The Legal Duck

Exciting Things

2007-12-02T22:04:00.000Z

The evil that is Legal Research has been laid to rest, for now. Its monstrous hunger sated, it returns to the submarine chasm where it has dwelt in darkness since the world was made. There it shall lie, its thoughts turning to the humanity which was taken from it so long ago, awakening in its place a hunger which can never be truly satisfied. It waits, fearing and despising those creatures who walk above in the sunlight, biding its time until the day comes for it to rise from the depths and feast again on the souls of the helpless.

Which means that on Friday it was time to celebrate by going back to wander the halls of Selwyn as a ghost from distant times, who remembers his life and yearns for it to come again, yet enjoys the sensations as his fondly-remembered home comes, for but one night, to life again.

This is great stuff. I never realised that I was so poetic.

But yes, the Snowball. 'Twas good. The decision to build a paper temple around the Hall steps was inspired. Slightly demented, but suitably awesome. And apart from the bizarre wall of sound which was emanating from the Hall and causing my spleen to vibrate alarmingly, all was well.

Thanks go to Jack for the use of his extremely comfortable airbed (from which I fell only once) and to him, Clare and Gordon for putting up with me for an entire evening. No thanks at all go to the bastards at the Met Office, who saw fit to send us torrential rain and howling gales while we were queuing outside. Don't think you've heard the last of it, Fish.

An Ode to Legal Research

2007-11-25T14:47:00.000Z

The idea of writing here has always been simple - it is based on the hallowed principle of work-avoidance. For months I haven't really had call for it, and this blog has thus remained fallow and infertile. Now, however, I have the mother and father of all work which needs avoiding, and so the Duck rises, quietly quacking to itself, from the ashes.

Allow me to describe in brief the joy of Legal Research. Note the capital letters - I'm not talking generally about research of a legal nature. That's useful, and necessary. Probably. Although frankly, we've had a person talking at us for an hour about just how useful and necessary it is, which always makes me wonder.

Instead, I speak of the module that the Bar Council apparently decrees that we must undertake in our BVC, entitled Legal Research. This essentially involves taking a legal problem, and then copying and pasting half of the Internet into Microsoft Word. It is then necessary to highlight sentences at complete random, and then to enclose a few miscellaneous comments in little boxes.

The end result, when printed, is the size of a small moon, and contributes to 17% of total global deforestation. Suffice it to say that Al Gore has the BVC providers listed as the first people to be forcibly buried when he rules the world.

End of exams, soon, so soon....

2007-06-07T17:22:00.001+01:00

I have just narrowly survived 5 hours of exam-related badness. Joyously, I now have only one exam left, although unfortunately it is in about 3 years' time. To mark the occasion, I think I'm entitled to vent my spleen on here. And now you have to read it. Sorry.

So. The Olympic logo, eh?

A real coup, this one. Not only is it the closest thing to a swastika since someone decided to build that strange symbol into Selwyn's arch, but it also seems to be the first logo ever which actually kills people just by being looked at. Even the Nazis didn't manage that one.

It's also been sending people into other varieties of fit, as well as the twitching type. Fits of RAGE.

Personally, I couldn't have been less surprised. Alarm bells always start to ring when people use words like "relevant" and "inclusive". They act as a kind of cipher for a specific chain of thought which is always gone through whenever anyone wants to appeal to what they imagine is the youth of today (I'm just thankful they didn't put a baseball cap on top of it).

(1) We want to appeal to Young People.
(2) To do this we must be hip and/or cool.
(3) Therefore our logo must be psychadelic, spiky, and 'edgy'.
(4) And look, it even flashes. This appeals to the Digital Generation - all those people wandering around with their iCassetteRecorders, or something. Word up.

The obvious flaw in the logic is that there is no magic formula for making Young People interested in things. It's not like smearing jam onto someone's face and waiting for the wasps to come. Young People are, generally, sentient beings (obviously, there are some exceptions - but unless Skateboarding, Injecting Heroin, and Mugging People become Olympic events, they're probably not going to be interested whatever happens) and so can see straight through the marketing.

The best advice I can give to the Olympic organisers (and I know you're reading this, Coe) is that if you want to make it attractive to Young People, just MAKE IT GOOD. It's that simple.

Technology will kill us all

2007-03-10T22:28:00.000Z

Two items on the news today worried me. Neither on their own would be much to blog home about, but together, I think they spell doom for the human race. That's doom with a capital DOO.

One article was babbling on about how, fairly soon, there's going to be a robot in every house. The other was excitedly screeching about the new series of communication satellites to be launched by the army:

The British military is set to take one of its most significant steps into the digital age with the launch of the first Skynet 5 satellite.

"What's wrong with this?", you might ask, as if you cared.

Well, the problem is that all of this is starting to bear a scary similarity to a certain series of films. We have robots, and now we have a revolutionary new military thingy which is designed to unify all military communications, or something. Does this not ring a bell among our military commanders? They've even given it the same bloody name. Does "Skynet" sound familiar?

I speak, of course, of the Terminator series, in which Skynet wages war on mankind (which is forgiveable) and builds Arnold Schwarzenegger (which isn't).

We haven't got to the stage of having humaniform robots yet, so presumably when Skynet decides to launch its attack we will be treated to the prospect of our robotic vacuum cleaners suddenly attempting to suck our feet off, and our microwaves opening their doors and blasting us with molten baked beans.

Doomed, I tells ye.

The fascists are coming!

2007-02-13T00:03:00.000Z

...Or are they already here?

Deep thoughts. Cheap rhetorical questions. It's all good.

Alas, it's time for a broadly law-based rant. But, for once, it's important.

The Government plan on inventing a new order, called a VOO. The name sounds cute and harmless. But the order itself is, I would suggest, the most serious threat to our civil liberties that the Home Office has ever come up with. You have to admire John Reid - he's making his predecessors, Charles Clarke and David Blunkett, look like Ghandi.

