UK

Cornish pasties (note to Americans: nothing to do with nipple ornaments) are being considered by the EU. There has been an application for Protected Geographical Indication to request that only Cornish pasties made in Cornwall and to the traditional recipe, ingredients and manner are called Cornish pasties. It is not the EU, however, that defines a Cornish pasty, but the Cornish Pasty Association.

The Euromyths site now has a warning that the allegedly correct recipe is not, contrary to stories in the UK national press, dictated by the EU:

Contrary to news reports in the national press, the European Commission does not dictate ingredients or names of ingredients for products seeking EU quality recognition.

Products from the UK looking to get protected status prepare their applications stipulating the criteria, description and recipe of their food products. The EC evaluates the applications once they are revised by Defra. The EC provides the final approval on any particular product.

In the case of Cornish pasties, it was The Cornish Pasty Association who dictated the recipe and ingredients for the genuine Cornish Pasty. The Association has applied for Protected Geographical Indication to request that only Cornish pasties made in Cornwall and to the traditional recipe, ingredients and manner are called Cornish pasties.

A Google search soon reveals what they are talking about. BBC 'Bogus "Cornish" pasties face ban' (this one probably OK), 'EU says Cornish pasties can't contain carrots ...' (oohbrussels.wordpress.com), 'Turnip or swede? Brussels rules on ingredients of Cornish pasty ...'

On August 19, the Daily Telegraph reported on The turnips of Brussels, asking what is the difference between a turnip and a swede. Apparently the Cornish call swedes turnips:

It has proved one of the great culinary conundrums: what is the difference between a turnip and a swede? They are both members of the cabbage family, but the former is a small, white astringent vegetable, while the latter is large, yellowy-orange and sweeter-tasting. They should not be that difficult to tell apart. However, just to confuse matters, the Scots call swedes “neeps”, and the Cornish also insist that they are filling their pasties with turnips, when in fact they are swedes.

Who cares? Well, the European Commission does, because it needs to know the precise ingredients of the pasty in order to give it protected status. For it to be a genuine Cornish pasty, it must contain only one of these vegetables, or the wrath of Brussels will descend on some hapless cook. So listen up, this is very important: the turnip, for the purposes of the pasty, is a swede. Or is it the other way round?

For some sense, see Tabloid Watch.

Now that Christian Wulff has unfortunately had to give up his position as Minister-President of Lower Saxony, his successor has been appointed - David McAllister, son of a Scottish father and a German mother. A touch of the Nick Cleggs there.

Wikipedia English
Wikipedia German

Proud of his Scottish heritage, McAllister proposed to his wife, Dunja, at Loch Ness, and married in August 2003, wearing a kilt.

I suppose he would wear this tartan.

Here's an interview in The Local.

The UK government has just started a website inviting people to let them know what laws they want changed. It's called Your Freedom. Three suggested categories are: restoring civil liberties, repealing unnecessary laws, and cutting business and third sector regulations ('third sector' means charity and not-for-profit organizations). It sounds like a good idea. I can't quite explain why, together with the Nick Clegg video introducing it, it has a bit of a Monty Python ring to it.

I know one can complain to the German government, but not quite so directly, as far as I know. Otherwise I would like to make a complaint or two about yesterday's election, particularly the result.

(UK site tweeted by Konstantin)

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I always wondered why BP on the Southend Arterial Road was preparing to help cars run on hydrogen (or have I got it wrong?) - see the small windmill-like device, of which there are two.

LATER NOTE: I gather these are very small wind generators. Here's a PDF with some more pictures. Proven Energy seems to be the company providing these devices for BP and Shell.

Nick Clegg speaking Dutch, about 1 min. 44 into the clip. OK, his mother is Dutch and he was brought up to speak both Dutch and English (as when he refers to a 'turn-off'). I wouldn't mind hearing him speak another language.

The Evening Standard looked into Clegg's family history in 2007.

Tesco gearing up for the World Cup:





Konstantin found a T-shirt with a 1966 theme and some German Bratwurst crisps.

The Jackson Report on the reform of civil litigation costs in the UK was published in January 2010.

The final report and the two volumes of the preliminary report can be downloaded here.

Interestingly, at the end of the second volume of the preliminary report there are descriptions of the system in other countries, for instance Chapter 55: Germany, pp. 555 to 565.

1.1 The German rules of civil procedure contemplate cost shifting, albeit according to well-defined scales for recovery. The effect may be that a successful litigant is entitled to recover a smaller proportion of its actual fees than would be recoverable in England and Wales.
1.2 The German system permits the use of contingency fees only in limited circumstances, namely where a claimant does not have the means to retain lawyers for his case. Legal aid is available in certain civil cases.
1.3 In Germany, civil litigation is managed by the court so that it controls the proceedings and the evidence that is brought before it. One method by which the court does this is to appoint experts to assist the court on relevant factual issues, rather than leaving it to the parties to adduce their own expert evidence.

