I think some people are unaware that they aren’t actually obliged to provide amusements for children.

Some words have two different translations.

Lücke in German can mean a gap in a contract that shouldn’t be there – a gap.

It can also mean a situation that has been missed out by some legislation – tax laws, for example and can therefore be exploited – a loophole.

Mixing the two up in translation can be quite amusing.

Nick Freeman is an English solicitor with his own Wikipedia entry. He is famous for getting people off driving charges on technicalities and the press have called him Mr Loophole. He has now registered the name Mr Loophole as a trade mark. More in The Guardian.

Gap, conversely, is a clothing company.

(Via Geeklawyer, who credits the mysterious Blawg Review editor)

This boy is supporting the SPD, the CSU and O2.

I am green with envy at some of the photos in food blogs on the Web. Just consider Ideas in Food. Their food photos just got even better.

Thankfully we have readers who know more about photography than we do. After a recent flurry of emails we have made some adjustments and tweaks and now our pictures are truly popping. They make me smile. Applecheddarparsleytrufflesoup What is ironic is that the pictures we took just two and three days ago made me smile as I thought that they just could not get better. And still I sent out requests for honest feedback. Because I know that we have a lot to learn about photography. The response we received contained well thought out guidance and practical assistance for our photography and editing.

I think they might be more open about exactly what advice they got.

Then there’s a weird weblog by two Germans in Munich, delicious: days, directed at the American readership, where the style of the site is really what makes it (to rephrase McLuhan). I find their English exciting, too (and they know the right word for doughnuts in German).

Actually, it looks as if both use a shallow depth of field. I will have to try that. Unfortunately I’ve thrown my potato away. Here’s the best I could do – I don’t think any of these other bloggers will have accidentally grown potatoes in their kitchens:

Let’s try it again:

I’ll have to work on this. After all, I can’t afford one of those photos from German online cookbooks – which is just as well, because they don’t really whet the appetite. I’d better not have a screenshot of this blogger, either. (See ARD videoclip)

Chris Applegate shows several shelves of Tragic Life Stories in W. H. Smith in Chancery Lane.

The titles vary from the enigmatic – “Alone”, “Damaged” – to the downright exploitative – “Please Daddy, No”, “Ma, He Sold Me For a Few Cigarettes”. Regardless of how suggestive they are, they are all deliberate so. Incidentally, while most are autobiographies, one person, Torey Hayden (third shelf), seems to do a remarkable trade, making a living telling a series of accounts about other people’s blighted childhoods.

I seem to have missed out on reading these – I couldn’t manage Angela’s Ashes, and that even predated Dave Pelzer. But on the other hand I am attracted to books on mountain climbing accidents and ballet dancers – the couch potato’s relaxation?

Found via a comment under Ben Hammersley’s article on what has changed in London in the past five years.

The European Tribune, which seems to be a kind of online forum for leftish persons in and interested in the EU, but run by people connected with the Daily Kos weblog in the USA, has provided an online petition to prevent Tony Blair being nominated as EU President. See Financial Times article.

It needs 1 million signatures to get anywhere.

(Via Über-Setzer-Logbuch)