Category Archives: General

Faire words butter noe parsnips

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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

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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 →

We are not amused

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Did Queen Victoria actually say “we are not amused” or was it Queen Elizabeth I?

What on earth were they talking about? Does it matter? Well no, not really but it is fun to try and ascribe words to historical personages and even more so to adapt them to and use them in a more modern context.

Whether Victoria did not like the performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore or whether Queen Elizabeth was not amused at Walter Raleigh smoking his new fangled tobacco in her presence, I suspect that historians will never know. I was intrigued to learn, however, that according to Princess Alice, the then last surviving granddaughter of Queen Victoria, in the late 1970s that her grandmother had told her that she, Victoria, had never uttered these words!

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Sheep from goats

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As a lawyer, I am all too aware of the tendency of my profession to wrap up ideas and concepts in language which, to the average outsider, sounds like impenetrable gibberish.

The ability of so-called insiders to construct a special language marks out a territory to which outsiders are not admitted or are only admitted upon sufferance or the payment of a hefty entry fee. Lawyers do it, accountants do it, even litigation support professionals do it! Technology is no exception.

Even lovers do it! They have pet names for each other, private jokes and they laugh at things the rest of us do not find funny.

Nothing wrong in that but it is just another example of keeping out those who are not in the club. If you are trying to sell your services, however, that strategy is doomed to fail.

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A dance to the music of time

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Visiting museums and art galleries is an essential part of the experience of visiting new places. That is not to say that I do not from time to time visit museums in this country with which I am already familiar but the collections which tend to stand out in my mind are those which are housed in a building either especially made for the purpose of displaying the paintings, furniture and sculpture or are even in the artist’s own house or the house of a major collector. I visit these more often in a town or city in a foreign country because while visiting foreign parts it is likely that there is more time available “to stand and stare”.

The Sorolla Museum in Madrid and the Jacquemart-Andre Museum in Paris, “the passion of Edouard Andre and Nelie Jacquemart,”  are collections housed in the artist’s and the collectors’ houses respectively, whereas the magnificent Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid is in a refurbished palace designed to show off the fabulous collection of pictures collected by the late Baron Thyssen which he gave to the Spanish nation in honour of his Spanish wife Carmen.

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We are all believers now

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An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is a concept with which most people are familiar, even if they do not know its origin.

The concept appears in the Old Testament, the Koran and the Talmud and probably elsewhere as well. It is even referred to by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount: 

38. You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”

Matthew 5:38. 

Today’s litigation is not so much about eye gouging and/or tooth extraction as about cooperation and proportionality, while reserving the right to be as beastly to your opponent as possible if the rules permit and you are prepared to risk having to delve into what must be a deep pocket. 

I have heard it said that “proportionality is what differentiates restitution and retribution from revenge by proxy” but many people will be familiar with the use of the concept in relation to limiting the powers of the various European institutions. The idea is to limit the actions of the Commission or other agency of the European project to what is necessary to achieve any given object so that the extent of the action contemplated is in keeping with the stated aims.

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Leaving it to chance

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History is a wonderful thing and I am constantly amazed at how much of it appears to be a matter of chance.

There are numerous examples. For instance, I have come across the attached piece published by the Education Forum. I reproduce it in full, typos and all!

A significant event marking the international relations of the 18th century was the 7-year war (1756-1763). The war established England’s position as the greatest colonial and naval power of the times and allowed Prussia, led by king Frederic the Great, to confirm its status as a great European military power. It is nonetheless common knowledge that despite the king’s energy and military prowess, there was a time when Prussia was on the point of giving in due to its enemies’ (Russia’s, more specifically) overwhelming superiority. In 1761, the new British cabinet, led by Bute, stopped the transfer of funds to the Prussians. Given the circumstances, Frederic the 2nd found himself no longer able of carrying on the war. He even gave serious thought to abdication. But then there came about what the king himself named “the miracle of the House of Branderburg”.

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UK firms falling short on EDI discovery readiness

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The 3rd Annual Electronically Stored Information (ESI) Trends Report by Kroll Ontrack reveals that there is a significant gap between the existence of corporate document retention policies and ESI discovery readiness strategies.

According to the Kroll Ontrack news release, ESI management is top of mind for corporations but effective implementation is falling.

This year’s survey also reveals 77% of US companies and 56% of U.K. companies believe their ESI discovery policy or strategy is repeatable and defensible. However, only 57% of US and 39% of UK corporations have a mechanism to preserve potentially relevant data when litigation or a regulatory investigation is anticipated.

“Without an identified means to suspend the expulsion of potentially responsive data, many companies are not positioned to execute proper preservation protocol or claim their ESI discovery readiness policy is effective,” says the report.

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Scottish Civil Courts Review

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I missed the publication of the Report of the Scottish Civil Courts Review when it was launched on 30th September 2009 by the Lord Justice Clerk, the Rt Hon Lord Gill. The report is in two volumes and contains 15 chapters and a synopsis.

The terms of reference are:

To review the provision of civil justice by the courts in Scotland, including their structure, jurisdiction, procedures and working methods, having particular regard to

  • the cost of litigation to parties and to the public purse;
  • the role of mediation and other methods of dispute resolution in relation to court process;
  • the development of modern methods of communication and case management; and
  • the issue of specialisation of courts or procedures, including the relationship between the civil and criminal courts;

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