Well, I couldn’t see the slot for letters either. Doesn’t look very friendly to me.

Oliver Kunz of KunzOBlog reports that more English translations of Swiss law are to be published on the Swiss government website.

The Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) has appeared as a PDF file. That’s only the short name, fortunately (it reminds me of the German word Anti-Baby-Pille). The long name is Federal Act on Combating Money Laundering in the Financial Sector. The charming Swiss term for Geldwäsche is Geldwäscherei.

German name: Bundesgesetz vom 10. Oktober 1997 zur Bekämpfung der Geldwäscherei im Finanzsektor (Geldwäschereigesetz, GwG)

The family of Ron Goldman has published the O.J. Simpson book If I Did It, together with some additions (September 13 USA, September 30) Britain.

The If in the title is well concealed.

Selling the book is one way for the Goldman family to get some of the damages Simpson owes them. On the other hand, the book is apparently mainly interested in demolishing Nicole Brown Simpson’s character. More in The Independent.

Apparently it’s quite common for British local authorities to offer translation services to their inhabitants. Multilingual London gives links to some of them, and also to Multikulti, which ‘provides accessible, accurately translated advice and information in community languages’ (not German, in this case). Perhaps this is the context of the following text, which was quoted in the star letter to the ITI Bulletin for September-October 2007. The London Borough of Lewisham recently awarded a £450,000 contract for translation and interpretation services:

Award criteria: The most economically advantageous tender in terms of
1. Financial including price. Weighting: 40.
2. Ability to meet specification requirements. Weighting: 27.
3. Quality assurance and monitoring. Weighting: 12.
4. Working with smaller specialist firms. Weighting: 6.
5. Confidentiality arrangements. Weighting: 3.
6. Technical solution offered. Weighting: 3.
7. Previous experience and references. Weighting: 3.
8. Communications and training provision. Weighting:3.
9. Additional requirements. Weighting: 3.

The OUP Blog (based in the USA) refers to ‘Sark, United Kingdom’. What’s more, this contribution comes from Ben Keene, described as the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.

I thought it was a given that the Channel Islands are not part of the UK. But not only Ben, but many other sites believe otherwise. Take Destination360, which has an interesting style of English and presents both views in one piece:

Although the UK Channel Islands are found off of the coast of Normandy, France, they are in actuality part of the United Kingdom. The UK Channel Islands include the large Guernsey Channel Island, as well as Alderney, Jersey UK and the smaller island of Sark. There are also a number of other smaller islands included in the UK Channel Islands, both inhabited and not inhabited.
The history of Guernsey Channel Island and the rest of the Channel Islands include William the Conqueror, who became the monarch of England in 1066 and was coroneted at Westminster Abbey. In the year 1204, England lost control of the Normandy mainland to the French, and since that time the Guernsey Channel Island and the rest of the Channel Islands have been governed separately from the rest of the United Kingdom, though still considered to be possessions of the United Kingdom. Interestingly, they are not considered to be part of the UK, but rather dependents. … Although Jersey UK is inhabited and has a functioning government, it is not represented in British parliament.

I have taught a lot of people that the Channel Islands are not part of the UK or EU, but are crown dependencies. But perhaps many of them have forgotten this. See the definition of the UK in Wikipedia:

The Crown Dependencies of the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, formally possessions of the Crown, are not part of the UK but form a federacy with it.

The Independent had an article on Sark last year, titled Lost world: the last days of feudal Sark (yes, apparently it’s a democracy now). You can also read about Clameur de Haro there.