Blawg Review #160

Dear Diary,

Law Blog Review for the Week of May the 19th in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Eight

Well, here it is. For months now, readers have been deluging Mistress Ruthie and I with private messages telling us what they would like us to do for them (although only Mr Greeklawyer has said that he would like us to do it for him as a pair). And for months Mistress Ruthie has been diverting requests for favours, whilst I have been instructing Tucker to plant his large staff before such supplicants and tell them to beat it off before they ask for anything from me.

Yes, dear Diary, it is the legal blog review. I was asked to call it a blawg review but, as I said to dear Ed, “There is no call to ask one to spell it the way one says it - this is English after all”. Alas he failed to take the point: such a uncooperative soul. Although officially anonymous, I suspect him of being an American.

I shall deal firstly with those who feel that their efforts require self-submission, rather than assuming we have discovered them through their merits. As Mistress Ruthie knows, I am all in favour of self-submission.

• Someone called John Phillips, who I take to be no relation to Nick has self-submitted 4 articles. I think a reference to one is enough. John likes to sit on the fence and this article is as close as it gets to taking a position. I fear that if John bent over his arse would be full of splinters.
• A gentleman named Robert Coffield has self-submitted 3 articles. These are about health law in West Virginia and, inter alios, reveal that West Virginian Moms (whatever they may be) rank 38th for maternal health, out of 51 contenders, scoring 69%. I am confident that this is a topic of absorbing interest to all who, as I did, loved The Virginian. Put Judge Garth in charge and West Virginia would be number one in a twinkling.
• Chinalaw has written about sports shoes. Presumably all of them are made in China by illiterate teenge peasants paid peanuts to feed the materiality of the West. A great read.
• Mad Kane let us know that she writes amusing verse. Dear Diary, nothing will ever improve upon my own efforts, but Mad (who describes herself as a Recovering Lawyer - which I take to mean poor) is on the right track, and deserves a visit from a hack, who won’t give her the sack when she’s flat on her back.
• Scott Greenfield simply wrote to us and begged. Dear Diary, this is a good approach. Of more interest is Scott’s support for same sex marriage. A brave stance and a right one. And one oh so close to my heart. It seems to me that all human beings should be equally entitled to the same form of misery. Why should homosexuals be favoured? As one of my clients told me not long ago, “married life is like being banged up. But there are fewer screws.”
• Daniel A Schwartz has recommended his post about internal message boards. I read this, dear Diary, but I did not understand it. Tucker wants to know what A Schwartz is.

Now for those that this blog knows and loves:

• Greeklawyer has been following his customary path of empathy and understanding in dealing with the death of a barrister in a shoot-out with the police. To Americans this is an everday occurence, but it is still rare enough over here to make news.
• Norm is still blogging away about those dreadful machines. However, Mistress Ruthie insists that Norm gets an entry and thus it is that he penetrates even the sacred portals of my diary. Norm says, ‘Imagine being able to socialize with 55,000 bikers without having to leave the comfort of your home!’ Dear Diary, must I?
• Mark Bennett has had a go at categorising legal blogs. Dear Diary, he explores three divisions, known as prophetic, proselytizing and incestuous. In English terms this seems to correlate with Administrative Law, Human Rights Law and Criminal Law.
• Evan Brown has a post on the steps being taken against those engaged in internet bullying. I found this thoughtful and interesting. It links in well with what Mental Nurse has said about what is happening in Bridgend.
• Charon QC has a post about gazundering.This is not a practice in which this blog would ever indulge, being unethical and mean. It is available to the unscrupulous because of the credit crunch. It has also been Charon’s birthday. By my calculations, he is now 3,262 years old and has collected a state-pension so large that he can afford to drink Bodegas Palacio 1964 from now on.
• The credit crunch, of course, emanates from the States and has now come over here. So, too, has Dan Hull, who now calls his blog “What about Paris?” Dear Diary, in my view this is most ungallant. His blog should be called “What about Ruthie?” Mistress Ruthie may not be an heiress but she is also, Mr Greeklawyer’s dark hints to the contrary notwithstanding, much more discreet about what she does on camera. Still, Dan has been improving his knowledge of Merrie England by listening to Northumbrian folksongs. I recommend Cushy Butterfield, a song with a message for all matrimonial lawyers, especially dear old John Bolch who seems to have been suffering from a sense of ennui lately.
• Down amongst the students, LawMinx is awaiting the results of her applications to Barristers’ Chambers with trepidation but is offering an award to those who write the best rejection letter. Dear Diary, at heart they all say the same thing and they are laughing at one. Legal Lass has also applied to Chambers but, being distracted by her new lover, is not so nervous. Ruthie’s Law wishes them both bon chance and, should they fail, may consider taking one or both on as an intern.
• Big news in the UK has been the efforts of a particular local authority to avoid behaving fairly to a father in a unpleasant divorce. Jaqui G (sister, so I am told of the more famous Ali) has the story. Local Authorities and the way in which they fairly represent us all is also the theme over at Nearly Legal which deals with the case where the UK has just been told by the ECHR that you can only mislead people about signing away their tenancies if it is proportionate to do so: that’s all right then.
• Meanwhile, the Bystander encountered deconstructed language and did not much like it. For a number of years the bar students performed Christmas Revels which included a take-off of Bohemian Rhapsody and included the line, “He’s got a job he starts tomorrow, as a painter-decorator”.
• Our very own art expert continues to keep an eye on important trials involving solicitors and provide updates on the likely future for our favourite painting.
• Head of Legal is still on holiday, again. Dear Diary, the man writes a good blog and he says he used to advise Tony Blair but that is not how he affords so many holidays. He is currently in Las Vegas - I suspect a system.
• Whilst our Lord Chief Justice has been strutting down the catwalk, the legal community possibly fearing retribution, possibly simply bored by another posing lawyer story, has been silent. The issue has, bizarrely, been most discussed in a different forum altogether. There amongst the contributors is one Simon Myerson. If this is the same person as he of the blog, then it may explain a long period of silence.
• Our mates at Impact are still proving that it is possible to write legal posts which 99% of known lawyers do not understand. Well done.
• Finally, we offer a hat-tip to possibly the best resource on the UK legal web; Inner Temple’s Current Awareness blog. Dear Diary, it is not exactly conspicuous by its narrative structure, but if you want to impress your legal partners, your instructing solicitor, your oppo or a Judge it is compulsory reading. If you use it to try to impress your non-legal partner, then I am afraid that either you or they, and perhaps both of you, are a sad bastard.

So there it is dear Diary. Mistress Ruthie is, alas, engaged in writing her book which I believe to be on the subject of whether it is within the health and safety legislation to apply a lighted match to an oil platform when the said platform has first been doused in a mixture of petrol and specially dried wood chips. The answer is clearly being painstakingly researched. Personally I deprecate legal tomes, which is why I write only to you my dear Diary. As Bismark said, “The less people know about how sausages and laws are made, the better they sleep at night.”

I am now supposed to tell you that “Blawg Review has information about next week’s host, and instructions how to get your blawg posts reviewed in upcoming issues.” In deference to Mr Ed I have done so, but I urge you to lose the language of the hood and revert to the language of The Queen, may God bless her.

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