On 18 June, five lawsuits by literary translators relating to appropriate payment will be heard by the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof).

beck-blog reports:

Die Honorare für Literaturübersetzer sind seit Jahrzehnten meist katastrophal: Bei der letzten, nicht repräsentativen Honorarumfrage ergab sich ein Durchschnittshonorar je Manuskript-Normseite mit 30 Zeilen zu maximal 60 Anschlägen (die also keineswegs mit l 800 Zeichen gleichzusetzen ist) in Höhe von 17,83 Euro; allerdings sind für „einfache” Übersetzungen Normseitenhonorare von unter 10 Euro im Taschenbuch keine Seltenheit. Das Paradox bei den Seitenhonoraren ist, dass Qualität „bestraft” wird: Je mehr Aufwand der Übersetzer betreibt, desto weniger zahlt sich die Arbeit für ihn aus.

The concept of ‘appropriate/adequate compensation’ has been contained in the German Copyright Act since 2002. The translators have not seen an improvement of their situation. The June 18 decision will be interesting.

For further information: http://verguetungsstreit.literaturuebersetzer.de/

This is one of the parties I won’t be voting for:

From Thursday June 4th, Lidl are offering what they call British specialities. You can see them at the website now, but only for a week or so. You may have to enter a postcode – 90762 works!

Yes, I too was surprised to read that British cooking had a higher reputation than French in the past. (In the Dark Ages?)

Here’s another surprise:

Fish and chips, individual pieces, in batter, with extra thick crunchy chips. But Alaska-Seelachsfiletstücke! I spend a lot of my time in Germany avoiding Seelachs. It’s probably coley, which we used to feed to the cats. Pollachius virens. Pollock sounds better, but still, I’ve never encountered that at a British fish and chip shop (cod, skate, rock eel/rock salmon, plaice, haddock).

Those are the first two of four pages. The others have mint sauce, mustard, brown sauce (Englische Würzsauce), caramel shortcakes, marmalade, jam, shortbread, salt and vinegar stick, Ribena substitute, and hand cooked chips (‘Our Lidl quality UK brand Hatherwood’ couldn’t manage to say ‘crisps’, so a bag of these, with a picture of Tower Bridge and some tartan on it, could be a curiosity.

Do they have a British week at Lidl in the Netherlands, commenters?

Don’t watch this if you’re an admirer of Michael Flatley or neo-Irish step dancing:

Stavros Flatley

(Via The Thoughtful Dresser)

The Germans do do some things very well (I’m not sure if Craig and Robert would agree).

New Orleans Rhythm Brass Band from Nuremberg

10. Fürther New Orleans Festival

David Jackson has initiated legal proceedings in Spain. The other side seem a bit slow on the uptake and failed to notice Jackson was represented by a law firm. His lawyers replied, inter alia, that it must be blindingly obvious that Spanish lawyers wrote the correspondence, since it was impossible for British citizens to write clear technical and legal Spanish:

To which I have just spotted (in the middle of 55 pages of closely typed legal arguments) that our reply is:

(..)no se concreta “ en ningún momento , que se trata de un Despacho de Abogados” , ello no es asumible pues, por un lado, del contenido del escrito de alegaciones se infiere claramente su carácter técnico-jurídico, por lo que difícilmente lo podía redactar un ciudadano inglés(..)

Thanks to, er, Barcelona.