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.
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Sunday, November 25, 2007
An Ode to Legal Research
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.
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.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
End of exams, soon, so soon....
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.
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.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Technology will kill us all
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.
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.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
The fascists are coming!
...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:
The Daily Mail is going to love it.
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.
The Daily Mail is going to love it.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Rewards for doing... what?
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:
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.
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.
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.
Friday, November 17, 2006
Hooray for politics
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):
Is it too late to suggest the contest for Children in Need tonight?
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.
Is it too late to suggest the contest for Children in Need tonight?
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Family law - why?
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.
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.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Enforcing Animal Welfare - Nature's Revenge
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.
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.
Saturday, November 04, 2006
The Hunting Season is underway!!
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.
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.
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