15-16th November: Postcard from The Boat

Half way through November and Christmas is barely six weeks away. RollonFriday reports that one law firm has already cut the budget for the Christmas party to £5 a head: “Lawyers at DWF are heading for a not-so-festive season after the firm announced that it would be donating a measly £5 per head for Christmas parties. That’s at the same time as confirming a whopping 12.5% increase in turnover for the first half of the financial year…”

An interesting week: We had a Vicar going to hospital with a potato stuck up his arse, the four Silks of The Apocalypse thundering in to support Mr Justice Eady in Dacregate and India land a probe on the moon after thrashing a truly dismal England cricket team in the first one day international in India. We also had Geeklawyer in a seminal article on European legislation regarding the ‘Three strikes and you are out for illegal downloading” rule reporting in his inimitable style.  I quote: “Natch you have to buy-off a few corrupt politicians like the sleazy retarded clothes-horse French President Sardozy who is more concerned with arranging threesomes with his whore wife than worrying where the bribes are coming from, or if the legislation is just.”

John Bolch, Family Lore, has a story about a guy who is being divorced by his wife because he has been doing virtual shagging with another woman on Second Life.

And so to the BBC 2 programme: The Barristers

Four years in the making and heralded by The Bar Council “The Barristers is an intimate portrait which details life at the Bar from aspiring barristers through to senior silks.”

Tim Dutton QC, Chairman of The Bar, says: “It has been a pleasure to work with the BBC on this documentary.  Historically, the Bar has been somewhat misunderstood and cast as a profession to which only the privileged can aspire to join.  This documentary will sweep these stereotypes away.”

So I sat down at my desk to watch The Barristers in BBC iPlayer on a cold drizzly  Saturday afternoon – a glass of Burgundy to hand and a cheroot. Did I enjoy the programme?  Not really.  The first episode covers the trials and tribulations of a group of students qualifying for the Bar. A quick trip to central casting, or so it seemed, and hey presto, a Neuberger approved group of diverse barristers to be.  I leave to Geeklawyer who is a practising barrister, to deal with the minutiae in his robust review. To be quite honest, apart from serveral cameo appearances by a man in a black robe doing criminal damage to the floor of Middle Temple’s  Elizabethan Hall with a heavy staff and getting away with it, I found it a bit heavy going.  Perhaps too much time was spent filming the stained glass, the architecture, the close ups of wigs and robes, and a selection of semi Dickensian figures processing in and out of rooms in robes? It is early days.  I shall watch the remaining episodes before giving a view – but next Saturday I shall make sure I have drunk at least a glass of decent Burgundy before switching the programme on.

Geeklawyer writes: ” So, if there was anything slightly repellent in this series it was the students. There, Geeklawyer said it. He says sorry to his many student readers but you have to understand how bad you look to a) outsiders and b) insiders. Really. One feels sorry to say it but the sight of grasping unquenchable ambition and striving is utterly repellent. Why? hard to say. One supposes that they have to do this to get on in life.”

A fairly laid back weekend, a spot of writing (sensible) and a fair bit of , shall we say, less sensible writing.  Charon After dark occupied me for part of Friday evening and the latest episode of West London Man: Half baked Alaska? is due out tonight.

I have not done an episode of West London Man for some time.  A US reader, attorney and a leading US Blawger, emailed me to say that as I hadn’t done an episode of WLM for sometime – he had started writing his own!.  I rather liked that, emailed him, received an offer from him to do an ‘american voice’ so I settled down to write episode 23 based on the US Blawgers story line which follows….

“George has participated in or been just one step removed from numerous social atrocities, but he has always maintained a solid, if somewhat decadent, reputation amongst his friends, colleagues, and social acquaintances.  Soon, however, his darkest secret may be revealed.  Unknown to those friends, colleagues, and society acquaintances, George has distant American relations whom he refuses to acknowledge, much less to discuss.  His heretofore successful efforts to deny his colonial connections are jeopardized when he receives a call that one of these cousins has found herself with time on her hands and will be visiting soon.

George is stunned to hear from an assistant to Sarah Palin, who advises our hero that cousin Sarah will soon be visiting Europe (“to clear her head after a recent setback and to establish strong foreign policy credentials for a future endeavor”) and would like to drop in on him.”…

Due out tonight after 6.00 pm…

Have to go…. lunch beckons… but I’ll be back later..

Best, as always