by Tim Kevan
But BrainWasher’s interest had been piqued. ‘Well, hypnotism’s a little more subtle than that, BabyB.’
He then looked thoughtfully over at Smutton. ‘Actually we could start by simply extending what you’re already doing with the clothing.’
‘In what way?’ asked Smutton.
‘By anchoring the things he likes around the bits of the litigation where we want to influence his view. So, if you were to give a quick flash of Myla when our witness is speaking, the judge would then associate everything that witness says with pleasure.’
‘OK. But it might not be terribly subtle,’ said Smutton, which I thought was a little ironic given that subtlety is not something that usually seems to concern her.
‘Well we don’t just have to work with underwear and shoes. After having followed his every move for the last few weeks, I can tell you, for example, that he has a particular weakness for Häagen-Dazs. He even sneaks off at lunchtime to eat a couple of small tubs in a local café.’
‘So?’ I asked.
‘So we could maybe arrange for people to come into our side of the courtroom wearing a Häagen-Dazs T-shirt or cap whenever OldSmoothie’s saying something we want the judge to like.’
‘Right,’ I said, remaining sceptical.
‘And, I’ve also discovered from one of my “tube passengers” that he hates Manchester United with a passion.’
‘Good man,’ I said. ‘Blue Army all the way.’
‘Er, well, yes,’ said BrainWasher, slightly confused. ‘So, as you can probably guess, whenever we want the judge to dislike something, we arrange for someone wearing a Manchester United badge or T-shirt to walk into court on our opponents’ side of the room.’
Well, the idea had grabbed my imagination, if not the science behind it, so we gave him the green light. In fact as I write this he is currently auditioning people to find suitable candidates to wear the Häagen-Dazs and Manchester United T-shirts respectively.
He also told me to get our side to very subtly mirror the body language of the judge as another less specific non-verbal strategy for winning him over. Oh, and he mentioned that it might be useful if I steadily roll my bewigged head from side to side during the hearing as well . . .
Friday 13 June 2008
Year 2 (week 37): Who guards the guards?
OldRuin was in chambers today and talking to HeadClerk about police powers.
‘It’s the age-old problem,’ he said. ‘It’s all very well having an independent police force but then who guards the guards?’
‘We do. The people,’ said HeadClerk. ‘You know, through Parliament.’
‘You’re right, of course,’ answered OldRuin. ‘But who guards them?’
‘Well, the judges do, I suppose,’ said HeadClerk. ‘But now you’re going to ask me who guards them, I suppose?’
‘It had crossed my mind.’
‘Well, it’s the barristers who guard the judges against the worst of their excesses. Expose their weaknesses. “Steer them away from the folly of their instincts” as HeadofChambers always likes to put it.’
‘I see. So it’s the Bar who actually guards the guards?’
‘Well, yes, I suppose it is.’
OldRuin paused for effect, ‘And who would you say guards them?’
HeadClerk beamed as he suddenly realised where OldRuin had gently led the conversation.
‘Why it’s the clerks of course! You’re absolutely right, OldRuin. I hadn’t thought of it like that before. Through a long and convoluted network of checks and balances it’s ultimately the humble barrister’s clerk who guards our democratic freedoms.’
‘Quite so,’ smiled OldRuin.
Monday 16 June 2008
Year 2 (week 38): Long shot
As well as the extra hours I’ve been forced to put in on the Moldy litigation, I’ve also had to juggle working on OldRuin’s hospital case. In the last few weeks this has often meant working late into the night just to stay on top of it. It involves lots of documents concerning both the hospital and the decision-making process, and then endless amounts of case law that I’m having to read for the first time. I’ve been doing most of this alone because, to be fair to OldRuin, he’s been quite subtle in his efforts to reconcile Claire and me and he has left us with different and discrete pieces of work to be getting on with.