"But surely you exaggerate!", I hear you cry. Surprisingly, and unusually, I do not. Here's an extract from the Home Office paper describing what these orders are all about:

"It would mean that, where an individual was known to be dangerous but had not committed a specific qualifying offence, restrictions could still be placed on their behaviour."

You could be a subject of a VOO if you have never committed a criminal offence. All it takes is for the police to decide that you're a troublemaker, and that's it - they can impose all sorts of restrictions such as banning you from a certain place, banning you from associating with certain people, forcing you to live in a hostel, and so on. Even though you have done absolutely nothing wrong.

And what kind of factors does the Home Office envisage might lead to a VOO being made?

"A person’s formative years and upbringing, cognitive deficiencies, a history of substance abuse, a person’s domestic situation or relationship with their partner or family, or possession of paraphernalia related to violent offending (eg, balaclava, baseball bat), or extremist material."

Marvellous. Applying these factors, this means that you could be labelled a potential violent offender, and therefore have your life controlled by the whims of the police, if:

You grew up on a council estate;
You enjoy playing rounders;
You smoked drugs at some time in your life (David Cameron's in for it);
You are divorced;
You go skiing in winter;
You are dyslexic.

Conceptually, this really isn't very far from genetically profiling people at birth, identifying who is, statistically, most likely to offend, and then locking them up before they can grow up into violent criminals. Both approaches involve punishing someone not for something they have done, but for something that they might do in the future.

The Daily Mail is going to love it.

Rewards for doing... what?

2007-02-10T12:29:00.000Z

Trawling through BBC News in search of something to do which wasn't related to equitable tracing rules (don't ask), I came across this news story. Turns out that a cabbie in New York, when he discovered that loads of diamond rings had been left in the back of his car, returned them to their owner.

Good man. A sensible reward would be, one would think, a handshake and a fair bit of gratitude. But instead, he's suddenly found himself with:

A huge collection of media interviews, from broadcasters both in the US and worldwide, all eager to interview what they describe as "the honest cabbie";
An Achievement Award from the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission;
A citation from the City Council of New York City;
And potentially a reward from the New York City Mayor.

Even apart from the implied, and fairly offensive, suggestion that all taxi drivers are thieves, something just seems a bit odd about all this. Call me a Scrooge if you will (but nothing worse - this is a family blog), but in everyday life, people generally don't get rewarded for not committing crimes.

If I were in a jewellery shop, for example, and the assistant turned his back for a moment, I wouldn't expect a 76-trombone parade to be waiting outside for me as congratulations for not having stolen anything. George Bush does not, we presume, have a man whose job it is to congratulate him at the end of every afternoon for having the self-restraint not to have pushed the Big Red Button that day. (Actually, he probably does - but then when the Leader of the Free World (tm) has the mental age of a foetus, that's a price we're willing to pay to avoid nuclear armageddon.) Bank clerks rarely end the transaction by thanking you for not robbing them. And so on.

I'm now awaiting the next development - every employer being required to hand out regular small bonuses for all of their employees who haven't stabbed anyone that week. Remember - you read it here first.

Hooray for politics

2006-11-17T23:26:00.000Z

Those politicians, eh? Nobody could ever claim they're not good value for money - they might be absolutely balls at running the country but what would we do for entertainment without them? £60 grand a year has to be a bargain - it'd probably cost that to hire Peter Kay for a single evening.

My mirth on this occasion is directed towards Tony Blair's latest stroke of metaphorical genius. In an outburst that was faintly reminscent of Kevin Keegan at his peak, he called David Cameron a "lightweight" (not, one presumes, in the alcoholic sense - we all know what Tory parties are like), and said that he would have to face Gordon Brown, a "Labour heavyweight".

"However much he dances around the ring beforehand he will come in reach of a big clunking fist and, you know what, he'll be out on his feet, carried out of the ring."

All of which got me thinking. What would happen if they did indeed engage in the noble art of fisticuffs? There are certain factors to take into account (without meaning to sound like a family law statute):

Gordon is Scottish, Dave isn't. Now, my national pride would never allow me to accept that Scottish people are harder than the English, but they do tend to keep in practice, getting drunk and merrily having fights with everyone in a 5-mile radius.
Gordon went to a comprehensive in Fife and then to Edinburgh University, while Dave went to Eton and then to Oxford. While his background may have made Dave adept at the art of towel-flicking, Gordon is likely to have learnt the ancient art of the Glasgow kiss (look it up). It's not looking good for Dave.
But fate, disapproving of uneven contests, stepped in when Gordon was a student, blinding him in his left eye. His resultant lack of depth perception could prove a handicap.

All of which actually suggests that Blair's metaphor was rather apt. Gordon will be standing in the corner, unable to judge where the hell Dave is and so resorting to swinging his fists at random; Dave will be prancing round him with a rolled-up towel, and it's anyone's guess what could happen.

Is it too late to suggest the contest for Children in Need tonight?

Family law - why?

2006-11-15T23:06:00.000Z

Just why?

Why do we have this mind-numbing series of statutory provisions, listing 37 thousand factors that a court must take into account before it can decide whether or not to blow its nose? Admittedly, it's not just family law that shows this trend, but that's the subject that I'm trying to avoid doing by writing this, so it shall bear the brunt of my wrath.

Everyone who's ever studied law knows that everything turns out much more interesting when Parliament buggers off and leaves the courts to get on with things. MPs, by definition, are dull people. If they were interesting, they'd be barristers.

If a court comes up against a thorny problem that it can't resolve according to the existing law, its usual response is to invent some fiendishly clever mechanism of avoiding the rule and getting the result they want. It might be completely insane or have more holes than the Pope, but it's a bloody sight more interesting than another five thousand page statute setting out in minute detail what should happen in every circumstance that could possible occur, in this universe or any other, ever.

So, in summary. Courts good, politicians bad. And don't do family law.

Enforcing Animal Welfare - Nature's Revenge

2006-11-09T21:22:00.000Z

Breathe a sigh of relief - I'm not going on endlessly about hunting again. Instead, I am responding to an article I saw on the BBC News website, entitled "Blazing mouse sets fire to house." Awed by the genius of the rhyme, I investigated further, wondering if some mouse, inspired presumably by the lyrics of a Blazing Squad musical event, had managed to get its paws on a pack of matches and a can of petrol and was gleefully setting fire to every house it could find in a spree of rodent arson.

