No-one I know in the obituaries today… so I turn my mind to other matters.
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A quick round up of the blogs… to start: BabyBarista worries about his identity being revealed and dares the anonymous emailer to ‘name that blogger’. Geeklawyer is off the juice and is doing some running. Ruthie will, no doubt, welcome the appearance of a bit of Law and sensible analysis – although there is some classic stuff from him in the comments. I am doing my best, in his comments section, to provide a counterpoint to this ‘renaissense’ (sic) – although, as you will discover, he is f*****g pissed off. Dan Hull over at What about clients? asks why lawyers are so shy about punting for work and reminds us that monarchy did not suit America. Justin Patten, Human Law keeps his focus on mediation and alternative dispute resolution – interesting. Nearly Legal has been running an intersting review of the Unified Contract. Corporate Blawg begins a journey of self improvement. Zen can wait. He starts with his teeth and goes to the dentist. Clearly, he is sensible and does not practise self-dentistry. (I saw an item in my search terms area: Crowns superglue discuss’ – and there was my blawg… up there with a whole lot of dentists! There was also an article on ‘NOT using superglue’ which I read with interest.)
Legal Scribbles makes a case for why students should study Conflict of Laws. I agree – an important and useful subject. I am planning a podcast with Legal Scribbles which we hope will be of use to students facing the examiners this summer. Family Lore considers the transparency of the Family Courts. Exlex of Outside The Law writes that the establishment of a Ministry of Justice is long overdue – but does not go far enough. Useful analysis. Barrister Blog runs a story about the Da Vinci Code judgment.
The Master of the Rolls, Sir Anthony Clarke, has said that active case management is the best way to avoid expensive, drawn-out disputes such as the BCCI collapse. Just the thing you need to hear on a sunny Sunday morning if you happen to be reading this entry. . Legal Week story.
RollonFriday has a classic story this week…quoted directly from RoF
Solicitor shamed by own press release: “David Corker, one of the country’s leading criminal solicitors, sent the following biography to the London Criminal Courts Solicitors’ Association.
“David Corker is a solicitor at Corker Binning and a regular lecturer for the LCCSA. The 2004 Chambers Guide to the Legal Profession described him having a “pedigree which stands out by itself”. The 2005 edition as “tremendously bright”, the 2006 edition as “a business crime legend” and the 2007 edition as “having made a massive academic contribution due to his involvement on the lecture circuit”. Colleagues have described him as ‘a complete wanker’.”
The LCCSA included this gem in a pamphlet that was sent to 1,000 lawyers to publicise a seminar, and it was on its website for two days. Clearly Corker’s planet sized brain can’t be bothered with anything as mundane as proof reading…” Story
And finally…. How Napoleon lost his penis. The Independent today revealed that Abbott Ange Vignali, who administered extreme unction and officiated at Napoleon’s funeral, took a number of souvenirs – forks, knives a silver cup and a small part of the body. The Vignali collection and the part fell into private hands after a sale in 1977. There is some doubt as to what the “shrivelled object” about an inch long and looking like a shrivelled eel, is. “Not tonight, Josephine” was the headline of one red top when Christie’s failed to make a sale in 1969.
I happened to find myself at the Bollo tonight – to meet a friend. We departed early to talk of many things. I returned to my Staterooms in West London at 10.00 hours… without straying into Iranian waters… to find that one of my posts 
Judge Merrett at a hearing in Jackson, Florida whipped out a handgun in court to protect himself after a fight broke out in his courtroom. (Source: The Mirror 28 March)
This afternoon I thought I would try something different. I interviewed Ashley, the manager of The Bollo, an excellent gastropub in Chiswick, West London.