But with the hearing set for August, it was finally time for us all to have a meeting with the locals in OldRuin’s village today. So, around midday I found myself drinking coffee in Waterloo station with Claire and OldRuin as we waited to board the train to deepest Hampshire. OldRuin had travelled into chambers this morning under the auspices of ‘needing to collect some papers’ but by this point I knew full well that the real reason was so that he could help smooth the way between Claire and me. For what it’s worth, it certainly seemed to be working.
After we’d boarded and taken our seats, OldRuin led the conversation. ‘I love this time of year. As soon as you get off the train you’ll smell the elderflowers just outside the station and then within a hundred yards you pass a little patch of woodland packed full with wild garlic.’
‘Do you pick them?’ I asked.
‘Oh indeed yes. I very much like to have a little elderflower wine on the go and my wife always insisted that I made some cordial to complement it. As for the garlic, it’s rather good in salads. You know it was so prized in the past that its location even used to appear on early maps.’
He smiled as he ruminated on country matters. ‘Though I think my favourite crop of the early summer is the asparagus. I’ve never found it growing wild but our local grocer always seems to manage to source it from somewhere. The king of the vegetables they call it and not without reason.’ Claire and I smiled at each other over our coffees.
When we finally arrived at OldRuin’s village, what was most noticeable was OldRuin’s high standing in the local community. A number of people mentioned to me how kind he had been to them personally and how much they admired him. The meeting today was for us to explain to everyone the timetable and also to bring together the various local groupings that would form the campaign outside of the litigation. Despite all our hard work, however, we are all well aware that at the very best it’s a long shot.
On the train back, after OldRuin had waved goodbye to us from the platform, Claire and I had a moment of awkward silence. Eventually I asked her a question about a case I knew she had been working on and soon we were catching up with each other’s lives as if the awkwardness had never happened. I realised once again how much I’d missed her. And although I didn’t dare ask about her love life, I did at one point hesitatingly compliment her on her shoes. She looked embarrassed.
‘Oh, these. Silly really. Not very practical I admit but I have a very glamorous grandmother who gave me them for my birthday and I feel guilty if I don’t wear them occasionally.’
So much for TheVamp’s and Smutton’s great theory about Claire.
Tuesday 17 June 2008
Year 2 (week 38): Taking the ass out of harass
‘Does anyone know anything about sexual harassment?’ TheCreep asked this morning in the clerks room.
‘OldSmoothie’s the expert in that department,’ replied UpTights promptly.
‘And you should know by now that it’s not sexual harASSment,’ said HeadofChambers emphasising the second syllable. ‘Harass rhymes with embarrass and embarrassment’s exactly what you’ll be suffering if you start throwing around that sort of Americanism in front of an English judge.’
‘Though let’s be fair,’ said TheVamp, ‘an employment tribunal isn’t exactly the top of the judicial ladder.’
‘Ooh, feisty!’ said TheCreep, who has recently begun attempting to quote from television series such as The Inbetweeners in the hope that a bit of their credibility might rub off.
‘And anyway, I think that you’ll find that OldSmoothie has always put the stress on the ass when it comes to harassment,’ added UpTights, ignoring TheCreep.
‘You know,’ said TheCreep earnestly breaking back in, ‘I was recently invited to join a Facebook group that calls itself the “Sexual Harrassment Action Group” . . .’ His voice tailed off as he noticed the silence and the smirks that followed.
‘So quiet you can almost hear a penny drop,’ said TheBusker with a smile.
Wednesday 18 June 2008
Year 2 (week 38): The moderniser
OldSmoothie went in for a meeting at Tory HQ yesterday, following up on BigMouth’s suggestion that he might make rather a good life peer. Unfortunately for him, however, it seems BigMouth’s influence doesn’t quite extend as far as the leader’s office and he was told that they were really looking for people who are a bit more ‘with it’. Whilst the rest of chambers has no doubt that this means people who are more ‘on the ball’ and maybe just in touch with the real world, he’s taken it to mean ‘trendy’.