But no! In fact, I discovered that it wasn't the mouse's fault at all. Some bastard American had found this poor creature in his home, and wanted to be rid of it. Fair enough - I wouldn't want to share my home with a mouse either. Any normal person would put down some kind of humane trap and then release it into the wild. Job done.

But, being stupid, he didn't do that. Instead, he decided the best course of action would be to BURN the mouse by lobbing it onto a bonfire in his garden. Understandably, the mouse took a dim view of this, and so, while burning, ran back into the house and proceeded to spread the flames so that the house burnt down.

Serves you right, Luciano Mares. If that is your real name.

The moral of the story is that, although the American people have finally worked out how to satisfactorily operate a voting machine (see the result of the mid-term elections), they are still irretrievably dim. The world goes on turning.

The Hunting Season is underway!!

2006-11-04T13:14:00.000Z

Apparently.

Cue lots of people riding around the countryside in ridiculous clothes, speaking in tongues (they have an entire language of their own) and shooting anything that moves. It turns out that, under the new law, they are entitled to flush a fox out from its earth with dogs, as long as they then shoot it (in the face, presumably) instead of letting them tear it limb from limb. So that's alright then.

I never used to care much about hunting. If people get a thrill out of pretending to be 19th century cavalry soldiers, riding around like tits while carrying a rifle, so be it, said I. But now I have a fierce loathing of fox hunting. What's changed?

Well, the truth is, I've been watching a few episodes of The Animals of Farthing Wood on YouTube. The exciting adventures of a miscellaneous group of animals each named after their species has led me inexorably to the conclusion that foxes, in particular, are legendary, and dogs and people are evil. Any one of those foxes that they are flushing out could be Fox, Vixen, or even any of their children, whom I will not name here lest anyone start to doubt my strategic use of the word "few" above.

It's a tragedy.

The Blog Returns! (Again)

2006-11-02T19:53:00.000Z

Yes, it's true - once again I have been too lazy to post a blog for months, so then feel a need to make a big hoohah about getting my backside in gear and writing one. I've already had more comebacks than Mike Tyson, and more false endings than The Return of the King. Long may it continue.

Not only that, but it is now on Facebook for the first time. Wonders never cease.

I was watching Prime Minister's Questions yesterday (doesn't everyone) when I saw the moment that everyone's been talking about. The Speaker made an arbitrary ruling, the dough-faced public school tosspot challenged him, and all Hell broke loose. What particularly struck me, though, was the sheer uselessness of Michael Martin in the role of Speaker. He spent about five minutes trying to actually get out the word "Order" and then ineffectually brayed it repeatedly while the MPs all hurled insults at each other. It occurred to me - isn't it time for a new Speaker? And then I realised that I knew the ideal candidate.

Samuel L Jackson.

If Samuel L Jackson stood up to speak, you can bet your life that there'd be no interrupting - everyone would be cowering in their chairs, whimpering gently. If he needed to demand silence, instead of the traditional "Order" he could simply draw a pistol from his jacket and fire it into the ceiling, or, failing that, wade out into the morass of politicians and start stomping them one at a time. Instead of referring to people as "The Honourable Gentleman", he could use the more succinct "Bitch".

"I've told you before, Cameron. Now sit yo' punk ass down and shut your mouth before I come down there and rearrange your motherfucking face!"

Five and the Mysterious Comments

2006-08-17T11:25:00.000+01:00

While carrying out some tidying up of this site, I suddenly noticed that on almost every post, there were 3 or 4 comments. This bewildered me, for it is one of my standing moans that nobody ever bothers commenting, and I was sure that these had all sprung up overnight.

When I read them, the plot thickened. For a start, they were all anonymous. Secondly, they said the most ludicrously complimentary things.

"Super color scheme, I like it! Good job. Go on."

My site is black and grey, the two least interesting colours in the universe. Stylish, perhaps. Super? Probably not.

"Hallo I absolutely adore your site. You have beautiful graphics I have ever seen."

I have a picture of a plastic duck wearing a judge's wig. It took me five minutes in Fireworks to glue together two images that I stole from the Interweb, without even bothering to fix the fact that the wig faces forwards while the duck faces the left. This is the sum total of my "beautiful graphics".

After reading a few of these, I soon noticed a pattern - on each post, there were a few random complimentary comments, followed by a comment linking to an online poker site. Ahah! There was no insane stalker issuing nonsensical compliments as a prelude to visiting my house in the early hours. Instead, there was an automated comments-hijacking system of fiendish simplicity.

I have now set up one of those irritating word-verification things to stop it happening again. This won't affect anyone human because, and I think I've mentioned this, nobody ever writes a comment anyway. What have I done with the ones already there? I've deleted the ones with the link, and left the complimentary ones intact to allow myself to pretend that they were written by real people.

Needless to say, I had the last laugh.

Sailing - It's a Mini Adventure

2006-08-16T12:22:00.000+01:00

As promised, here is the story of my sailing adventures. You might think it slightly late, but then, I only said it would be "tomorrow", and as the wize old druid guy in Asterix used to say, "tomorrow never comes." So there.

There wasn't much wind to begin with, so we started off by learning all kinds of crazy knots - I can now bend a rope in a number of bizarre ways to do such exotic things as stopping it slipping through a hole or tying a boat to a post.

Next up was capsize drill. We were all taken out onto the lake in a larger boat and then all took turns in being capsized out of a smaller one, and then trying to get it upright again. The temperature of the water was, as I have written in a groundbreaking article in science journals, actually below absolute zero. Nevertheless, we cheerfully pulled on ropes and things until the boat was once again the right way up. Huzzah.

The wind then picked up, so we went for our first sailing trip, with our every move being carefully co-ordinated by an instructor. For any nautically-minded people, this was in a Wayfarer boat, which is nice and stable and roomy. Lovely.

