When I publish an entry, two or three websites are automatically ‘pinged’. I just added two short entries, saving time by doing them in one session, and I knew the ping would not work. But I was surprised to get the following snotty message (presumably cut off at ‘life’):

bq. Ping ‘http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2’ failed: Ping error: Thanks for the ping, however we can only accept one ping every half-hour. It’s cool that you’re updating so often, however, if I may be so bold as to offer some advice — take a break, you’ll enjoy li

Well, weblogs.com, it’s cool that you have time to tell me how to organize my life.

Robin Stocks on Carob has a long and interesting entry on the rumour that it was a translator’s error, hinging on the difference between German Tier and English animal, that led to a patent being granting for cloning humans.

It wasn’t. Carob links to the patent and sets out the history. The patent application will have been in English in any case, and it contained an explicit reference to human cells. It is excellent to have the whole thing researched and set out here. The entry concludes:

bq. In July 2002, the EPO limited the Edinburgh patent. It now no longer includes human or animal embryonic stem cells, but still covers modified human and animal stem cells other than embryonic stem cells.

Bayern Info, a periodical for members of the Bavarian section of the BDÜ, supplies information from issue 12/2003 of AWI (Außenwirtschaftsinformationen der Industrie- und Handelskammer für München und Oberbayern). This is apparently not online, but can be obtained by email.

The AWI points out that on some websites of German embassies, there are lists of lawyers and legal information sheets. At the German Embassy in the UK, for example, there is a list of German law firms of Rechtsanwälte in London and ‘Britische Anwaltskanzleien in London, mit denen in deutscher Sprache korrespondiert werden kann /
English firms of solicitors in London with which correspondence can be
conducted in German’. There is also a memorandum (in German) on obtaining legal advice and taking legal action in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

The Bonner Übersetzer- und Dolmetscherforum (Bonn translators and interpreters forum), in its weblog, links to an article that appeared in the General-Anzeiger Bonn on Friday, January 2nd (article is in German).

A journalist, Katharina Heimeier, came to the monthly meeting of the group (every first Wednesday in the month at 7 p.m. in the Chinese restaurant Man-Wah).

The emphasis in the article is on the need for preparation and knowledge by translators and interpreters.

I wonder how many people will turn up to the next meeting next Wednesday?

The Bonn forum is an interesting arrangement. It is not a society but an informal network of about seventy translators and interpreters with all languages and in all forms of employment. They have a website with a search function for those looking for translators or interpreters. I presume they simply share the costs of this. In the BDÜ, you have to pay 50 euros a year extra simply to have a link to your website, and the website will not be linked if the organization objects to the name of the URL. On the other hand, the BDÜ is a bigger organization and on the national level.

I sometimes wonder how PC the German New-Year selection is (and the coolie hats look more like cowpats):

(Breite Straße, Nuremberg)

(Following a reminder from Handakte WebLAWg): This is for those outside Germany who haven’t heard about ‘Dinner for One’.

Every year, on December 31st, millions of Germans, on several TV stations, watch a sketch called ‘Dinner for One’ by Freddie Frinton, who was a fairly well-known English comedian in the 1950s and 1960s and probably earlier. (May Walden is the stooge). The sketch is virtually unknown in Britain. There is a page of information with videos on the NDR site (a German TV station). The whole text in English can be found here. Here’s a Guardian article dated December, 2002.

bq. Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), the Hamburg-based channel which first recorded and broadcast Dinner for One in 1963, will show it no less than five times during the course of the evening in various versions – in the Plattdeutsch dialect of northern German, the original black-and-white and a computer-generated colour version produced two years ago in Hollywood.

The article reports that Frinton actually had to pay for the rights to the sketch, which dates from the 1920s and whose authorship is unknown. The sketch has also been sold to other countries on the Continent, but it hasn’t been sold in the UK. I do think it’s odd to select one sketch as special. Apparently the German TV station ZDF sent someone to Blackpool in the early 1960s, and after two weeks spent watching stand-up comics, this sketch was selected as the cream of the cream. A few years later, Frinton went to Germany (not his favourite country, if I remember right) to record it in the studios.

LATER NOTE: Here’s adirect link to one of the three video versions on the NDR site (this is the full-length sketch).