A German book about the British and their relationship to Europe has appeared recently (only in German). It is called Großbritannien – Insel zwischen den Welten, and is by a journalist on the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Christian Schubert.

The Guardian has a report on the book by Luke Harding:

bq. Schubert describes a day in the life of the typical British family – Mr and Mrs Jones – for his German readers. The Joneses get their children ready for school and Mr Jones then goes to work on the train. Mrs Jones collects the kids at 3pm (much later than in Germany); in the evening she shoves a ready-made meal from Marks & Spencer in the microwave (Britons eat more ready-made meals than any other European nation, except for Sweden). The following morning, Mr Jones has a shower. He doesn’t have a proper, powerful shower like you get in Germany, though, but stands under a miserable trickle of water.

bq. Our failure to guarantee vigorous water pressure, Schubert laments, is a result of a more general British failing: we don’t invest in our own infrastructure.

Steve Taylor is a London campaigner for prison reform, and he has a large number of photos of prisons on his site, showing the architecture.

These photos were taken to illustrate two books: one is English Prisons: an Architectural History (£40, ISBN: 1873592531), and the other is Behind Bars : The Hidden Architecture of England’s Prisons (£10, ISBN: 1873592396)

I’ve given the ISBNs because particularly the second one was hard to trace – the title Behind Bars has been used inter alia for books on mixing drinks, barcodes, running a pub, and zoos.

Handakte WebLAWg recently published a link in St. Gallen with further links to commercial registers all over the world except in Switzerland, and the zefix site with links for inside Switzerland. (Zefix stands for Zentraler Firmenindex).

I took this from a tram, so it isn’t very sharp.

Here’s a translation I saw recently:

Weitere Ansprüche bestehen – unbeschadet Ziffer 4 – nicht.

Notwithstanding Section 4, no further claims shall be allowed.

(§ 4 permits some claims)

I probably would have written:

Subject to number 4 below, there shall be no other claims.

I always write ‘below’ or ‘above’ when citing from the same document – it’s normal English-language legal practice. I am not sure about ‘section’ for a contract, but suppose it’s OK. I think ‘allowed’ is a bit free for ‘bestehen’.

Unbeschadet is given in Dietl as follows:

without prejudice to; notwithstanding

Note the semi-colon: these really are two different meanings. To me, notwithstanding would mean ‘No matter what rubbish number 4 says, just ignore it: there are no other claims’, whereas subject to means ‘There are no other claims, but this statement doesn’t affect number 4: the claims in number 4 do exist’.

Romain has: notwithstanding, irrespective of, without affecting, without prejudice to, not in derogation of, saving

von Beseler/Jacobs-Wüstefeld has: without prejudice/detriment to; without affecting; [einer Forderung, etc.] apart from; irrespective of; regardless of; notwithstanding, [Lat] non obstante; saving; [einer Bestimmung] subject to

Lister/Veth has: without prejudice to; regardless of; notwithstanding

This came up in ProZ once. I think the asker was right to choose ‘without prejudice to any claim for damages’.

Or am I splitting hairs?

The new Small Business Act (Gesetz zur Förderung von Kleinunternehmen, Kleinunternehmerförderungsgesetz, KFG): here, the Federal Finance Ministry lays down the form for the statement on excess of receipts over expenses that has to be submitted by professionals /freelances and small businesses that do not have to submit a balance sheet. (That was a mouthful!) There are PDF files containing the form.

Gesetz zur Förderung von Kleinunternehmen: das Bundesfinanzministerium hat genaue Richtlinien für die Form der Einnahme-Überschuss-Rechnung festgelegt für Freiberufler und nicht bilanzierungspflichtige Kleinunternehmen. PDF-Dateien enthalten das Formular.

From Handakte WebLAWg via AdvobLAWg.