The next day we were thrown to the lions. (Metaphorically, obviously. Lions don't swim.) We were all sent out in pairs sans instructor. I was in a Topaz, which is a small, fairly fast boat that put me in mind of a plastic bathtub, with a 14-year-old small child. Thus, responsibility was on me to make sure that we didn't cause the deaths of everyone on the lake, including, most importantly, me.

We were clipping along nicely when one of the random guys who'd helped us with the capsize drill pulled up alongside in his Laser and asked me if I wanted a go. Not wishing to appear impolite, I agreed, and so we switched boats. I soon found out, to my chagrin, that the Laser was, being a racing boat, the least stable craft ever devised. The merest breath would make it tip alarmingly, and I imagine that if a squirrel in the woods bordering the lake had farted, all would have been lost. If the Topaz was a bathtub, the Laser was a teatray.

I managed to keep it upright for about 15 minutes, but finally the inevitable happened. I capsized. I managed to right the boat, and then 2 minutes later, capsized again. At this point the boat's owner, realising his mistake, relieved me of command and I returned to the Topaz, which we carried on sailing for the rest of the morning. The afternoon was spent sailing a Seafly, which was similar to the Wayfarer, and thus joyously did not capsize at all.

That's a long blog. But overall it was great, and I can highly recommend it as a place to learn!

Glenridding Sailing Centre

Miscellaneous Adventures

2006-08-11T19:39:00.000+01:00

I had originally decided that I wouldn't blog during the holidays. After all, I thought, the whole idea of this crazy endeavour was to be a work-avoidance technique, and I currently have no work to avoid! I realise that my failure to tell anyone that this was my plan has almost certainly caused great inconvenience to my many readers. I can imagine people across the land hunched over their computers and desperately hammering the Refresh button in their browsers, waiting for the next installment.

I apologise for so irresponsibly leaving a wailing chasm / howling void (couldn't decide which phrase I liked more) in everyone's lives. But never mind, you'll get over it. C'est la vie, as they say in Spain.

The reason that I changed my mind about the whole "blogging during the holidays" thing was that I heard word of new blogs begun by two friends of mine, Jack and Cecily. (Rotate your eyes a few degrees to the right for links.) Inspired by their noble example (or should that be consumed with jealous rage?) I have decided to regale you with exciting tales of my recent visit to the Lake District, during which I learnt to sail several small boats and enjoyed several Cumbrian sausages.

Yet I realise now that this post is becoming rather inordinately long. Thus, delighted with the irony of explaining that I had decided not to post whereas now have changed my mind and am intending to post, and then not actually posting about anything at all, I shall end. Updates on sailing exploits tomorrow(ish).

Thank you to Jack for kindly linking to here, thus probably trebling my readership at a stroke.

Politicians Being Silly

2006-06-13T15:19:00.000+01:00

Exams are finished!!

Yes, after months of torment, finally I need no longer feel guilty that I am spending time doing something that is entirely unrelated to law. What, I wondered, would be the best way of celebrating this event? And then it hit me. I shall write an article that is, ironically enough, obliquely related to law!! What an excellent idea.

This was largely prompted by John Reid following in the hallowed footsteps of the Blunkett and Clarke eras by, quite frankly, being a moron. Specifically, jumping on the bandwagon to criticise a judge for giving what he believes is too lenient a sentence.

The point is not the correctness or otherwise of the sentence. The point is that it's nothing to do with the Home Secretary. It is not the place of politicians to stick their noses into judicial decisions. They have no idea about the judicial process and they don't have a clue how the legal system works in reality. The whole point of having an independent judiciary is that they judge each case on its merits rather than taking any notice of public opinion. Politicians do nothing but take notice of public opinion, which is why they should stick to their proper constitutional role and stay out of the judicial process.

To my absolute lack of surprise, everyone's favourite idiot-sheet, The Sun, has come out in favour of Mr Reid. They are campaigning for judges who make "loony" sentencing decisions to be sacked. Possibly someone should explain to them that judges are unsackable precisely because they must be able to carry out their functions without worrying about pleasing the politicians.

If The Sun had its way, our legal system would disintegrate into trial by tabloid. Judges would be at the mercy of journalists who don't know a sentencing tariff from their backside. What fun.

"Exam replaced after papers leaked"

2006-06-06T17:09:00.000+01:00

...was the headline that struck me when I last looked at the BBC News website.

How, I thought, was it possible for exam papers to leak? And even more significantly, what exactly were they leaking? Was it simply water, or something more sinister? Was there an oily trail of knowledge oozing out of them, soon to be lost beyond all recall? Or was it blood, or some ghostly form of ectoplasm? Scenes from Poltergeist and Ghostbusters flashed through my mind.

Woe to ye who fail to use the passive tense correctly when writing headlines. And woe to pedants - I hate people who pick holes in everything.

Hitting Balls with Hammers

2006-06-04T23:50:00.000+01:00

Croquet is, apparently, less painful than its conceptual description seems to suggest. It's a sport that I've always considered to be simply a gentle pastime for the elderly, when they become too decrepid to withstand crunching sliding tackles. Bless them.

But apparently I was mistaken. According to the BBC News website, and seemingly every newspaper in the country, it's actually an amazingly vicious game. Curious as to the basis of this claim, I read further. Was there, I wondered, a dimension to this game that I had entirely missed? In between each round, did the competitors lay down their hammers and undertake a fist-fight? Or, more promisingly, did they keep hold of their hammers and have a highly entertaining hammerfight? Was the aim of the game, in fact, to bludgeon one's opponent to death, and all the hitting of balls merely an elaborate form of foreplay?

Sadly, I could find no such feature to the game. I say sadly, because there is seldom any game that could not be improved by the addition of violence. But nay, the sole justification I found for the claims of brutality was:

"At the same time you would try and position your balls in a certain place, you can hit your opponent's ball off the lawn."

So in other words, at the same time as trying to win, you try to make your opponent lose. I must confess to being slightly dubious as to the uniqueness of this aspect of the game.

