Berichte in deutschen und englischen Zeitungen über Prügelei zwischen Mitgliedern der Band Oasis und fünf Münchner.

The Süddeutsche Zeitung

bq. Die Münchner Polizei ermittelt gegen fünf Männer, die Oasis-Sänger Liam Gallagher und seine Kollegen vor anderthalb Jahren im Nachtklub des Nobelhotels „Bayerischer Hof“ versohlt haben sollen.

Oasis-Sänger Liam Gallagher sah damals aus, als wäre er mehrmals gegen eine Wand gelaufen: Die Haare zerzaust, eine Lücke im Gebiss, zwei Schneidezähne fehlten. Dies war am 1. Dezember 2002 nach der Prügelei im Hotel „Bayerischer Hof“, die er und seine ebenfalls total betrunkenen Band-Kollegen angezettelt hatten

and the Independent report on possible criminal proceedings against five Munich men aged between 32 and 28.

bq. Anton Winkler, Munich’s chief prosecutor, said four members of the band were still being investigated on suspicion of assault, resisting arrest and damage to property, but were unlikely to face trial.

bq. Instead the five businessmen involved in the brawl with Mr Gallagher and three other members of Oasis are almost certain to face charges of causing grievous bodily harm. Two of Mr Gallagher’s front teeth were knocked out during the fight at theBayerischer Hof.

The Süddeutsche reports that the karaoke performance to their own song was not well received in the Munich night club. It also reports that the Munich men escaped, but the crews of ten patrol cars arrested the Oasis members:

bq. Festgenommen von zehn (!) Streifenwagenbesatzungen wurden nur die Bandmitglieder, wobei Gallagher einen Beamten mit einem Fußtritt begrüßte. Die fünf prügelnden Münchner entkamen unerkannt – bis die Polizei nach diversen Zeitungsveröffentlichungen doch noch einen Tipp bekam und nach und nach die anderen Schläger ermittelte.

A visit to the dentist took me past a university bookshop in Erlangen recently:

(Mencke-Blaesing)

There I picked up a couple of law books. The first was the dtv-Atlas Recht, Band 1.

(To buy from amazon.de click on picture – but read on first!)

This book has some geographical maps, but most of the illustrations are diagrams intended to summarize the text visually. It’s volume 1 and covers general matters, constitutional law, EU law and criminal law. It has rave reviews on amazon.de and elsewhere, but I wonder about some of the illustrations.

It seems to me you could spend a lot of time working out what the graphic actually means. Perhaps that’s the idea. Lots of legless people, anyway, unless the legs are really needed.

I just wonder who did the graphics. I mean, I know who did them, but did the author provide the idea and the design company just execute it?

Of course, the title conjures up a different book, one that would show the differences between the Länder, that would indicate the line between Baden and Württemberg, where different types of files are used, the varying crime rates, where same-sex marriages are solemnized by the notary and where at the register office. But this does have a map showing the kontinental-europäischer Rechtskreis (divided into romanisch and deutsch, and deutsch including Scandinavia), and the anglo-amerikanischer Rechtskreis (divided into englisch and amerikanisch – very odd).

There is also a dtv – Atlas Weltgeschichte 2. Von der …
in two volumes or one. Interestingly, this has been translated into English for Penguin (The Penguin Atlas of World History:…). The translation isn’t perfect, but it’s a great source of terms for historical battles, personages, and other terminology.

I just discovered that Collins Dictionaries and Langenscheidt have been collaborating since last autumn and a new edition of the big one-volume Collins dictionary is to be published in the UK on May 4th 2004 and in Germany apparently in April. This will be the fifth edition.

Collins Dictionaries is now part of Harper Collins, but it was a different Mr. Collins who started the dictionaries, in Glasgow in the 19th century. 20,000 new words, price £30 in the UK and €54,00 or €59,00 (with thumb index) in Germany.

Thanks to Susan Siewert for the information. No news as to a CD-ROM version. As mentioned earlier, Pons, with whom Collins Dictionaries used to collaborate, brought out a Großwörterbuch which it developed itself (I believe on the basis of Collins).

