This duck is on the Rednitz, which isn’t frozen over, with a lot of others, all from a small lake now frozen. I hadn’t been there for a while so I had missed this one (the female has disappeared, I gather). The Waldmannsweiher did originally have a kingfisher at one end, but it may have gone since the Deutsche Bahn decimated the trees. The ducks are still there, though – although the wood ducks I haven’t seen for a long time.

Günther Oettinger is Germany’s new European Commissioner and he thinks we should all understand English. He doesn’t seem able to pronounce the English speech someone has written for him, though: video.

While I’m at it, for those who speak German, here is the interpreter for La Toya Jackson at the Semper Opernball (rumour has it that the organizers advertised on a website for someone speaking English who had to live in Saxony).

LATER NOTE: I was asked whether I thought people like Oettinger and Westerwelle ought to have interpreters. On reflection, I think the little I have seen of Westerwelle indicated that he was using his own words (such as they were) and was comprehensible. On the basis of one excerpt, a borderline case but possibly OK. Not all listeners notice language mistakes as long as they can follow the content. Oettinger’s now famous video, however, is incomprehensible in large parts, because the intonation is all wrong – incomprehensible to both native and non-native speakers, I think. It was also embarrassing to see him looking at his text so often. There is another video of him first being presented at the EU, where he speaks much better, and then fields questions in German. I think on the evidence of the incomprehensible speech, he definitely needs an interpreter.

(Via Im Namen des Volkers)

January 23:

January 25:

Caution: this may be a work of art, protected for the next seventy years.

So sue me, you artists’ collective of 8 Badstraße!

(Apologies for lack of non-photographic content – unfortunately I’m busy)

Markus at Text & Blog links to a video showing a house in Arnsberg built twelve years ago in the Bauhaus style.

This reminded me that when I was going for a walk in Upminster before Christmas, in the ice and snow, I saw a surprising house in the middle of the garden-suburb-style buildings:

It’s in a road called The Fairway, next to the golf course. I have no idea whether it’s new or refurbished – probably new. In that case, one of the architects’ offices should have pictures. Anyone know? (Not that I think any of my readers are in Upminster).

And here’s a Bauhaus bird house.

Anatol Stefanowitsch reports that he is moving from Bremer Sprachblog (where he was virtually the only contributor, but this was not so intended) to wissenslogs at the scilogs portal: scilogs. The entry is also a report on the history of the blog.

I haven’t had a working ceiling light in my living room for nearly two weeks now, since I hadn’t really cleared it up enough to let an electrician in (I live above an electrician’s shop) and there were other minor distractions. The wiring is old and there was a flash followed by darkness when a bulb blew. Last week, the ceiling light in my office went too, or rather the light switch did. Today I had an electrician up and discovered that the small fuse container in the switch was slightly displaced here, so it just needed pushing in, and the large German fuse for the living room looked deceptively dead but was actually half-in, so it too just needed pushing in properly.

(It’s rather good that Germans have huge fuses that you can just push back in, rather than having to dismantle a plug)

So I recognized this description:

That woman is Meike Urbanski though, his German translator. And let me tell you, her character is brilliantly drawn. I happen to know a couple of translators, and they’re an odd breed. Nit-pickers, know-it-alls, socially incompetent, permanently broke, and incapable of performing the simplest of domestic tasks. Meike is all this and more: she’s also obsessed with Henry LaMarck’s writing and spots even the tiniest logical or factual mistake as she translates it. And of course when the manuscript isn’t forthcoming she fears for her income and jumps on a plane, convinced she can find the author in Chicago.

(Katy Derbyshire at love german books, on Kristof Magnusson, Das war ich nicht)