The reason why the newspapers have been so excited about croquet is, of course, that John Prescott was pictured playing it. This, bizarrely enough, actually took up the entirity of the front page of that well known oasis of intelligent comment, The Sun. The accompanying article seemed to suggest that his previous misdemeanours of groping every female within reach, presiding over the most demoralised and unhappy department in government (an impressive achievement, considering the continued existence of the Home Office), punching people, and having an affair with a civil servant, were trivial in comparison, and that he should be sacked immediately.

The most worrying thing about the whole incident is it meant that, for the first time in history, I actually found myself defending John Prescott. When that happens, you know that something is very, very wrong with the world.

Galloway Watch - Episode 1

2006-05-27T12:45:00.000+01:00

To avoid the horrendous prospect of yet more depressing musings on revision and exams, I have decided to begin an occasional column chronicling the life and times of the Rt. Hon. Mr George Galloway, MP. In other words, every time that Our George says or does something stupid (and I have a funny feeling that this might not be the rarest of occurrences), I shall report it in gleeful detail.

His recent gem occurred when he was asked whether a suicide bomber would be justified in blowing up Tony Blair. I don't know whether such a bizarre question was a genius attempt to catch Galloway out, or just plain idiocy. (But given that it was asked by Piers Morgan, I'm going to assume the latter.) George responded:

"Yes, it would be morally justified."

Oh dear. Even George realised he'd gone too far this time, hastily backpedalling in the press, claiming that what he meant was that he could see, in a calm, objective, disapproving way, how a suicide bomber could construct a moral argument. Now that clearly isn't even close to what he said, but it's what he says he said, so that must be okay.

What's really disappointing is that in starting this new hobby now, I've missed the opportunity to comment on Galloway's disgraceful election behaviour, his antics on Big Brother, and the hilarity of his arrest in Egypt. But I'm sure that more will follow soon...

Revision

2006-05-26T10:27:00.000+01:00

...is the Destroyer of Souls.

Happily, though, the largest part of it is over. My exams begin soon - on the 31st May - and end on the 13th June. Two weeks of sheer terror, followed by blissful nothingness. Nothingness in the relaxation sense, not in the death sense. Hopefully.

In our desperation, we have had to find various ways of allieviating the tedium. Yesterday was the turn of the Paper Aeroplanes Flying Championship of the World. It was a beautiful sight, five planes of different designs all gracefully flying through the air in formation(ish) before nose-diving into the ground. Brought a sentimental tear to my eye.

And now I must return to the pit whence I came. The library awaits, eager to draw me into its cavernous maw, there to devour me, slowly, for the rest of time. Or until June 13th, whichever is sooner.

Ducks and Cold Water

2006-05-10T12:53:00.000+01:00

But, bizarrely, not together.

I always thought that ducks tended to stay by such bodies of water as rivers and lakes. After all, (and I'm moving into entirely guesswork territory here) they mostly survive on little water-based swimming things, and bread thrown by small children and tourists.

All of this would no doubt be news to the ducks in Cambridge. Not for them the quiet, placid life of swimming along a river. These ducks want some action. They want to paint the town red and hang around on street corners. Which is why, every time it rains, they all start wandering through the town centre. My college is about ten minutes (at human speed) away from the river, yet a couple of days ago there were a couple of ducks apparently trying to get into the library where I was working. They can't have meant any harm, for they were not wearing hoodies (the Gospel According to Bluewater, Chap 3, Verse 17), but were a strange sight nonetheless.

In Other News:

In what perhaps can best be described as a fit of genius, the nice college maintenance people have been round to turn off our hot water. They're supposed to be turning off the heating for the summer, but clearly don't have a clue what they're doing. Showering this morning was a disconcertingly bracing experience.

Pointless Creatures

2006-05-05T13:54:00.000+01:00

Is there any point in the existence of wasps?

They seem to exist purely so that they can fly in through open windows, sting everything in sight, and then knock themselves senseless trying to get out again. Hardly the most glorious of ecological niches.

Bees are different - bees have a purpose. They pollinate things, and, as I am given to understand, procreate with birds. Plus they don't maliciously sting people just for amusement, because they end up leaving half of their internal organs embedded in your skin, which apparently hurts them more than it hurts you.

When the sun goes down and all the wasps fly back, contented in their evil deeds of the day, to whatever diabolic pit they came from, a new pointless creature emerges. Those tiny, tiny little flying things that are attracted to electric lights.

Evolution has clearly gone completely tits-up here - what kind of nocturnal creature is attracted to light? I have no idea what these things eat, but I'm willing to bet that its prey doesn't look like a flourescent light. You would have thought that natural selection would have operated to make extinct a creature that spends all its time flying into electric lights, but it doesn't seem to have happened yet. Darwin, shmarwin.

Scolari - A Right Balls-Up (An Angry Rant)

2006-04-29T13:05:00.000+01:00

Unless you have spent the past week cowering under a damp stone (in which case, I salute you - it's got to be more fun than revision) then you will have heard of the fiasco surrounding the FA's attempts at hiring a new England manager.

When things go drastically wrong, people often say things like, "There's no point throwing blame around" or, "Nobody was at fault - it just wasn't meant to be." I disagree. I think it's a great idea to throw blame around, and that is exactly what I propose to do. Better yet, I'm going to structure it, with subheadings and everything, so that I can convince myself that it's valuable exam practice. Prepare yourself.

The FA

The main mistake that the FA made was to appoint a committee to do what should have been done by a single person. In the past, the Chief Executive has been sent toddling off to go and hunt down a manager and bring him back to Soho Square, by force if necessary. If this had happened, we would almost certainly have Martin O'Neill (who is manifestly the best candidate) in the job by now, because he was Mr Barwick's preferred choice. All would have been rosy.

God alone knows why the Premier League chairman, the FA chairman, and another faceless corporate mannequin were involved. And then to make matters worse, David "Impartial" Dein, the Arsenal vice-chairman, muscled in and insisted that Scolari was the best choice. Over-crowded broth-spoilage occurred.