Useful footnotes too:

According to German Civil Procedure Code section 3(1), the value of the dispute is to be determined by the court in its “absolute discretion”. I am advised, however, by senior German judges that in practice no discretion is involved when the litigation concerns quantified or readily quantifiable claims.

Interesting reading and good for vocabulary too.

Returning to the UK, the shadow on the horizon is LPO - Legal Process Outsourcing, which will permit some work to be outsourced, for instance to India.

(Via the euleta list at Yahoo Groups).

Here's a bird's-eye view of an 1880 conveyance (click to enlarge):



and here's the backing sheet:



and here a small extract:



I put a pencil at the top right to show the size.

The parchment was pre-printed with the word 'Indenture'. The rest was written in hand by a clerk. You can see how important the large words are to orient the reader. You can tell that 'Whereas' always refers to preliminary information, whereas 'Now this Indenture witnesseth' is the beginning of the operative part, and 'All that' precedes the definition of the land being sold ('All that piece or parcel of land situate in the parish of ..').

Only the really traditional connecting words are written in a different, italic script, but other words are written larger and darker (Two hundred and fifty ounds, Revoke). 'Deed' is capitalized but does not stand out - this is reminiscent of the current capitalization of Claimant, Plaintiff and so on. The red lines on the margin should be completely filled out, to prevent additions. You can see the stamps on the left showing that fees have been paid, and the witnessed signatures below, with a standard red seal on green ribbon.

There are photocopy shops near the Law Courts in London where you can photocopy this size of document, but it isn't easy to read.


Here's part of a 1913 document on the same land, now on foolscap paper:



and here a 1921 one, on which you can see the typical sewing of documents with green cord (notice the little squiggles filling up the ends of lines on the right):



and finally, a close-up of some of the signatures on the last one:

The UK Supreme Court will be making a decision in the case of Rademacher v. Granatino on the question of whether a prenuptial contract is valid under English law.

This has been in the public eye for some time now. If you've missed it, it might be interesting as an example of English law's attitude to marriage contracts. It may or may not make prenuptial agreements more binding in England and Wales.

It's quite common for marriage contracts to be recognized in German law, and also in French law. The parties are of German and French nationality, but because they mainly live in London, their divorce went to the English courts.

In Germany a person who does not want a notional 50-50 sharing of all marital property can enter into a prenuptial contract. But both spouses have to get legal advice. The contract will normally be binding.

In England and Wales, there may be a prenuptial contract, but the court will not feel bound by it. It retains discretion to divide the property fairly. It may follow the prenup if it seems fair.

Radmacher and Granatino agreed that if they divorced they would not make any claims against each other, only for the two children. There was neither independent legal advice (which there would have to be in Germany) nor did Katrin Radmacher disclose the millions she was about to inherit. Granatino also argues sexism in the current state of the proceedings (his award at first instance was greatly reduced by the Court of Appeal) because, he argues, a woman who had given up a well-paid job would have been treated more generously.

Guardian article
More links from John Bolch.

Yes, it's not exactly front-page news, because it happened in the year 2000, when police stopped the then Bishop of Stepney, John Sentamu, now Archbishop of York.



(Picture by Brokethebank from Wikipedia)

The Guardian reported that a police officer stopped and searched Sentamu's car near St. Paul's Cathedral, and he was made to get out and stand in the rain. The officer ordered him to open the boot. At the time, he was wearing a scarf and anorak.

"He asked me what I did, and I said 'I'm the Bishop of Stepney'. He said 'whoops'. I revealed my dog collar and he looked as if he'd just seen a ghost."

Despite repeated requests, the officer would not justify his search to the bishop and had kept saying "off you go".

The bishop said he did not know why he had been stopped, but added that he did not know of any white bishop who had been treated in such a way by the police.

Of course, he did not drive through a red light and had not been drinking, unlike Margot Käßmann (Spiegel Online in English).

I understand that her resignation is a loss to the church and so on, but I am finding the sycophantic TV news reports rather wearing. In fact, they seem to be interviewing people on the streets of Hannover in order possibly to get other opinions, without the newsreaders sullying themselves by saying anything negative. Does anyone know where she was celebrating and who persuaded her to have another glass?

