Monday 26 September 2016

SEO Secrets - Search Engine Optimization: One idiot's experience.

Learn about the Ten Best, Fifty Best, One Hundred Best, Seventy-six, Pretty Good SEO Ideas. Learn the Secrets of, and, How to. Must See. Don't Miss the Must Sees or the Dangers of. Watch out for our SEO Scams Revealed. Or for the ultimate, learn the truth about How to Break the Internet with your popularity. All this and other half-true tales ... coming soon, or, not.

More Court Lingo. Secrets Revealed. Part 3 of 3.

Here are some useful phrases. You may not get to use these ones, but you’ll do well to understand them. Knowing them may mean the difference between surviving your day in court, or dieing there.


Sunday 18 September 2016

Court Lingo Revealed. Part 2 of Several.


Charles Dickens wrote in The Pickwick Papers.

"'Why, I don't exactly know about perjury, my dear sir,' replied the little gentleman. 'Harsh word, my dear sir, very harsh word indeed. It's a legal fiction, my dear sir, nothing more.'"

I wonder what the fuck that means. Anyway, back to Australian legal idioms ....


Saturday 17 September 2016

One Night In Dublin. An Aussie lawyer walked into a bar.

People have long been interested in legal language. That doesn't mean they like it. Legal formalities, conceits and obfuscations are ridiculed and demonised in popular culture. Lawyers who use the language to confront and confuse are mocked, except for those who, sadly, are appointed to the bench.

Australian lawyers, especially those working in the regions are less frequent offenders. Those who speak to juries in criminal trials are the least offensive of all.

They, the good ones, speak a more accessible language. Plain English, with a twist. But that doesn't mean that there is never any confusion. Sometimes there is.

Friday 16 September 2016

'I Hope You've Brought a Toothbush': Peter Cook n' Australian Legalese. Part 1 of more.

Every profession has its own language. Medicine has its archaic tongue of body parts and procedures, engineering its dialect of structure and form. While the Law, being a discipline of ideas, relies more heavily than most upon language.

Legalese is formal, often dated and sometimes unfathomable – even for lawyers. Sometimes the concepts being expressed are to blame: just ask any judge who’s had to explain self-defence against provoked assault to a jury. Sometimes the practitioners are to blame: especially those who seek to shroud their own ignorance in jurisprudential gobbledygook.
But there is another legal language. One that is lush and fun and just a little anarchic.

Tuesday 6 September 2016

Legal Lingo Explained. 'nod the nut' and other phrases exposed.

Ever wondered if legalese really is a language? Ever wanted to know what a barrister means when she says with a flourish of her gown, 'I appear, Your Honour.'? Ever pondered, 'what does "respect" mean in the legal context?'  Ever sat in a pub nursing a beer and asked yourself, 'what does "nod the nut" mean when it falls from a barrister's mouth'. (And what does 'falls from a barrister's mouth' mean anyway???)

If you answered no to each of these questions then go away now and don't come back for a week. If you answered 'yes' to even just one of them, then stay focused because I'm going to tell you the answers over the next week or so.

Friday 2 September 2016

How the Internet Killed Experience. Or, How I Learned Never to Iron in the Nude.


Today there are websites and posts for everything. 'How to' sites that make the mind boggle: Banana juggling for beginners, how to yodel, fart musicThere are sites that answer questions to settle the most bizarre bets, like are whales fish? and did man really visit the moon? There are cautionary posts too, like safe chainsaw use and the dangers of the mile high club.
I think the world is a poorer place for all this screen learning. What happened to experience?
Lawyer: 'Representing fraudsters  is like juggling bananas.
You never know where the bent bastards will end up.'