The Press

As undoubtedly bungled as the FA's efforts were, I think the Press (that vague, amorphous entity that in this context essentially means tabloid newspapers) is the real villain of the piece.

Firstly, they reported in gleeful detail the fact that the FA was talking to Scolari. At no point did the FA make any kind of announcement - they were trying to keep things under wraps, like any sensible recruiter would in the situation. But the newspapers couldn't resist sticking their noses in, not caring that reporting that he had been offered the job meant that, if he refused it, any decent manager subsequently offered it would know that he was second choice, and may well refuse it on that basis.

After thus storing up massive problems if Scolari should reject the job, the Press then added the coup de grace by actually causing him to reject it. He said in a press conference that there were 20 reporters outside his house, and the newspapers had already started sticking their noses into his private life and comparing his wife to Sven's. He said he wanted no part of that culture, and I don't blame him.

Conclusion

So as much as the FA did make a mistake in their selection procedure, I would still like to take this opportunity to stick several fingers up at the Press, and to cast grave doubts on the legitimacy of their parentage. Not only have they stopped us getting Scolari, they've now made it very difficult for us to get anyone else. Good job.

The Duck Returns!

2006-04-26T22:16:00.000+01:00

I decided not to write (m)any posts over the Easter holiday, because nothing really happens at home that is worthy of your attention. That's right, gentle readers - I was thinking of you, my loyal and dedicated flock. Praise my selfless attention to your needs. In addition, there's the distinct possibility that I would have ended up scrabbling desperately for things to write about, and that wouldn't be fun for any of us.

So now I'm back at university, spending more or less every waking hour in the library revising for the exams that are now less than two months away. Revision has become a vast monster that is threatening to consume my soul.

Writing that metaphor reminded me of Shang Tsung, that rather unpleasant fellow from Mortal Kombat, the most hilariously bad film ever made. He killed people and then enslaved their souls, which always seemed a bit harsh. His one redeeming feature, however, is that he never made those tortured souls revise for Law exams. Compared to the Faculty of Law, and whichever bastard writes the exam timetables, he was positively an angel.

Revision, etc...

2006-03-29T10:42:00.000+01:00

I don't know if this is a common sight everywhere, but in my town I often see a small group of hapless people running around the town in the late evening, wearing leotards and t-shirts. They're members of some form of running club, I believe, which, judging from the look of the people involved, also dabbles in the odd bout of sado-masochism and witchcraft. Judging a book by its cover is underrrated. They also have all the survival instincts of a green-haired, blue-wearing lemming, and love nothing more than running out in front of my car without even the most cursory of glances.

It struck me recently that revision is a lot like going running. When you're about to start, you dread it, and start desperately thinking of excuses to avoid it. Once you get going, you can feel it slowly starting to shrivel your soul and transform you into a beastlike form, but press on anyway, pretending to enjoy it and convincing yourself that its actually doing you some good. Then when it's all over, it leaves you drained and fit for nothing, able to communicate only by grunts and having lost the ability to read. At least, that's what revision does to me.

On a pleasingly random side note, I've noticed a grave loss on our television screens. Those of you who are as elderly as I am may remember that, just before the adverts came on, there used to be a little black and white striped box in the top corner. Where's it gone?? I think we should be told.

Televisions - Rocket Science?

2006-03-22T23:04:00.000Z

One of my most vivid and repeated memories from primary school was those exciting occasions when the teacher felt that the furtherance of our learning could only be achieved through televisual means. "Or they just wanted an hour of peace with their feet up", I hear you cry. You cynical bastard.

Whenever this treat occurred, we would all be herded into a special room and the Television (teachers are fantastic at pronouncing capital letters when talking about technology) would be wheeled out. As our excitement rose, the teacher would, with a flourish, insert the video and press a button on the remote. Inevitably, it never worked. Cue every teacher in the area being called in to cluster round and lend their technical "Is it turned on?" expertise.

The same thing always used to happen in secondary school, except with more laughter from the audience and some people offering to help and then spending ten minutes delaying proceedings by pretending to be baffled, while carefully avoiding noticing the fact that the DVD Player wasn't plugged in to the Television. Not that I was one of those people, perish the thought.

I thought I might have left these adventures behind, but happily, I was wrong. Imagine my delight when, sitting in a courtroom as part of my mini-pupillage experience, the prosecution decided to produce some CCTV evidence that was on a DVD. It took the combined efforts of the prosecution barrister, the court clerk, the usher and the security guard to get this esoteric Device working, while the magistrates looked stonily on. It's good to see that nothing changes!

V For Vendetta - A Film Review (Of Sorts)

2006-03-19T01:00:00.000Z

On Friday night, to mark the last day at university before returning home, a small group of us went to see the new film, V for Vendetta. I was slightly sceptical, because the screenplay was adapted from a graphic novel ("They're just over there, next to the comics, sir" - great days working in a bookshop), but on the bright side, the people doing the adapting were the Wachowski Brothers, who fully deserve their capital B.

The bright side won out, and the film was fantastic. Having decided I can't quite be bothered to write a full review, I am instead going to recreate arguments that I've heard from people who didn't like the film, and then destroy them. Destroy them like only a lawyer can...

"You can't bond with a character who always wears a mask."

You shallow, shallow person. Do you have to see someone's face before you decide whether you like them? Do their words and deeds mean nothing? I personally thought that this would be tricky, but Hugo Weaving's voice is easily dramatic and powerful enough to pull it off. You really end up sympathising with this (somewhat mental) man.

"It encourages terrorism."

No, it doesn't. The appropriateness of actions depends on their context. V doesn't live in our world, he lives in a totally different, much darker and more oppressive world. In that world, trying to blow up the Houses of Parliament was the right thing to do. In ours, it's not.

"It was too violent in places." (from one of my companions)

I don't quite understand this concept of a film being "too violent" - the phrase has always seemed a bit like an oxymoron to me. So I'll just let this quote stand for you to read in all its lunacy.