With this in mind he has unfortunately turned to TheCreep for lifestyle advice, after hearing him quoting from The Inbetweeners again. The result was that yesterday OldSmoothie was spotted strutting around in black Converse trainers (‘sneaker shoes’ as he calls them) and loudly answering his iPhone in the style of Nessa from Gavin & Stacey. Nessa as interpreted by an ageing barrister in a cut-glass English accent. It is as tragic as it sounds and living proof that in the cases of both TheCreep and OldSmoothie it’s definitely how you tell them that counts. As UpTights pointed out, ‘Reminds me of that line from Evelyn Waugh about the one being a Dodo and the other a petrified egg.’
Thursday 19 June 2008
Year 2 (week 38): Addressing the Chair
UpTights has recently set up a marketing committee for chambers and I attended its inaugural meeting today. She opened by saying, ‘Now, before we get started I’d like to clarify exactly how I wish to be addressed.’
‘What, like an envelope?’ asked OldSmoothie.
UpTights ignored the remark and continued, ‘I don’t think the name “chairman” would be entirely appropriate.’
‘How about simply “The Chair”?’ asked BusyBody.
‘I’m not a piece of furniture,’ said UpTights indignantly.
‘And she doesn’t have four legs either,’ added TheBusker with a smile.
OldSmoothie drew breath as if to add to that comment but then in an unusual show of restraint said, ‘No, I won’t say it. Such an innuendo would be beneath me.’
‘I doubt that that would be possible,’ retorted UpTights. ‘Anyway, I would like to be addressed as “Madam Chairwoman”.’
‘For the avoidance of any doubt, naturally,’ said OldSmoothie.
Ever the peacemaker, OldRuin then added, ‘You know, whenever I’m challenged by my use of words like he, him or man, I tell them that they should be construed in the same way as those under section 6(a) of The Interpretation Act 1978, in which words importing the masculine gender are deemed to include the feminine.’
Friday 20 June 2008
Year 2 (week 38): Smutton or Slutton?
We were discussing Smutton at chambers tea today.
‘She’s got a certain, er, je ne sais quoi,’ I said.
‘More like je ne sais pas if you ask me,’ said UpTights.
‘Yes, she’s definitely the brassy to UpTights’s classy,’ said HeadofChambers with a smile.
‘Classy with a capital K,’ said OldSmoothie.
‘Well, quite,’ said HeadofChambers.
‘Or maybe the Smutton to UpTights’s Slutton?’ said OldSmoothie chortling, as usual, at his own joke.
Then BusyBody stepped in. ‘You know, with the amount of hot air you two produce, you could start your very own barrister wind farm.’
‘I like that idea,’ said TheBusker. ‘Imagine if you set up some turbines at say the High Court and also the Houses of Parliament at the same time. They’d probably generate enough power for the whole of London.’
‘And I hear they can even generate electricity from sewage,’ said UpTights, ‘which might also be of use to OldSmoothie given that most of what he says comes out of his back end.’
As we returned to our room from tea, I happened to mention to OldRuin that I had been struggling with a little DIY for my mother last night and had decided that it wasn’t something in which I excelled.
‘BabyB, I’ve always subscribed to the philosophy that it is essential to earn enough to ensure that one never has to pick up a paint brush or screwdriver. You know about Lord Finchley, I’m sure?’
I replied that I didn’t. OldRuin said, ‘Hilaire Belloc I think. Now let’s see if I can remember how it goes. It’s been a few years.’
He paused and looked up and then slowly recited the following lines:
‘“Lord Finchley tried to mend the Electric Light
Himself. It struck him dead: And serve him right!
It is the business of the wealthy man
To give employment to the artisan.”’
Monday 23 June 2008
Year 2 (week 39): Barrister mating rituals
After the stitch up that was WhistleBlower’s performance in court, UpTights has been rubbing our respective noses in it with the judge at every opportunity and she is very much managing to control the narrative of the trial. So much so, in fact, that even JudgeFetish has started making derogatory noises about WhistleBlower’s evidence. This has not only infuriated OldSmoothie but it also means that our extra-curricular tactics are now even more of a necessity and BrainWasher has been hard at work spreading his not-so-subtle messages in the courtroom. Today it felt a little like he was putting on a circus.
