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.

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’.

             

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.

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.

Post Truth Trash: the best body balm in the world and other lies.

Every body needs a little care. Even the aging, much abused but still serviceable body of a grafting criminal barrister. I may be growing cranky and cynical with age but I am not totally without optimism. Even I want and hope to have aches soothed, pains reduced and broken bits fixed. So it was with some excitement that I viewed the array of promising personal items in my hotel room during my latest work trip.

Black tubes, longer than most, was an encouraging sign.

Stylish black tubes, longer than most, was an encouraging first sign. According to the blurb printed in white along their length, this collection of body products was officially amazing. Today I tried them all. This morning after my first jolt of coffee, instead of reading and re-reading briefs, I used those hopefully remarkable fluids and lotions. They promised to make me feel good and absolutely unstoppable in court and elsewhere. Today I would shine, which is good, because lately I’ve emitted nothing but a dull glow. The Urban Skincare Co’s range of body products would change that. How did it go? Read on.

The Nude Selfie Movement: from toss shot to selfie stick and beyond.

Thirty-two years ago I tossed a camera into the air, smiled at the sky then heard the device smash to smithereens at my feet. An inauspicious beginning for the photographic technique that delights the world today. Of course, I didn’t give up at one smashed camera, or two or three. I kept trying till I perfected the toss-shot then went on to invent the selfie proper: it turns out that any inanimate object or slow moving animal can be used to create selfies. Your camera, rested on a rock, wedged in a tree branch or taped to a koala, will give you a basic selfie. This technique was a triumph of invention. Then came the stick.

Choose a stick of appropriate weight and length.

The World's First Selfie: how I invented the toss-shot and what came next.

A typical early 'toss shot'.

It is 32 years since I invented the selfie. Little did I know how the technique would sweep the globe. How today, everyone has held out an arm to snap a shot of themselves, sometimes even wearing clothes. How with a click of the finger it’s possible to record yourself with friends, politicians, sportsman, actors, animals and food. How the crude selfie-stick I made decades ago has developed into the slickest, most high tech lengths of composite in the world. How the world’s first go-pro that I fashioned with VHS and string has become small, robust and waterproof.

Thirty-two years. If it were a marriage it would be the diamond anniversary plus two. So it seems fitting to record how it all began. In this piece I'll reveal the story of the selfie's creation. Next week I'll write about how far the selfie has come and how a remote village in South America is challenging the world to return to the selfie's simple beginnings.

Beware the Crows: the curious case of the barrister and the beak.

Barristers must sometimes walk about in the open. You see, unlike dentists who magically appear by your side as you recline sporting protective glasses, like an astronaut awaiting launch, barristers must move about: between chambers and court, between court and lunch, back to chambers, off to the bar and sometimes home. Cars are used for the longer journeys. Usually something small and foreign, but given the state of the Australian car industry this is a necessity rather than a mark of status. While cars are safe enough when operated at moderate speed by a driver uneffected by alcohol or other substances, walking is an entirely different proposition. It is dangerous and becoming more so. Barristers just walking about are at risk.

The Truth About Travel: time spent in a tube of farts.

Criminal barristers travel to where their trials take place. Sometimes that's a city, sometimes a town, sometimes it's a whistle stop with nothing but bad coffee and dust to recommend it. Nothing to be jealous about there, right? Wrong. Travel, even travel for work fires jealously in the inexperienced. Tell them you’re flying and staying at a 4-star and they’ll call it a junket quicker than you can gag them and twist their ear.

A tired travelling waiting to board a tube of farts.

         In truth travel for work is nothing like travel for pleasure. Obviously one reason for that is the work itself. Unless you are one of those lucky individuals who are passionate about what they do, then working away from home is just work with a higher degree of difficulty.

'What the fuck you lookin' at?'

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.

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 ....

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.

'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.

World First Exclusive: The North Korean Justice System.

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.

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 music. There 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.'

Is China's Island Building in the South China Sea Offensive?

Has the international law of the sea been violated by this enormous penis shaped island? Who knows? But one things is certain ...

Going to Court is Bad. Very, Very Bad.

Let me be brutally honest, after most trials someone is left choking on what might as well be a mouldy sock stuffed with dehydrated testicles. Going to court is bad. Not just a little bit bad but very, very bad. The BreakingBad kind of bad. The Bad Santa kind of bad. The ‘fuck me officer, those cuffs are awfully tight’ kind of bad.

It’s the kind of bad that comes when someone owes you so much money that paying lawyers thousands of dollars to get some back seems like a good idea. It’s the sort of bad that comes when your once blissful marriage is so busted that some stranger has to tell you who gets what and when you see the kids. It’s the kind of bad that happens when you’re blamed for something so appalling that society wants you gaoled.

Can Thai Massage Kill You?

The answer to this question is important to any busy professional exploring ways to relax. All professionals need some down time. Trial lawyers, like astronauts and brain surgeons are no exception.

Trials are stressful; tough work at the very coalface of justice. To do well lawyers must master facts and law, conference witnesses, prepare cross-examinations and rehearse opening and closing addresses. Even slack lawyers who dispense with such trifles find trials stressful.

Trial lawyers handle stress in different ways. I know one barrister who starts each trial day by pulling cows' teats and ends them by strangling chickens and pulling more teats. Another liked to commence his marathon trials with separation or divorce; 'decluttering' he called it.

But what if you don't own a hobby farm and aren't inclined to dismantle your domestic life?