I was going to go on, but I'm tired of carrying out what is essentially an argument with myself, so will probably go to bed instead. Bed is good. Suffice it to say, if you've read 1984, and spent most of it wishing that Winston wasn't so useless and would actually grow a pair and fight back, then you should enjoy this film!!

When Work Ends

2006-03-15T23:57:00.000Z

Today was a special day.

I was waiting for someone to shout "Why?" so that I could say, "'Why?' I hear you cry", but I don't think that's going to happen. Sometimes the world just doesn't know how it should behave.

The reason for today being so special was that it marked our last lectures this term. From 5pm this afternoon, we were joyously free to gambol heedlessly in the meadows. Or to finish writing an essay; I forget which. Happily, though, said essay is now finished and sailing its merry way to my supervisor, which means that I no longer have any work to do! Back of the net.

Until, that is, I get home at the weekend, and then immediately start a mini-pupillage on Monday. I still haven't made up my mind if this is a good idea - I think the plan was that, having just finished term, I'd still be in the mood for working. The flaw in this plan is, of course, that I haven't been in the mood for working since 1998, but I'm hopeful that I can overcome that. I have signed a confidentiality agreement so won't be able to post in any great detail about it, which is obviously gutting for my legions of fans who hang on my every word. C'est la vie.

The Mooting Grand Final

2006-03-13T13:51:00.000Z

In case anyone was wondering why it's been so long since the last post, just ask my supervisors - those people who have set me thirteen thousand essays to write, and unholy numbers of books to read, in the last two weeks of term. Some day I may take vengeance...yessss, we will, precioussss, we will...we will takes the preciousss, put the fat hobbitses eyes out, make him crawl!!!

Ahem.

Anywho, it'd be a crying shame to have a post titled "The Mooting Grand Final" without any mention of said event. Confusion might occur. Essentially, it was a more hardcore version of the previous rounds of mooting (see earlier posts), with lots of Scary and High-Up People (tm) doing the judging.

Their probing and doom-laden questioning almost made me burst into tears, and I was sitting in the audience. And not even in the front row. Heaven alone knows, then, how the mooters themselves felt. I would imagine it was somewhat akin to having the flesh blasted off your bones by one of those machines they use, so I am told, to make Chicken McNuggets. But they all survived the onslaught admirably, with their flesh intact. Much applause.

The Dreaded Ballot...Of Death

2006-03-08T11:39:00.000Z

Selwyn is, at the moment, in the middle of the highly stressful procedure known as ballotting. Essentially, this is an advanced form of psychological torture, roughly akin to experiencing sensory deprivation whilst undergoing Chinese water torture and being electrocuted. On a rack. With a sharp pendulum blade swinging above you, and a fiery pit beneath.

Despite the main purpose of this procedure being to provide some innocent, harmless amusement for the college Fellows, a happy by-product of it is that you end up with a room for next year. I shall have a very nice room with an amazing view of Old Court out of the window, so I suppose it was all worth it in the end.

On a side note, any perceptive readers will recall that I was awaiting the result of an application for a vacation scheme with an unnamed London law firm. (If you do not so recall, go back and start reading all the posts again. And pay attention this time.) Anywho, the long and short of it is that this firm recently bestowed upon me a rejection email, with one of those wonderful clauses at the end that say "Don't bother asking us why". Nice.

In order to safeguard the law firm from reprisals from my army of loyal and dedicated supporters, I shall describe them only as "J. Day." Or on second thoughts, I suppose "Jones D." would be better. Whichever floats your boat.

Tony Blair & God - An Angry Rant

2006-03-07T22:27:00.000Z

(Originally published Saturday 4th March)

Why doesn't anybody listen?

I'm going to use the row about Tony Blair as an example. In an interview on Parkinson, he said that, ultimately, it was for God to judge him on whether he was right to send the army to Iraq. Immediately, everyone leaps for the throat, moaning about how there's no place for God in politics, and how a Prime Minister shouldn't make decisions based on his personal faith.

Now all of this is probably true, but it's entirely beside the point. If these people actually bothered listening to what Blair said, he was very careful to avoid saying that God told him to go to war. He said that the decision had to be made based on personal conscience (and, presumably, dodgy intelligence dossiers - whoops), and that the decision would be judged by God. That's something completely different - all he's really saying is that he believes judgement after death, not that he makes his decisions based on his perceptions of God's will during life.

Now I'm usually the last person to defend the current government, but it seems that every time they open their mouths, everyone queues up to misinterpret what they're saying. Just look at all the idiots queuing up to spout rubbish about how Muslims are now going to think that the Iraq war was the Crusades all over again. That's just stupidity, pure and simple.

And then everyone moans about "spin", and how politicians never tell the truth. When people grossly misinterpret everything they say, is it any wonder?

I'll get you next time, Michael Fish...

2006-03-07T22:26:00.000Z

(Originally published Friday 3rd March)

Well, it looks like all chance of snow has gone beyond recall - I'm told that it's going to start getting warmer over the weekend. The Met Office chose to send us nothing more than a few flurries, cruelly teasing me with the prospect of proper snow before dashing my hopes on the rocks of weather-related despair. I've decided to do the only thing that a mature man can do when things don't go his way - sulk. Until next winter.

At the moment I'm working on International Law. I've decided that it's probably my favourite subject, partly because we're currently learning about the use of force. Essentially, it's all about when it's legal for you to do the international equivalent of punching another country in the face, because that country did the international equivalent of looking at you funny, insulting your mum, or dissing your threads (so to speak). The advantage of this is that when people start talking (at dinner parties, and so on) about whether the invasion of Iraq was legal (as they always do, apparently) then I will be fully qualified to nod sagely and say "Hmmm".

Who says a university education is worthless?

It's cold. No, seriously.

2006-03-07T22:24:00.000Z

(Originally published Tuesday 28 February)

The temperature here has, for some reason, dropped by about five thousand degrees overnight. Walking back from the library a few minutes ago, a journey that is only about two minutes in duration, I could almost feel my nose freezing solid, shattering into a thousand pieces and then forlornly melting on the ground. On the bright side, I now have first hand experience of what absolute zero feels like. When they come calling for volunteers to trek to the Outer Nebula and out into deep space, I'll be ready.

