung 2006 19% absetzen.

Die ‘petite anglaise’, Fremdsprachenkorrespondentin bei einer englischen Wirtschaftsprüferfirma in Paris und heimliche aber vielgelesene Bloggerin, hat ihre Stelle verloren – wie in englischen Zeitschriften und ihrem Blog jetzt berichtet.

Catherine of ‘petite anglaise’ has lost her day job (weblog) at Dixon Wilson, a British accountancy firm in Paris. I’m a bit late on reporting this, and the Telegraph site seems to be down (a couple of days ago they reported it in their news as an exclusive, where I saw it at the time, and in their weblog too) so I refer to Fistful of Euros for the other links – including one to a Channel 4 interview.

She will be taking the firm to court for unfair dismissal.

The weblog Journal d’un avocat has also examined the affair (French). It appears that the employer’s letter gives fewer concrete details than Callboy Torsten:

bq. Ce n’est pas bien, c’est indiscutable. Ce qui l’est tout autant, c’est qu’aucun extrait de ces textes “inacceptables” et “dénigrants” n’est cité à titre de démonstration. L’employeur se contente d’affirmer, et substitue son appréciation aux faits objectifs. Devant le Conseil, ils ont intérêts à produire les passages incriminés, s’ils existent, car les juges ne se contenteront pas de l’appréciation de l’employeur et voudront examiner eux même ces fameux passages.

The weblog has been compared to Bridget Jones, but it isn’t all in that style. I remember an account, in several stages, of Catherine’s experience as an adopted child. And there are very few references to her job in the blog anyway.