Things are likely to be quiet here for three or four weeks, although I gather UMTS does reach the Allgäu.

Falls jemand diese Raben kaufen will, sie sind um einiges billiger über amazon.de zu kaufen. Porto käme natürlich noch dazu. Genau welche der amazon-Angebote in der Gustavstraße mit Unterschrift des Künstlers (es ist ja eine Kunst, 3 Euro für seine Signatur zu bekommen) oder gelb angemalt zu sehen sind, weiß ich nicht, aber auf jeden Fall haben sie einen ausziehbaren Stab, mittels dessen sie aufgehängt werden können. Fliegende Raben gibt es auf amazon.de auch.

See my later note on the earlier Ravens entry.

Wayne and Colleen Rooney have called their son Kai Wayne Rooney. The Guardian finds the name exotic:

At first glance the Rooney’s choice of the name Kai might seem to be another footballing exoticism. In Japanese it means “big water” and in Hawaiian “the ocean”. In Maori it means “to eat” which could draw some predictable ribbing given his father’s famously sturdy build.

In fact Kai is an increasingly popular name for children of both sexes: it came 68th in the Office for National Statistics top 100 names for 2008.

The Daily Mirror is even more confused.

* It’s possible, although not likely, that Wayne and Colleen named their firstborn after Natasha Kai, a female US footballer who plays for Sky Blue FC as well as the USA national soccer team.
…
* Kai is a kind of throat singing practiced in the Altai Republic, Russia.

Can it have been that common German name? Still, who’s to guess where it came from and how they’ll pronounce it.

Fine Cell Work sells needlework by prisoners.

This is Gustavstraße, the oldest part of Fürth, where the buildings are all different heights. Fortunately this project, to hang up one thousand plastic ‘ravens’ to frighten the pigeons away, is apparently only going to be around for three weeks, I was relieved to hear.

Fürther Nachrichten story Raben gegen Tauben (German)

There have been peregrine falcons in Fürth, but I don’t know if they’re there this year. Another possibility is dummy egg nesting, but that would have to be done by the city.

LATER NOTE: I picked up two of these for a friend. They are very well made, with a sort of post diagonally through them, so they can be suspended from a hook at various heights or stand on their feet. I later discovered the same ravens, including the flying ones, are available cheaper from amazon.de, albeit not painted yellow. I suppose it is a work of art if you make over three euros on each one (less postage) just for putting your signature on it. I know artists’ signatures are worth a lot.

Blade at Spada considers some legalese heavily criticized by the Campaign for Plain English and sheepishly confesses he understands it. So do I.

The Campaign for Plain English believes that it is possible to convey legal ideas in quotidian terminology, and cites the text below, one of m’learned friends’ finest, as an example of everything that is wrong about legal jargon. As a former lawyer Blade confesses, with some sheepishness, that it makes perfect sense to him, but he is going to reconsider the situation forthwith.

Meanwhile, the Tensor has found an error in his Ph.D. Diploma from the University of Washington, from which ‘the Year of Our Lord’ had been removed without the rest being adapted:

Given at Seattle, in the State of Washington, this twelfth day of June, two thousand and nine and of the University the one hundred and forty-ninth.

(Yes, I was able to guess what had been removed – but translators are used to that).