The Guardian considers the hype of Charlotte Roche’s Feuchtgebiete.

For whether it is the fantasies about sex, the polemics against the use of deodorants, the avocado cores grown specially for use in masturbation, or the detailed and inventive passages of scatological or genital description, Wetlands has left few indifferent.

This seems to be the only hit for the curious term avocado core on a UK site. It sounds a bit like an apple core. It seems to mean Avocadokern/avocado pit or avocado stone.

I read once that German dishes like Sauerbraten could be traced back to Roman tastes in food. That would explain Chinese sweet and sour dishes, Currywurst, and also Toast Hawaii, which was something curiously popular in Germany (and known as Karlsbader Schnitte in the GDR).

The Independent reports that Hawaii Toast was actually the creation of a TV cook called Clemens Wilmenrod in the 50s. He was also responsible for popularizing Rumtopf.

Now a TV film is being made about him.

More in Spiegel Online English German

In the Times Literary Supplement of May 16 2008, Ritchie Robertson searches Austrian literature for examples of men who terrorized or imprisoned their families. The article is available online too.

Adalbert Stifter: Turmalin 1852
Franz Nabl: Das Grab des Lebendigen 1917 – later reissued as Die Ortliebschen Frauen
Ferdnand Raimund: Der Alpenkönig und der Menschenfeind 1828
Johann Nestroy: Eine Wohnung ist zu vermeten in der Stadt 1837
Elias Canetti: Die Blendung 1935
Veza Canetti: Die gelbe Straße 1932-3

Robertson finds that John Fowles’s The Collector has more to do with class, whereas the Austrian examples relate to the father’s Züchtigungsrecht – right to chastise his family. He finishes by finding that some of Freud’s famous cases were surprisingly soft on the fathers and insensitive to the mothers.

Paul Beckett, of Mannin Chambers on the Isle of Man, must be the most-tattooed lawyer in the British Isles (the IoM is not part of the UK, nor a full part of the EU, and has its own legal system, albeit close to English law).

Here’s a picture from a recent exhibition at Mall Galleries:

For more, see the article on My Weekend in the Times Online.

1. Chappell Pascoe Solicitors call themselves ‘The long and short of legal advice’, as their photo shows.

2. LAWgical has posted links to videos for German law students.

Juristische Lehrfilme von Tele-Jura auf Youtube.

3. A later entry links to the active German law tutorial on Second Life.

4. The Advocate General Dámaso Ruiz-Jarabo Colomer has recommended to the European Court of Justice that it should be sufficient for the Impressum (legal notice) on a website to give email contact details – a second means of communication, such as a phone number, should not be needed. The court is not obliged to agree, of course.
See heise.online

Der Europäische Gerichtshof ist dabei, die bisherige deutsche Rechtsprechung zu kippen: Ein Online-Diensteanbieter muss neben der elektronischen Post nicht noch für einen zweiten Kommunikationsweg sorgen, empfahl jetzt Generalanwalt Damaso Ruiz-Jarabo Colomer dem Europäischen Gerichtshof in Luxemburg (EuGH) in seinem Schlussantrag. Es ist damit zu rechnen, dass sich der EuGH seiner Begründung anschließen und innerhalb der kommenden drei Monate sein Urteil verkünden wird.

(and also Telepolis – via Handakte WebLAWg)

This was taken on May 6 at about 10 a.m. at the entrance to the Hainberg. Actually, I saw a lot of oak trees but no processionary caterpillars, nor the people out fighting them. In the past couple of days, helicopters have apparently been spraying.

A copse with an infestation of Nordic walkers:

I’m not sure why the Nordic walkers are congregating here, but they may be attracted by the shade.