I am no longer able to go to The Bollo on Sundays for lunch because the owners have decided they wish to encourage the well heeled young children of Chiswick to bring their hyperventilating parents to the pub to have a ‘Sunday Roast’ – and have, accordingly, banned smoking until the evening. This does not trouble me at all. Sitting in a pub with children, adoringly encouraged by yummy-mummy and stressed out banker-daddy, to scream, shout and run about, has little appeal. I simply went up the road to 
A couple of weeks ago, a crown on one of my front teeth came out when I bit into a piece of toast, at breakfast, at my café of choice in Chiswick. It was a simple matter to repair. I simply bought some superglue from the newsagent up the road and stuck it back into position – a delicate operation which I made a complete hash off. Superglue is powerful stuff. My tongue stuck to the crown – but, thankfully, I was able to prise it off. Although the crown was now at a slightly different angle, I decided that a visit to the dentist could wait. Three weeks later, the crown came out again. This time, I had to drill out old superglue from the crown with a needle to get the crown back onto the post at an even vaguely sensible position. After pulling my thumb and forefinger apart, I checked the result in the bathroom mirror. It was ludicrous. I looked like a crocodile and had to telephone a local ‘Non-NHS’ dentist to arrange an appointment. The receptionist was a bit baffled when I explained the nature of the problem. She expressed the view that sticking crowns back into my mouth with superglue was not a good idea.
I am at The Bollo. The England v Kenya cricket game is about to begin. I have a glass of Rioja to my right, Silk Cut to my left and I have just eaten a fiery Penne Arrabiata. All is, thus, good with my simple world today. Although I am not a woman, I can multi-task … OK … multi may be taking it too far… but I can drink Rioja, watch the cricket, smoke and blog at the same time.
wine in his right hand, a duck in his left hand – and… frankly, a good thing he did… the locals were descending into anarchy; wearing wode, driving far too fast in chariots, bringing untaxed wines and beers over from the continent in absurd quantities, not repairing the central heating put in by the Romans (as required by covenants of repair and maintenance in their residential leases) AND… they had no idea where all those tax returns were …Christ… one of their Kings couldn’t even bake a cake properly… Yes… the Normans were a good influence.)
“The thing that’s wrong with the French is that they don’t have a word for entrepreneur”
life balance, 
The ‘sneering’* face of George ‘Don’t call me Gideon’ Osborne filled the television screen. He looked over at the Labour benches. There weren’t many Labour MPs in Parliament. The Great Train Robber / The Highwayman / Stalin, whatever you care to call him, wasn’t there… *(A Press report used the term ‘sneering’)
I left Chiswick the other evening in a mini-cab enroute to an obscure part of London called Camden. Obscure, that is, to the Afghan driver who asked me for the postcode of the house I was going to. I told him I had absolutely no idea of the postcode. He typed the name of the road into his Sat-Nav device and we headed off in the wrong direction. I was reminded of the story of the woman who drove her £96000 Mercedes into a ford, obeying her Sat-Nav, and a host of other stories involving idiotic Sat-Nav users. Recently, some goon drove a party of children in a coach to Hampton Court in Islington, a grotty cul de sac, instead of the famous Hampton Court Palace – farcical. A year ago, an ambulance crew picking up an ill person near Ilford, Essex, for a local hospital; followed Sat-Nav for 400 miles and turned back only when they were on the outskirts of Manchester.
Podcast No 7 and the plan for future podcasts…
Today I interviewed Toby Davey, Barrister at 
“ We’ll know we’ve made it when there are mediocre women in senior positions, as God knows there are enough mediocre men there.”
It was cold sitting outside the cafe in Chiswick this morning with my espresso, as winter made a quick return, but at least I did not have a dead body sitting at the next table unlike BA First Class passenger “Paul Trinder, 54, who woke at 30,000ft to discover cabin crew strapping the body of a woman, who died after the plane took off, into the seat across the aisle. He watched in horror as the corpse repeatedly slid beneath the seatbelt on to the cabin floor of the Boeing 747.”
The sad death of Bob Woolmer, Pakistan Cricket Coach at the weekend cast a pall over the extraordinary achievement of Ireland, who won against Pakistan in the Cricket World Cup, and pushed Freddie Flintoff’s bender and drinking antics, which resulted in him being sacked as England Vice-captain, down the list of press priorities.
I had a frustrating day today – So… I am at The Bollo with my laptop, Rioja at hand, to blog about nothing of any importance whatsoever. It is, of course, The Ides of March – and Caesar was assassinated on that day in 44 BC.
“ButchCameron” moves to the left
Today I met Dan Hull, a practising US lawyer, partner at 
