This is exciting – Nuremberg playing Fürth. Unfortunately Nuremberg have been playing better recently (I mean better than they were). Still, it would be shameful for a first-division team to be beaten by a second-division one.

LATER NOTE: Perhaps I should take back the word ‘shameful’. Didn’t mean to be rude.

Professor Kyle Graham’s holiday 2011 torts exam (closed-book) (he is a guest on the Concurring Opinions group blog):

QUESTION ONE

On Christmas Eve 2011, Santa Claus landed his sleigh atop the roof of the Adams household. …

As Santa prepared to board his sleigh, he slipped and fell on an icy shingle. Santa tumbled down the roof and crashed into the bushes below, hurting his back. Mr. Adams had seen the ice on his roof earlier that day, but decided not to clear it off; the task seemed like a lot of work, it was cold outside, and there was a good football game on TV. As Santa lay injured in the bushes, a partially unwrapped gift—a Chia Pet—inexplicably fell from (or was disgustedly tossed out of) a window at the Adams residence, and clobbered Santa on the head.

The tumult caused Santa’s reindeer to panic and fly off without him. The out-of-control reindeer and sleigh crashed into and pulverized the chimney at the nearby Batista household. …

Finally, the events related above caused some scales to topple onto a woman standing at a train station in Brooklyn.

Identify and evaluate the torts implicated by the foregoing facts, taking care to consider, inter alia:

1) Whether Santa is best classified as an invitee, licensee, or trespasser at the Adams household, assuming that the State of Confusion continues to adhere to these categories;

2) Whether the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur applies to the defenestrated Chia Pet;…

Our English tort exam questions were very similar, if not quite so complex and without any reference to Palsgraf.

Via Law and Magic Blog

At the Fürth Altstadtweihnachtsmarkt (posted with permission).

Suddenly a range of spices have become easier to find. This would have been the place to get mace for my pork pies a few weeks ago.

Speculatius-Gewürz speculatius spice
Lebkuchen-Gewürz Lebkuchen spice
Nelken cloves
Muskatblüte/Macis mace
Anis anise (probably star anise)
Pottasche potassium carbonate
Hirschhornsalz hartshorn, ammonium carbonate
Kardamom cardamom

The misleadingly named London Eats blog has something about Hirschhornsalz here:

Biscuits made, I did a little research on this stinky but effective raising agent. Ammonium carbonate was originally known by the more poetic name salt of hartshorn, and was apparently derived from the horns of the male red deer (!). If you’re worried this might be cruel, I’m happy to note the antlers appear in the spring and are naturally shed each year, and in any event, these days you buy the chemical powder in stores. It inevitably features in German and Nordic baking, given that these are the areas in which the red deer might be found wandering in the forest, and in a lot of recipes, nothing else will really do if you want the requisite lightness. If you’re a curious Londoner, and don’t have deer roaming in the back garden, then you can buy it here.

It sounds as if those two raising agents both work well for dry biscuits (in the US sense of cookies). I found a comparison of raising agents by David Manthey. He made biscuits (in the UK sense of scones) as follows:

Unleavened
Baking soda
Baking soda with vinegar
Baking powder
Bakers’ ammonia
Potassium bicarbonate
Home-made potash
Home-made potash with vinegar
Active dry yeast
Sourdough starter

Since hartshorn (bakers’ ammonia) and potash are not recommended for soft cakes, it is not surprising that baking powder came off best.

About.com on German language has some Christmas recipes in both languages for more information