I first encountered 'the wrong sort of snow' in Kate Fox's Watching the English. I'm not sure that she's right that once upon a time a train announcement referred to 'the wrong kind of leaves' on the track being responsible for the train delay. Her context is 'The Moan Exception' - one of the few occasions when British people on a train acknowledge each other's existence:

if the loudspeaker announcement blames snow for the delay, someone will invariably say: 'The wrong sort of snow, I suppose?' I was once waiting for a train at my local station in Oxford when the loudspeaker announced a delay due to 'a cow on the line outside Banbury': three people on the platform simultaneously piped up: 'The wrong sort of cow!'

Wikipedia has a more convincing story of the origin of 'the wrong type of snow':

The wrong type of snow is a phrase coined by the British media in 1991 after severe weather caused disruption to many of British Rail's services. People who did not realise that there are different kinds of snow saw the reference as nonsensical; in the United Kingdom, the phrase became a byword for euphemistic and lame excuses.

There is even a multilingual list on the topic, done by Salford Translations Ltd. into Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Polish.

And there are even German references on the Web:

Die offiziellen Erklärungen für die Verspätungen und Ausfälle sorgen auf der Insel immer wieder für Heiterkeit: Mal sind es „Blätter auf den Schienen“ (im Herbst), mal ist es „die falsche Sorte Schnee“ (im Winter), im Rest des Jahres sind es „Weichenprobleme“ oder „fehlende Lokführer“.

LATER NOTE: kalebeul has taken up the topic in a more erudite fashion, as usual.

Markus at Text & Blog links to a video showing a house in Arnsberg built twelve years ago in the Bauhaus style.

This reminded me that when I was going for a walk in Upminster before Christmas, in the ice and snow, I saw a surprising house in the middle of the garden-suburb-style buildings:



It's in a road called The Fairway, next to the golf course. I have no idea whether it's new or refurbished - probably new. In that case, one of the architects' offices should have pictures. Anyone know? (Not that I think any of my readers are in Upminster).


And here's a Bauhaus bird house.

Essex police moved in mysterious ways when they dealt with the case of Lee Balkwell, who died in an unfortunate accident in a concrete mixer - see Observer article:

The emergency crews called to the concrete firm on a farm in Essex in the early hours of a summer morning met a scene that has stayed with them to this day. Mangled between the drum and chassis of a concrete-mixer lorry was the torso of a man, his legs twisted and resting on a pile of dried cement. One paramedic wrote "?foul play" in his pocketbook. Another said she thought she was looking at a suspicious death, and a third said he was reluctant to touch the body in case he damaged evidence.

One of the early contradictions of the inquiry was when detectives said they had treated the death of Mr Balkwell as suspicious for 35 days. Yet the day after he was found, his clothing was destroyed, without being examined by a forensic scientist, on the orders of a senior officer, and within 48 hours of the death, the police had told the family of the 33-year-old haulage driver that he had been killed in a freak accident while cleaning the drum of the lorry at 1am.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has arranged for an enquiry.

On the beck blog, Professor Dr. Henning Ernst Müller asks whether Germany does not also need such a body. The IPCC was founded in 2004 after human rights organizations had called for it for years; amnesty international first suggested such a body for Germany five years ago.

Nach den monatelangen inzwischen eingestellten Ermittlungen gegen zwei Polizeibeamte im Fall des getöteten Tennessee Eisenberg in Regensburg und seit dem vom BGH aufgehobenen Freispruch im Fall des im Gewahrsam verbrannten Ouri Jallow in Dessau steht das Thema polizeiunabhängiger Ermittlungen bei schwerwiegenden Vorwürfen gegen Polizeibeamte im Raum. So verschieden die Anlässe sind: Eine Behörde wie die IPCC (Independent Police Complaints Commission) im Vereinigten Königreich England und Wales, die Beschwerden gegen die Polizei nachgeht und bei schweren Vorwürfen diese auch selbst untersucht, hätte wohl in beiden angesprochenen Fällen selbständig ermittelt.

Simon Singh has been hampered by English libel law and requests signatures for his petition.

National Petition for Libel Law Reform

This doesn't just affect people in the UK, as England is becoming a libel tourist destination.

Wikipedia on Singh:

In 2008, Singh was sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association for criticising their activities in a column in The Guardian.[1] A backlash to the ongoing lawsuit has resulted in the filing of formal complaints of false advertising against more than 500 individual chiropractors within one 24 hour period, one national chiropractic organization ordering its members to take down their websites,[2] and Nature Medicine noting that the case has gathered wide support for Singh, as well as prompting calls for the reform of English libel laws.[3]

Ernst and Singh's Trick or Treatment is a guide to research on alternative treatments - a good read - I keep it at hand. Here is a list of the translations into other languages.

Fine Cell Work sells needlework by prisoners.