Brownie points

Posted on 24 January, 2012 by Charles Holloway

When asked what possession they would save in the event of a house fire, many people will plump for the family photograph album. Even if there is research on the subject to back up this assertion, I think it likely that the population will divide along generational lines. Just as generations which made do with portraits and landscapes painted onto canvas gave way to photographs on film, so today many people take digital photographs and share them on line and never ever print them off.

I suspect that the owners of Kodak are ruefully aware of this today as I read that the company has filed for Chapter 11 protection from bankruptcy in the US with liabilities exceeding assets by a staggering $1.65 billion. This does not necessarily mean the end of Kodak as a business but it is a sad day when the inventor of that ubiquitous camera, the box Brownie, loses its way so dramatically. Millions of people will remember the Brownie and I am told that even Neil Armstrong took photos on the moon with one.

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The right to be forgotten

Posted on 24 January, 2012 by Charles Holloway

Without forgetting it is quite impossible to live at all – Friedrich Nietzsche

Like the rumble of thunder which precedes the storm or the escape of sulphurous gas which heralds a volcanic eruption, it is clear that the EU is up to something.

That something promises to be momentous. Forget the recession/depression, forget the riots on the streets of Athens, forget (if you can) the reelection campaign of President Sarkozy (who has not yet even announced that he is going to stand for another term as President of our favourite neighbour)!

All this is unimportant. The EU is turning its attention to data privacy.

Now I am not for one moment suggesting that what happens to personal data is not rightly of concern, particularly to the person whose data it is. The EU has recognised its importance and on January 25th (Burns Night for those non Scots who need reminding that our northern neighbours will be getting smashed on Wednesday), the EU intends to publish proposals for new data protection rules.

I have not seen the draft proposals but believe that we may see included something along these lines:

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Poetry in motion

Posted on 18 January, 2012 by Charles Holloway

No Scotsman I, but I am familiar with the traditions of a Burns Nicht supper and indeed have in the past fallen foul of them. My wife delights in the story of my trying in vain to insert the key to our then London house and complaining bitterly that it did not fit, only to discover that the whisky had blurred my vision to such an extent that I was several doors off beam!

Back to today and I was inspired to think about Burns by an aside from my new colleague John Lapraik. I learned that in the dim and distant past (the 18th century) there was a Scottish poet bearing John’s name who was a friend of Burns’ and who just happens to be John’s something times great grandfather.

However delightful it was to live in Ayrshire and rub shoulders with the rather better known Mr Burns it seems that Lapraik’s books and poems have all but disappeared. I cannot judge whether this is a loss to Scottish literature but no such scruples deterred one James Maxwell. A contemporary of both Burns and Lapraik, and one who did not approve of the latter’s writings, he was moved to comment on their disappearance as follows:

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You tweet (or blog, post and poke) if you want to, but take care!

Posted on 10 January, 2012 by Charles Holloway

“Are you on LinkedIn?” asked my companion. I confessed that I was. “Facebook?” Well, not exactly, I replied. “Why not?” my interrogator continued. By this stage I was beginning to wish I had not started the conversation, but I had been keen to establish whether this particular litigation lawyer was into social media because our conversation had been about ways in which lawyers market themselves.

When I was a practising lawyer, I fell into the camp of “being keen on marketing” but I was always a little disappointed with the results of my efforts. Fine, if you really had a triumph to trumpet about and an audience which was interested but otherwise it always seemed to me to be rather false. Perhaps I suffered from (false) modesty, a charge which my lawyer friend threw at me recently and this was how the conversation about social media started.

I have already joined the crowd who make predictions about 2012 and I am certainly not going to go down that route again, but allow me to say that this whole social media lark is becoming all-pervasive. It is virtually impossible to pick up a newspaper these days without seeing a report about some tweet, blog post or story on MySpace or Facebook. And the companies behind the successful sites are worth mega millions as can be seen by the recent LinkedIn float and the ongoing saga about the valuation of Facebook.

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In the groove

Posted on 5 January, 2012 by Charles Holloway

When I looked to my right, I saw what can best be described as a white fog sweeping towards me. It had already enveloped the building on the other side of the road before I realised I was going to get very wet. The next instant, it seemed that someone had turned on a fire hydrant and directed it in my direction. I was soaked and only the sight and sound of others fleeing for the station entrance with me, convinced me that it was in fact a serious rain squall.

Coming back to work after an extended break is never easy. At least for me and most others, I suspect this to be true. It does not matter if you love what you do, it still takes time to get back into the groove.

I ended the year on a note of optimism for 2012, something not all commentators managed to achieve. Rain squalls apart, (and this one soon passed), the New Year has started with two pieces of excellent news for Millnet. Continue reading →

Twelve Days of Christmas

Posted on 22 December, 2011 by Charles Holloway

In these last few days of December as we pass the shortest day and can begin to dream of spring, I find myself coming into a Christmas spirit of both the religious and the alcoholic variety. We are all familiar with the song The Twelve Days of Christmas with its partridge in a pear tree and its lords-a-leaping but for those who may have difficulties of recall in these Christmas party-excess fuelled times, the first verse runs:

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…
A Partridge in a Pear Tree.

The second verse:

On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…
Two turtle doves
And a partridge in a pear tree.

