Thursday 13 July 2017

Sex with Fruit and Other Foods: an email from the year 2050 - and a cynical attempt to increase traffick to this wonderful piece by sexing up the title.

I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is there is lots of sex in the future; the bad news is not much is between humans.
Once upon a time the best sex you could get was the kind between consenting adults. The kind you had to work at getting and that carried the potential for life changing consequences, like enduring partnerships, love and children. The messy kind that was breath-taking, heart-thumping and mind-cleansing. The kind that fathered pride, pleasure, passion and sometimes, less pleasingly, embarrassment and shame.
Then came technology. The same technology that crammed the world into your phone and killed everything from newspapers to conversation. It has just about killed good old-fashioned sex too. Replaced all but the shadow of it with virtual sex of a wondrous but barren and dangerous kind.

Thursday 6 July 2017

How to Greet a Killer


How do you greet a killer? Law school does not prepare you for it. Nor does the bar practice course or pupillage. For most barristers this is not a deficiency in the learning because the likelihood of acting for a killer is small. However for criminal defence barristers, especially those who achieve some seniority, the likelihood becomes certainty.

What do you do when you finally meet that rarest of beasts, the human being who has taken the life of another.

Thursday 29 June 2017

The Worst Job I Ever Had: lessons from the man without Latin.

He was crude, abusive and cruel; intelligent, creative and quick. All this clicking and sliding, burning and sparking within his tall and beautiful frame. He spoke just enough or incessantly and his timing was perfect. He smoked, was frequently drunk and died too early, one of the funniest men that ever lived.
            Unlike Dudley Moore his diminutive sidekick of many years, Peter Cook never courted Hollywood fame or fortune. Instead he revelled in the sheer pleasure of his pursuits: anarchic satire, exploring the absurd and making others laugh. He has breathed life into some weird and wonderful characters: Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling, EL Wisty and Martin Trout for example. He was especially kind to the legal profession giving us the iconic and timeless ‘Biased Judge’s Summing Up’ and ‘I could have been a judge but I never had the Latin’.

             

Friday 9 June 2017

Judicial Cage Fight: 'order me a fuckin' pizza while you're at it.'

Some of those accused of crimes are ballsy little bastards while others are just plain stupid. They stand in the dock as sentence is passed down and instead of shutting up and getting on with their punishment they insist on having a say.

'You can stick your trial up your arse.'
Sometimes it’s a short and defiant ‘But I didn’t fuckin’ do it’ or a teary ‘I’m sorry, I really am sorry.’ Such trifles pass with not much more than a nod of the judge’s head, or a sharp ‘shut up’. Other ejaculations are met with a much more practical response. The result, a would-be bullying prisoner slapped down and silenced.

Friday 2 June 2017

Judicial Bullying: knotted knickers can be cruel.

Judicial bullying for fun and profit, by Judge Judy.
Though as old as law, it is only recently that judicial bullying has been recognised as a problem. It has sparked the interest of senior practitioners, leaders of the bar and judges; been the subject of scholarly exploration and articles offering advice to its victims. Then there is this: a personal and anxious account of how things once were and still are in some court rooms. It may be rare but it still exists and the results are both fearful and funny.

Saturday 20 May 2017

What Judges Want: a reply - if the court pleases.

You can bet your life on it. At every legal conference there will be a Judge’s presentation of a particular kind. Sometimes the titles mislead. Affective Advocacy sounds innocuous enough, a nice little post-lunch soporific easing one towards the evening’s networking opportunities. Other titles, The View from the Bench, at least hint at their purpose.
Sometimes it can be slow and painful.
Still others are like a merciful kill shot between the eyes of a wounded beast: What Judges Want is unequivocal.
         Whatever the title don’t be fooled, the presentation is not so much an opportunity for the bench to guide and nurture, as it is a chance to warn, threaten and even punish.

Thursday 4 May 2017

The Taste of Isis: it's not what you think.

Place names can be unfortunate. France’s Anus, Boring Tennessee and Fucking in Austria are cases in point. The same can be said for some geological features: the Disappointment Islands of Polynesia, Dick Peaks Antarctica; and Faggot Hill Massachusetts come to mind. Some whole regions are cursed by odd names: the Arse district of Sumatra, Bong County Liberia and Hop Bottom Borough in Pennsylvania to name a few.

         Far from being immune to it, Australia is home to a generous collection of oddly named places. Some - Scone, Orange and Banana - are tasty enough. Others - Yorkeys Knob, Doo Town and Rooty Hill - are a little naughty. While Foul Bay, Dismal Swamp and Mount Warning speak for themselves.

         But we have one regional name that in recent times jars dangerously. I came upon it while working in country Queensland. After a week long trial I picked up a local tourist guide.  Inside an article implored me to ‘Discover the Taste of Isis’.

Saturday 22 April 2017

The Devil's Buttocks: the worst hotel art in the world. WARNING: photographs follow.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you ‘it could be worse’, because sometimes it can’t be. Or, if it could, it is already so bad that degrees of badness are meaningless: think of the cold war when a global nuclear arsenal capable of vaporising the world 100 times was really no worse then once capable of vaporising it once.
         So, sometimes it couldn’t be worse. I know, because currently I’m staring at a case in point. Hotel art so bad it rendered me sleepless and shuddering.
        
The Devil's Buttocks.
Why is it that hoteliers so often take a comfortable and functional apartment and render it almost uninhabitable by adding vomitus objects to the wall. It happens everywhere. Bedrooms discomforted by some black brooding vision, kitchenettes and lounge rooms scourged by crude geometric swipes or exuberant feacal festivals of muck.