A leap into the unknown

Posted on 11 May, 2011 by Bridie Sheldon

We push the youngest member of our team Bridie Sheldon into writing a blog… about blogging.

Imagine you have just thrown yourself off a bridge. You are plummeting ever nearer and nearer to the ground and then, in a split second, the free falling feeling turns into a stomach churning rebound up into the stratosphere, or so it feels. This is because you have a piece of stretchy cord tightly strapped around your ankles.

Yes, I’m talking about bungee jumping. For some, including myself, the idea sounds exhilarating. The feeling of free falling is undeniably unbeatable, giving you the chance to let go of everything… and fly.

Why would anyone not? Well I have to admit, I remember standing at the top of the ragged gorge and, as I looked down, I began to think of the risks involved. What happens if they didn’t calculate my weight correctly or what if the bungee snaps…? I could end up with a serious headache.

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Courage mon brave!

Posted on 20 January, 2011 by Charles Holloway

What makes a human being brave? There are clearly a variety of possible answers to the question. Frequently, what seems incredibly brave to some is perceived by others to be extremely foolhardy.

Many of us will remember the bravery of Colonel H, awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously in the Falklands War but fewer will know that a second VC was awarded in that conflict for an act of “outstanding selflessness, perseverance and courage” according to the citation in October 1982 when the award of the highest military honour to Sergeant Ian McKay was announced.

And, not altogether surprisingly, there has been only one occasion when siblings have been awarded the Victoria Cross and the George Cross. The Reverend Charles Seagrim had five sons and two of whom won the VC and the GC during the course of the Second World War. Derek was the elder of the two and earned his VC in North Africa and his younger brother Hugh was awarded a posthumous GC for his activities in Burma fighting the Japanese with the Karen people. Their achievements are described in Stephen Stratford’s website British 20th Century Military & Criminal History. They are of particular interest to me as their father was Rector of Whissonsett in Norfolk and the family lived in what is now my house, the former rectory in the village.

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See you anon – in court

Posted on 19 August, 2009 by Charles Holloway

Blogs may not be as anonymous as some contributors have assumed or would like.

As a relative newcomer to the art of blogging, I woke up today to a salutary reminder that bloggers are not above or beyond the law when it comes to ‘ordinary’ standards of defamation and libel. According to an aticle in the Times ‘Vogue model Liskula Cohen wins right to unmask offensive blogger‘ an anonymous blogger in the US has posted less than flattering comments about a Vogue model called Liskula Cohen, to which Ms Cohen took grave exception. She applied to the court for an order that Google, the blog host in this case, disclose to her the identity of the blogger so that she could sue him/her for damages for defamation.

She won!

Judge Joan Madden, a Manhattan Supreme Court Justice ruled that Google should hand over the evidence of identity to her and rejected the blogger’s argument that blogs “serve as a modern-day forum for conveying personal opinions, including invective and ranting, and should not be treated as factual assertions”.

As it happens, contributors to the Smart e-Discovery blog are not anonymous, though it does remind us that moderating comments before they are published is a sensible precaution!