Monthly Archives: June 2014

Europa Centre for Languages

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I was surprised to read about

The UK’s only indoor mock European town, complete with market square, café, shops and classroom. Managed by the Languages Adviser for Havering and with a team of highly experience tutors, native speakers and assistants, the Europa Centre offers the public and schools opportunities to develop prior learning or to begin language learning from scratch.

Pictures here. I doubt I could get in to see it, despite my prior learning.

Near Upminster Bridge station, no less.

The Romford Recorder visited the Centre in 2011. Quoting Dan Alliot, the head of the Europa Centre and Havering Languages Advisor:

“When they come inside it is like another world and a lot of them actually go away thinking that they have been to France for the day.”

When I go to Whitechapel I also feel like I’ve been abroad for the day.

If you don’t want a day trip to France and instead fancy a visit to Germany, or Spain, simple flip boards mean that the French town of Haricotville can easily become Rubendorf for Germany or villa Guisante if in Spain.

An Act or a law?

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Perennial query (from a mailing list): Why is it OK to translate Bundeswahlgesetz as Federal Electoral Law while Umweltinformationsgesetz is Environmental Information Act?

(Actually, you can get the Federal Elections Act online now at www.cgerli.org).

The superficial answer is that some people insist on translating Gesetz in the name of an Act as law.

Act is the better term in both British and US contexts. Like some British lawyers, I capitalize Act in this sense, even outside titles, but this isn’t universal.

One argument given is that the procedure for passing a common-law Act is different from that for passing a German Gesetz. I don’t think the argument holds water.

A possible reason is that foreign lawyers are more familiar with the word law. That applies in other jurisdictions too, not just German. The word Act possibly frightens them off. Loi in French sounds like law and I gather Scandinavian languages have the same situation (lag/lov).

But law is just not the normal term in English.

I would use laws as a superordinate term for primary legislation (Acts/statutes) and secondary/delegated legislation (statutory orders). But legislation might work instead.

Cat ownership cases

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Wikipedia refers to splitting the baby as a legal term:

The expressions “splitting the baby” or “cutting the baby in half” are sometimes used in the legal profession for a form of simple compromise: solutions which “split the difference” in terms of damage awards or other remedies (e.g. a judge dividing fault between the two parties in a comparative negligence case).

But I suppose the judgment of Solomon would not work with cats.

A German judge, in Central Franconia of course, perhaps not a cat owner, tried two techniques to discover who owned a cat. First she took all the parties onto a car park roof and had the cat released to see who it would run to. The cat ran under a car, where it remained for a while. Secondly, she had both parties hold the cat to see who the cat preferred. The cat liked them both.

Auf Anordnung des Amtsgerichts musste die Frau die Katze nun zur Verhandlung mitbringen. Auf dem Parkdeck des Gerichts sollte sie das Tier dann frei laufen lassen. Die Richterin wollte damit feststellen, ob sich das Tier bei einem der Beteiligten zutraulich zeigt. Das ging jedoch schief, denn die Katze flüchtete sofort unter ein Auto und blieb dort auch erstmal. Erst nach längerer Zeit konnte sie hervorgelockt werden.

Eventually the original owner was able to prove ownership of Lumpele (‘Little Rascal’) with photos.

George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had his phone number put on Freya’s collar. See
I rescued George Osborne’s cat and put homelessness on the map. Freya was microchipped anyway, but this didn’t prevent her being looked after as a stray for three years some time earlier.

They gave up hope long before moving into Downing Street last year, assuming the cat had got lost – or worse, been run over.

So they transferred their affections to the family budgie, Gibson, named after RAF Dambusters hero Guy Gibson, and two goldfish.

It appears, however, that Freya is a better mouser than the original official mouser, Larry. David Cameron was obliged to dismiss him (he was more tolerant with Andy Coulson).

But microchipping doesn’t always prevent court cases.

Headline of the day

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Skulptur_tuebingen_vulva_cropped._w

This is a sculpture of 32 tonnes of Verona marble, showing a giant vulva, the work of the Peruvian sculptor Fernando de la Jara, who has lived in Germany since 1967. It stands in front of a German college and apparently drew in a US exchange student, who had to be rescued by the fire brigade.

US exchange student ‘delivered’ from giant marble vulva by German firefighters

Austausch-Student bleibt in Stein-Vagina stecken

Copyright and cupcakes

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It seems that Lola’s Cupcakes have stolen Ms Marmite Lover’s (Kerstin Rodgers) recipe for marmite cupcakes – that is, they’ve taken bits of text (you can’t copyright the ingredients) and messed up the instructions.

The comments are sometimes rather silly or downright rude. But I don’t understand why she doesn’t go to a lawyer but is waiting for Lola’s to do the right thing. I think she needs some damages and not just a donation to charity.

MsMarmiteLover writes:

You cannot copyright, for instance, a classic recipe such as a Victoria sponge or a recipe for hummus.

Perhaps that’s unfortunate when one reads that Konditor and Cook recommend adding extra egg yolk and crème fraiche to a ‘Victoria sponge’ – that doesn’t sound very German to me. From The Spectator:

Konditor and Cook (Ebury, £20, Spectator Bookshop, £18) is the book of an Anglo-German cake shop, which, given the excellence of German cakes, is oddly rare on the scene here. Gerhard Jenne is notable for his quirky decorations and humorous take on fondant fancies and you get a fair share of jolly stuff here, but there are also things like plum streusel in the German fashion. It’s all delicious, but I should warn you that some of the cake bases are quite dense, the cooking times aren’t always geared to domestic ovens and there’s a variation on a Victoria sponge (extra egg yolk, added crème fraiche) which comes squarely into the category of gilded lilies.

Meanwhile, Time Out recommends London’s best German bakeries, Victoria sponge hin oder her.

Thanks to Trevor as usual.