Emil Wiedemann from the Hardenberg Gymnasium (secondary school a bit like a British grammar school) in Fürth is one of the seven school-leavers in Bavaria chosen to live free of charge in the Maximilianeum building in Munich while they study at university there. (Article from the Fürther Nachrichten in German).

His father is a Protestant clergyman and his mother an interpreter for German and English; he doesn’t think he inherited his brains from them, according to the paper (!). Three other Franconians, from Erlangen, Nuremberg and Bamberg, have also been chosen. They are among the 400 students who attained a mark of 1.0 in the Abitur, the university-entrance exam. They also passed another test and were tested orally. Emil was asked inter alia about texts by Wolfdietrich Schnurre, the Ottoman empire, and Turkey’s application to join the EU. Applicants have to show social competence (perhaps not their ability to eat Leberkäse, a Bavarian speciality they ate after the test, and they have to have perfect manners and be Christians (which excludes quite a number of present students in Bavaria – but the Stiftung Maximilianeum foundation was created by King Maximilian II in 1852 to help all students without regard to their financial means, and quite possibly the students were required to be Christians).
At the Maximilianeum, the students each have a room, use of a library, a music room with two grand pianos, a computer room and a basement room for parties (German Partykeller – German houses usually have large basements.
Here are pictures of the present scholarship holders.
Famous earlier scholarship holders are Werner Heisenberg, Franz Josef Strauß and Carl Amery.

Steve has just finished his first year of law school at Stanford University, so this link is not totally off topic. It shows how to take aerial photos from a helium-filled party balloon plus some hardware (cost about $50). Photos are of the campus. Via Slashdot.

I took this clipart image from CLIPS AHOY!

I was searching the Internet to find what to call a medieval mason’s Steinbeil and Steinpickel (axe and pick?) for building Einhard’s basilica at Michelstadt, and came across a history of the gavel. It’s on the site of The Gavel Store (‘the largest and the best selection of gavels in the world’). Apparently they have a masonic past, inter alia.

I must say I know gavels only in the U.S. judge context. I would say an auctioneer has a hammer. But apparently the term gavel can be used for an auctioneer’s hammer too.

You can get gavels, even in the form of earrings, at For Counsel, and a lot of other – er – stuff for lawyers too.

Actually, the gavels on offer for presiding at meetings in the UK sometimes have a slightly different form. There is a gavel shop there too.

The Legal Reader cites an article in The Lawyer (LawyerNews) about image rights – something long recognized by continental European jurisdictions, but not in English law.

Perhaps those who make snide remarks about window boxes would like to see another kind of box. This was photographed a few years ago, so it may have been cleaned up or replaced now.

Via the Universal Language blog, an article in Newhouse News Service entitled ‘English is Language of Business, but Americans Aren’t Fluent’.

bq. On a flight from Tokyo to Bangkok, an Indonesian woman speaking fractured English couldn’t make herself understood to an American flight attendant.
But a Japanese passenger could tell what the Indonesian woman was saying.

One should avoid words with several meanings when speaking international English, for example check/cheque, right, plant, and also phrasal verbs and idioms.

It sounds to me as if we should all learn a form of pidgin to speed up the process.

This is something I worry about when I see a series of books published in Germany, in English, entitled ‘German law accessible’.