UK Blawg conference

The 2nd UK Blawg Conference, arranged by Geeklawyer, is on 15th September – see details for conference and attending RSVP here.

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Found a recording of the rather ludicrous speech I gave last year.

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“I could still snort you under the table” Sir Elton John (2008)

The fact I find Sir Elton rather tedious is neither here nor there. Rock stars taking knighthoods is all a bit “Countdown”.  One expects it of Sir Stiff Pilchard, his SAGA cruise fans expect it – but Elton John and Mick Jagger? Well, it appears that 23 year old Lily Allen, daughter of the wild man of the Groucho Club, Keith ‘Vindaloo” Allen, told Sir Elton to fuck off at a recent awards ceremony when Elton took her to one side to complain about her drinking.  Lilly Allen responded to a ‘waspish’ comment Elton made by saying ” Fuck off, Elton. I am 40 years younger than you and have my whole life ahead of me.  The Observer reports that “Elton spluttered back ‘ I could still snort you under the table.”

“Fuck off Elton” – good idea.  (Pic from mobile from today’s Observer paper) I do seem to recall, from my youth, according to one of the tabloids, that Elton spent time under a glass topped table.  Could be wrong.

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7 September: Postcard from The Boat

Ah… at last… something for Jack “The Lad” Chancellor and Secretary of Justice to do, other than simmer and plot when he will put on a ‘grey suit’ and visit Cyclops with a dagger under his robes. “Data on 5000 justice staff lost” (BBC). The BBC reports that: “Jack Straw has ordered an inquiry into the loss of a computer hard drive containing the details of up to 5,000 employees of the justice system.
The justice secretary is also trying to establish why he was not told of the blunder, which happened in July 2007.”…. and adds that…. “Justice Minister David Hanson said he was “very angry” at the loss.”

I am trying to picture how justice ministers look when they are ‘very angry’.  Are they pissed off?, hacked off?… or f*****g livid?

Short of ringing up The Ministry of Justice to see if they had any pictures of David Hanson looking ‘very angry’ and ever keen to hone my journalistic skills of accuracy, I visited the Ministry of Justice website.  Left is a ‘happy clappy’ picture of the hapless minister in happier days – or, perhaps… how he might look if government data had been lost by another department – H M Revenue & Customs for example – a world class institution heading the Top 10 for data loss on an industrial scale (25 million records). A quick trip to Mr Google revealed that David Hanson is, on the whole, a man with a cheery disposition – many photos of him laughing.  I was able to find one of him looking mildly hacked off (Right).  Looks as if I’ll have to apply under the Freedom of Information Act to see if H M Government have any photos on file of David Manson looking suitably angry… or perhaps ‘surprised’ that highly confidential and important records have been lost.   The BBC has supplied a rather useful chart of recent data losses by H M Government departments.  Amazing really... looking forward to your ID card data being handed over to criminals, foreign powers when the government go for GOLD and lose the computer with everyone’s ID card details on it?

And so… to Memes.
Earlier in the week the mysterious Ed of Blawg Review tagged me to do a meme. I had to choose 5 non-law blogs and then tag another five law bloggers to do the same.  Simon Myerson QC – Pupillage and how to get it blog – Carl Gardner (Head of Legal blog) and Andrew Keogh of The White Rabbit blog have done theirs.  Geeklawyer, busy with important matters of organising the UK Blawg fest conference – 15 September (all bloggers welcome) and Dan Hull of What About Clients?  (Busy in Europe) have not, as yet done their memes.   Good reading the choices made  by the law bloggers who has so far responded.

Carl Gardner, Head of Legal (Right) , exacted a sort of revenge yesterday by making a State visit to The Boat yesterday afternoon. He was, of course, piped aboard, staggered about a bit to get his sea legs,  and forced me to drink a bottle of red wine.  he also drank a bottle of red wine.  Not content that the price exacted was sufficient I was the marched to The Porting Page off the King’s Road in Chelsea and forced to drink even more red wine.  While we are on the subject of Carl Gardner – you may like to check out another of his blogs – very enjoyable.  Not law – politics, art, literature and life.  Much to read.

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And from that… to this…. the completely bloody useless burglar.

Quizlaw covered this ridiculous story of a British burglar who tried to rob a house in the middle of the day, only to get his foot caught as he was busting through a window, leading to his ridicule and eventual arrest. Excellent pics at Quizla.

Hat Tip to Jailhouse lawyer for finding this unusual picture of prime minister Cyclops – via the Ron Knee Rants site

Mr Bastard of Never Mind the bollix continues to find and write about some extraordinary stuff – if you haven’t read his blog – take a visit.  Some unusual photos here and a very amusing story about how he dealt with a visit from some Jehovah Witnesses. I nominated Never Mind the Bolliz as one of my five favourite non-law blogs in the recent meme.  Mr Bastard was kind enough to reply – it appears that Mrs Bastard is a barrister, from the comment left.

I am enjoying my time on the boat – the recent high tides, wind and rain adding a frisson and much rocking making rioja induced typos even more of a problem.  Having spent many amusing hours trying to find RSS feeds for blogs (and some blogs just don’t seem to have them) I am now finding it far easier to keep up to date on who is writing what on UK and other blogs.  I have now done three different Pageflake pages (may do one for non UK Blawgs) and the ability to see all at a glance on just one page for each of UK Blawgs, Legal News and the latest caselaw is, if nothing else, saving me a great deal of time.   If you aren’t on the UK Blawgs Pageflake – and would like to be (including non-law blogs) – please provide a link to your RSS feed in the comments section and I’ll add you.  As I say… some blogs I read just don’t seem to have RSS feed or, if they do,  the feed just brings one back to the front page of the blog with no info.

And finally for this postcard…. it appears that Lovell’s has had a rodent problem.  RollonFriday.com reports that the London Managing Partner of Lovells sent a memo to all staff warning “We have had a significant increase in mice sightings in Atlantic House’. Clearly a biscuit problem.

And… if you want one hour FREE CPD… try this out

Until we meet again… don’t know where, don’t know when….. for now I have to ride against the French again…

Yours aye

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