David Gow of the Guardian describes the advocate-general’s opinion on the feta case, in which Germany and Denmark seek a ruling that feta can be made not only in Greece, but in Germany and Denmark too.

bq. Homer described how to make feta in the Odyssey. Aristotle delighted in its briny, crumbly texture.

A briny texture?

bq. For Greeks, the biggest cheese-eaters in Europe, feta is the heart and soul of Hellenic cuisine, and yesterday the EU’s highest court took a decisive step to ensure it stays that way.

Well, or the advocate-general did.

bq. The legal adviser to the European court of justice, the EU’s highest court, has now reasserted feta’s exclusivity, arguing that Denmark and Germany have no right to call their versions feta.

bq. The Danes and Germans make their cheese from pas­teurised cow’s milk. The Danes, who have marketed their “feta” since 1963, and the Germans, who have done the same since 1985, backed by France, have been trying to overturn the European commission’s 1996 decision to give the Greek cheese the same protection as parma ham.

bq. The court’s advocate general, Damaso Ruiz-Jarabo Colomer, advised that feta was not a generic name and should be seen as a traditional name deserving protection throughout the EU’s 25 member countries.

bq. The court of justice, which will issue the final ruling this year, follows his advice in about 80% of cases.

Is it just me, or does this article give the impression that there is only one advocate-general? (There are 8)

bq. But there may yet be a sting in the tail for Greeks savouring victory. Bulgarians and Romanians, due to join the EU in 2007, regard feta as their own and could mount their own legal action.

It’s a bit early to savour victory, of course, if never too early to savour feta.

Short version of opinion
Long opinion in German (well, at least the table of contents)

Mrs. Justice Dobbs is Britain’s first ethnic minority judge. Report and pictures in Blink. According to Times Online (registration required, free of charge), she studied law and Russian and speaks fluent Russian. According to blink, she also did a Ph.D. in Soviet criminology and penology (probably this was what got her pupillage with Michael Havers, rather than the LL.M. mentioned in the Times).

bq. There was also some overt racism. She was briefed to represent some National Front skinheads who had thrown a brick through an Asian shopkeeper’s window. “When the clerk (not the present clerk) gave me the case I asked him if it was wise. He said: don’t worry — just do an Al Jolson in reverse — ie, white up. The clerk didn’t take it seriously.” Predictably, the youths were uncomfortable when they saw her. But she took them head-on. “They were talking about a ‘wog box’ and I made them explain that it was a ghetto blaster. I’d put them on notice and taken control and after that the whole dynamic changed. They pleaded guilty and even thanked me. Much of it is down to ignorance, isn’t it?”

Her mother was from Sierra Leone, and the Times describes her father as ‘British’, which I assume means white, although it needn’t.

I’m just experimenting with Flickr and Smugmug again. The above photo is at Smugmug. I made it smaller, but it wasn’t easy to find the dimensions of a ‘small’ photo.

It seems that if I blog a photo at Flickr, the link shows my ‘photostream’. I would like the photostream to be omitted.

With Smugmug, I have the advantage that I can create private or password-protected galleries and make them available to different people. With Flickr, every party group would get to see every other party group. I read in a forum message that Flickr is said to be ‘working on this’.

I like the way Flickr allows text to be added, but the other features are more important to me at the moment.

This is from Flickr. I think I’ll have to ask about avoiding the photostream. Then again, it’s nice to be able to click through and see other sizes:

An article at euobserver.com is entitled Linguists call for more diversity at EU level (what is the ‘EU level’, exactly?).

Some call for a Slavic language alongside English, French and German, some call for English only (and for the UK to subsidize English language learning in Europe – what about Ireland, I say? – I suppose Ireland is to subsidize Irish language learning).

bq. The Commission is already finding it tough to keep up with its translation commitments – particularly for complicated legal texts.

I know just how the Commission feels.

(Via kalebeul)

Man kennt den Schimmel und den Schimmelreiter; jetzt gibt es den Schimmelhund (US mold dog). Es wäre wahrscheinlich nichts für Schiller gewesen.

bq. You’ve heard of Bomb dogs? Drug dogs? Arson dogs? Now, Man’s Best Friend is the latest weapon in the war on mold.
Traditional mold detection methods can be costly and drag on for weeks. Certified Mold Dogs generate quicker and more accurate results, which leads to lower remediation costs for homeowners and insurers.

LATER NOTE: They are indeed called Schimmelhunde or Schimmel-Spürhunde in Germany. 3-Sat, biomess:

bq. Die Schimmelsuche mit einem Spürhund (sog. Schimmelhund) wird von uns nur in seltenen Ausnahmefällen eingesetzt. Derartige Hunde sind zwar publikumswirksam, aber teuer im Einsatz. Die Erfahrung zeigt außerdem, daß relativ häufig Fehlbefunde auftreten, da dem Hund Luftströmungen durch Konvektion oder Zug zugetragen werden können und er dann die falschen Stellen markiert. Außerdem ist der Einsatz eines Hundes auf Orte von etwa 40 – 80 cm oberhalb Nasenhöhe begrenzt, so daß er Befallstellen an den oberen Raumteilen nicht genau bzw. gar nicht ermitteln kann. Gerade dort sind aber häufig sog. Wärmebrücken (auch Kältebrücken genannt) zu finden, die zu Schimmelbesatz neigen.

From Insurance Defense Blog, via Notes from the (Legal) Underground.

Still life with dead umbrellas.