First there were the T-shirts: a succession of beautiful girls wearing Häagen-Dazs T-shirts entered the courtroom each time OldSmoothie was making a point. Then, whenever UpTights got to her feet, a fat, male Manchester United fan would come in. All of this to-ing and fro-ing was set against a backdrop that included Smutton and UpTights dressed to the nines, as always, in Myla and Louboutins, a detail I was finally noticing.
Ostensibly, the subject of today’s proceedings was the evidence from one of the telecom company’s executives. But the real show, as is so often the case, actually belonged to the barristers. Every time one of them stood up either to interrupt or to ask a question, the other one would lob a whispered insult across the courtroom.
‘You’re a stretched and gabbling shrew-faced old harridan, UpTights,’ whispered OldSmoothie.
At which UpTights leant back like a coiled spring before unleashing, ‘Can’t you do any better than that, OldSmoothie, you prattling, mangy, two-faced, fat, lickorous old git.’
‘You’re a dried-up plastic old scrag end,’ he hissed as she stood up once again.
‘And you my dear man are a maggot-pated clunch and a dirty old buck fitch,’ came the reply as she sat down.
This rather threw OldSmoothie and we all heard him whisper, ‘A clunch and a buck fitch?’
To which UpTights replied, ‘That’s right. Look it up if you have to, you crapulent piece of rotting horse hair.’
The exchange of insults that accompanied their rising to address the judge, or a witness, was like a barrister version of Torvill and Dean’s Bolero: a carefully choreographed dance, in which each flirtatiously toyed with the other before the spotlight swung back. Meanwhile, in the background, the entrances and exits of the Häagen-Dazs girls and pie-eating blokes continued whilst we all did our best to copy the particular body language that the judge was exhibiting from moment to moment. All of which was accompanied by the rhythmic lolling of my head from side to side, as if I were a sort of hypnotic metronome.
Then without any warning, OldSmoothie’s angry face suddenly broke into a huge smile and he put his arm out towards UpTights who was actually only sitting a couple of feet away. He squeezed her shoulder and said, ‘I really don’t know what I’d do without you, UpTights.’
She immediately pulled away from this invasion of her oh-so-important personal space, but not before whispering awkwardly and with as much of a smile as h
er stretched features would allow, ‘Love you too, OldSmoothie.’
Nowt, as I’ve said before, so queer as folk. Either they’re both starting to suffer Tourette’s whenever they come within hearing distance of each other or they’re actually madly in love, and insulting and degrading one another is just a kind of sadomasochistic mating ritual for ageing, bored and over-educated barristers. My money has always been on the latter.
As I told the story later in the clerks room, HeadClerk said, ‘They’d each be nothing without the other. It’s what gets them out of bed each day.’
‘I’ve always liked the concept of entangled particles in quantum physics,’ said TheBusker. ‘That as one moves in one part of the universe it inextricably affects the other in a completely different part. It’s just that in OldSmoothie and UpTights’ case it’s in a bad way.’
‘Reminds me of a time when I saw so many shooting stars that I actually ran out of good wishes,’ chuckled HeadClerk. ‘I ended up wishing bad things, which just kind of felt, well, wrong.’
‘It’s like OldSmoothie and UpTights got to that stage at about “hello”,’ I said.
‘Diamonds and rust, BabyB, diamonds and rust,’ said HeadClerk. ‘Gives them the edge.’
Tuesday 24 June 2008
Year 2 (week 39): Sub-prime UK
HeadofChambers made an announcement in chambers tea this afternoon: ‘It is with deep regret that I must announce that . . .’
At this point, the words and his sombre face led us all to think that he was about to announce the tragic death of someone close. He continued, ‘. . . chambers had three quarters of a million pounds invested in a property investment portfolio with a company that has just gone bankrupt and we are struggling to recover any of it.’