Die Übersetzerwebsite GoTranslators hat mehrere Einzelübersetzer, die keine Agenturen sind, als Agenturen in eine Online-Datenbank gestellt. Ich bekam mehrere Bewerbungen, u.a. von Leuten, die meine Adresse zusammen mit 49 anderen anschrieben, egal, ob mein Fachgebiet und Sprachkombination mit ihren eigenen übereinstimmen.

Ohne mich zu registrieren sehe ich die Liste nicht. Ich registriere mich nicht, da ich schon mehrmals unaufgeforderte Werbung von GoTranslators bekam und nicht mehr bekommen will.

Angeblich ist mein Name aus der Liste jetzt entfernt, d.h. meine zwei Adressen wurden entfernt (nicht ohne nochmalige Bitte wegen der zweiten Adresse), aber andere sind noch auf der Liste. Und vor allem haben anscheinend viele die Liste vor Monaten heruntergeladen und benutzen sie noch.

Die Website von GoTranslators ist nicht sehr aufschlussreich. Aber Robin Stocks hat, laut ProZ, mehr erfahren.

bq. Zu “gotranslators.com” – den Hintergrund hatte Robin Stocks auf der PT-Liste erleuchtet:

bq. Laut SWHOIS-Suche ist der “Administrative Contact” für diese Domain Benoit Lhoest; dessen dort hinterlegte Mail-Adresse führt zu www.translatin.com, und auf dieser Site steht unter den FAQ: “TRANSLATIN is a division of the Belgian Web-Refer Consulting group” – und das ist wiederum auch der Betreiber von “gotranslators.com”…

Belgien ist aber in der EU – fehlt hier nicht ein Impressum?

www.gotranslators.com apparently put a number of freelance translators on a list of agencies some months ago. I think both my addresses have been removed, but I can’t look at the list without registering. I don’t want to register because I have already received unrequested advertising from GoTranslators, often both in private and via mailing lists. GoTranslators never enquired whether I was an agency.

The amazing thing is that some translators download the list of agencies and paste 50 addresses into an email address field. They don’t check the ‘agencies” websites to see if they cover the same fields of specialization or language combinations as the applicant. Sometimes they download the list and only use it many months later. Good grief, the applicant could have told from my website that I am not an agency.

I wonder what GoTranslators is – where it’s located (I find the website very uninformative). One of the emails they sent me said it was the ‘5rd month of our web life’, which suggests they aren’t native speakers of English. But I must have missed a posting on the pt group at Yahoogroups by Robin Stocks, who traced them as the creation of Benoit Lhoest in Belgium. For the information (in German) from Robin, see the German quote above.

I put off posting this for a while, but this week I heard that another translator in Fürth gets almost daily mails from a Japanese translation agency. She asked them to remove her from their mailing list, and they told her they had her email address from GoTranslators.

GoTranslators is one of a number of websites for translators – see earlier entry.

Links für Aldibaran (Liste der Produzenten) und Aldiblog(wird anscheinend nicht weitergeführt).

Aldibaran (German) is a private site about Aldi, the supermarket chain(s) (Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd). It contains the FAQ of the UseNet group de.alt.fan.aldi, including a list of the producers. The list of branches indicates which Aldis you go round clockwise (rechtsdrehend) and which anti-clockwise (linksdrehend).

Aldiblog (German) seems to have given up the ghost.

Aldi’s own site is available in other languages than German.

Trevor of Kaleboel has discovered a beta Spanish/Basque/English blogger who has ten rules on real bilingual blogging that make my hair, if not Trevor’s, stand on end.

Trevor also has a link to a Thomas Sowell political glossary I am very taken with:

|Crisis|Any situation you want to change|
|Bilingual|Unable to speak English|
|Equal opportunity|Preferential treatment |
|Non-judgmental|Blaming society|

I admit bilingual blogging is a problem. I am not consistent with this blog. I have come round to writing mainly English but occasionally with a brief German summary at the beginning. Sometimes there is more German if I think the topic is more interesting to Germans. A bilingual header ought to be followed by a bilingual entry.

In my Fürth blog, I do half English and half German. The two halves are not identical. I hope that anyone who wants to read just German will see where the German is.

Luistxo’s blog, The English Cemetery, proposes a truly bilingual blog where you could click on a link to get it in either English or German. Continue reading →