…and so forth, until the last verse:

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…
12 Drummers Drumming
11 Pipers Piping
10 Lords-a-Leaping
9 Ladies Dancing
8 Maids-a-Milking
7 Swans-a-Swimming
6 Geese-a-Laying
5 Gold Rings
4 Colly Birds
3 French Hens
2 Turtle Doves
And a Partridge in a Pear Tree.

But what does it mean?

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Faire words butter noe parsnips

Posted on 15 December, 2011 by Charles Holloway

Notwithstanding my reputation [Banging on, 13th December, 2011], I am delighted to say that I do not find it easy in this season of goodwill to maintain an air of grumpiness. Shakespeare has it that “Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York.” He was talking about the man who became Richard III and there are divergent views about King Richard who Messrs Sellars and Yeatman (1066 and all that) would almost certainly have called “a bad king”.

Many people think that he was a manipulative and unprincipled devil, that he wrongfully inherited the throne and on the way murdered the Princes in the Tower or at the very least arranged for their disposal. As the only then living legitimate sons of King Edward IV and his Queen, Elizabeth Woodville, they certainly stood between him and the throne in 1483 and the elder of the two, Prince Edward, was proclaimed King as Edward V on his father’s death but disappeared before his coronation.

Much as I love this controversy this is not the time to delve into the conspiracy theories which abounded then and still reverberate in certain circles to this day (if you are interested see The Richard III Society website).

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Banging on

Posted on 13 December, 2011 by Charles Holloway

There are times when I can be quite as grumpy as the next man. Indeed there are acquaintances (in the circumstances, I cannot call them friends) who think I have perfected the art. All I know is that there are people who wish to tell anyone who is listening what they had for breakfast and many other fascinating details of their daily life, and that does not appeal to me at all.

So I will not tell you about my recent train journey to Liverpool courtesy of Sir Richard’s Virgin Pendolino trains where, at a totally unscheduled stop in Crewe which was going to make us late in any event, the train came to a grinding halt and the “train manager” (whatever happened to the guard?) announced a complete loss of power and urged anyone in the disabled loo not to panic when the doors failed to open!

35 minutes later, power was mysteriously restored and we arrived some 45 minutes late into Lime Street to find there were no taxis. I promised not to tell you about all this but instead of being grumpy I found the extra time useful to catch up on some reading and to reflect on the end of 2011.

Will it go out with a bang or a whimper? I have already posted some predictions for 2012 [Old Holloway's Almanack, 1st December, 2011] and the time will doubtless arrive to review 2011 but I find myself curiously optimistic. Just as well I was not in the loo when the train stopped as my mood would have been somewhat different once released. Continue reading →

In the race to modernity, technology rules

Posted on 8 December, 2011 by Charles Holloway

If you thought that this blog was in danger of a takeover by judicial pronouncements from the USA, here is a short reminder of some recent stories from the UK.

In the race to modernity, the Supreme Court seems likely to allow advocates to dispense with court clothes. Whether this means that lawyers can appear in a collarless shirt and no tie or in Lycra and trainers, we will have to wait and see, but I predict a few arguments before the Bar (and it still is largely the Bar) are allowed to turn up dressed at will. The last case I listened to in the Supreme Court concerned the liberty of the subject and a proposed extradition to the United States to stand trial. I am not sure the applicant would have felt he had had his full deserts if his counsel had been in cords and trainers.

The Attorney-General has been given leave to bring contempt proceedings against the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror over their coverage of the Milly Dowler trial and the conviction of Levi Bellfield. Coming hot on the heels of the harrowing testimony from Milly’s parents and others at the Leveson Inquiry, the decision to take action against the two newspapers ensures that we will not have heard the last of this subject for some time to come. In the circumstances, I think this is probably no bad thing as matters like this tend to be forgotten too easily. I wonder how they will collect all the electronic material which undoubtedly exists. Presumably, the lawyers concerned have already formulated their strategy. It is never too early to do so as decisions made at this preliminary stage can set the tone for the conduct of the case in the future.

Lord Justice Jackson is also back in the news. His reforms to civil justice are currently making their way through Parliament in the form of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. This seems to be a strange title for the vehicle to make changes to the CPR but its contents, should they become law next year, may be viewed in due course as truly modern and even revolutionary.

The Lawyer of November 23rd 2011 carried an article entitled “Get used to it” setting out the proposals made by Lord Justice Jackson which are at the heart of these reforms. It seems to me that in order to deliver the regime to assist litigants to save money and to ensure judges have the tools properly to manage the cases for which they are responsible, technology will play a large part.

In that sense technology will truly rule, in the rush to modernity.

Pandora’s box

Posted on 6 December, 2011 by Charles Holloway

Lovers of Greek mythology will be familiar with the story of Pandora, whose curiosity ensured that she opened the box given to her by Zeus with instructions that she should on no account open it. When she did, evil escaped around the world and although she tried her best to get the lid back on, everything inside escaped except Hope.

Rest assured that references to Pandora’s box and Ancient Greece are not intended as a prelude to commentary on the dire state of the Greek and other Eurozone countries (and others like our own which are directly affected by the mess the over-confident Europhiles have made of the economy of the once prosperous Western world).

No, my purpose is to praise the ever colourful language of our American cousins sitting in their courtrooms around the USA, who, while dealing with a variety of cases which might just as well be heard in any court in this country, ever delight in a word or turn of phrase which while slightly out of the ordinary, serve when used by US Judges to underline the truths we should come to accept as the norm here in this jurisdiction. Continue reading →