A cynical man might think that I am writing about the weather because I have little else to write about. And this is indeed the case - I have spent the day having inordinate numbers of lectures, as well as a supervision, and for the remainder of the time have been huddled over a book about Administrative Law. This leaves very little time for anything worthy of writing about to actually occur. I could have written, instead, about the technicalities of judicial review, but frankly I'd rather saw my own face off.

In an extraordinarily exciting development, there were a few flakes of snow earlier today. In the event of it snowing properly, I will stop complaining about the cold, and regress back to my childhood. Fun will happen.

Busy busy...

2006-03-07T22:22:00.000Z

(Originally published Monday 27th February)

A few days without a blog! I must apologise for such a grave dereliction of duty. But I have an excuse. Indeed, I have several excuses. In fact, excuses seem hardly necessary - it's not like anyone pays me to write this. Although if you would like to pay me in the future, then please, don't let me put you off. I accept cash.

Part of my excuse is that yesterday, I wrote two essays in one day. Pray sit back for a moment, gentle readers, and allow the enormity of this task to sink in.

TWO law essays. I can think of only one comparison to convey just how much of an achievement this was. Imagine the desperate, soul-wrenching effort that it took Frodo to get to the top of Mount Doom and cast the Ring of Power into the dark chasm whence it came. Fairly tough, I'm sure you'll agree. Now imagine that he had no Sam, no elven bread, and no legs. If you can imagine that, then you'll be pretty close to grasping how difficult it was to write two essays in one day. And yet, somehow, I did it. Go me.

On a less self-congratulatory note, I have spent the best part of today on trains, heading for London, heading around London, and then heading away from London. And for why? A 30-minute interview with a law firm who may be offering me a vacation scheme in the summer. If I get it, the tortuous journey will have been worthwhile. If not, expect bitter rantings here in a week's time.

The only difficulty in the experience was forcibly stopping myself from humming the "London Underground" tune while waiting for the Circle Line. This cessation in humming occurred when a rail employee, who was obviously familiar with the song, looked like he was going to kill me. (For anyone who doesn't know it, I beg you, click here - it is most droll, and far from complimentary about Underground staff. For the hard of thinking, you'll need to click on the Listen tab, and then the headphones symbol next to Track 8.)

It's done!

2006-03-07T22:20:00.000Z

(Originally published Thursday 23rd February)

At long last, the dreaded Essay of Death has been vanquished! It took an epic struggle, lasting longer than I thought possible, but eventually I was able to use my superior firepower, with a little help, to beat down the essay and force it into submission. Okay, so I might face problems when everyone finds out that, contrary to what I told them, the essay did not in fact have weapons of mass destruction, but that's a problem for another day. At least it's defeated for now, and the world is safe again. Except from me.

So exhausted am I from this Herculean effort that not only do I have no more energy for creative thinking, but can also feel the warm glow in my wrists that, presumably, heralds the onslaught of RSI. Either that, or leprosy, in which case I might wake up with no arms tomorrow and not be able to post any more. If that is indeed the case, I bid you all adieu.

A moot by any other name would smell as sweet

2006-03-07T22:18:00.000Z

(Originally published Wednesday 22nd February)

Today I had the pleasure of watching the final qualification round in our college mooting competition. For those of you who do not have the misfortune to be law students, you may not know what a moot is. Pray permit me to explain.

Try to recall that old television show, Gladiators. Remember that most manly of events, which I believe was called Duel, in which people used to hit each other with big foam sticks, each aiming to knock the other off their platform. It always used to be Shadow representing the Gladiators, because his eyes bulged out (in a highly intimidating fashion, naturally) while waiting for the humorously Scottish referee to tell them to start. Eye-bulging makes good television.

Now, take away the drug-fuelled (that's why he left the show, apparently) big black man, and the scrawny contestant who looks self-conscious about wearing a leotard, and replace them with four people wearing suits, ties, and gowns. Take them off those little platforms. Remove the referee (John Anderson, I've remembered his name!), and replace him with a judge. Take away the big foam sticks, and hand each contestant the weighty weapon of the Law.

And that, essentially, is a moot. And that's what I've been doing this evening, which means that my essay is still unstarted. And yes, I am still reading bloody Elements of bloody Land Law, and may well be doing so until I'm 70. Bah.

The joys of land law

2006-03-07T22:16:00.000Z

(Originally published Tuesday 21st February)

Sitting in the college library today, my mind started wandering. It didn't go anywhere exciting, you understand; just read over my shoulder for a while, went outside for a breath of fresh air, and wandered aimlessly around the law section playing that old favourite, the Find The Oldest Book game.

Meanwhile, the rest of me was having much less fun. The reason for this was the vast tome in front of me, This book is, without a doubt, the biggest, heaviest book ever written. It makes the Encyclopedia Brittanica look like a pamphlet for a takeaway restaurant. I have no doubt that its mass is so great that it exudes its own significant gravitational force, which seems to be strong enough to pull my head down towards the table, and pull my eyelids closed. Strange thing, gravity.

Having provided some much-needed procrastination, away from the accusing stare of the blank page that should contain my essay, this post has served its purpose. At some point I might actually write a proper blog, but alas time does not allow. I must return to the library, and face the demons of land law head on. Preferably with a big stick.

And so it begins

2006-03-07T22:14:00.000Z

(Originally published Monday 20th February)

Oh, hello there.

If you're reading this, it's likely (nay, certain) that you have stumbled across my shiny new blog. Despite having sworn all my life not to bother writing things like this, I've decided that the sum total of my wit and wisdom is too great to keep in one head. Head explosion is a horrible phenomenon, and I have no intention of being the cause of high cleaning bills when it comes to picking up scattered pieces of brain.

So, really, this blog is for my sake. I don't actually care about any of you at all. Go away.

Having said that, I will actually be very excited if anyone actually reads it, and even more so if anyone enjoys it, and tells me so. Praise is nice. If you're very lucky, future posts may even have some actual content. No guarantees, though...