Icelanders Give the UK and The Netherlands Two Fingers
Th Icedlanders did what was expected and rejected the deal to repay the UK and The Netherlands in a referendum. After all it wasn’t the fault of the good people of Iceland, that their banks went bust.
The trouble is there is a hell of lot more than one born every minute. A few ended up running the Icelandic banks and many more individuals and councils from the UK and The Netherlands invested in banks that were paying a rate that was too good to be true.
If you put any money in something that is outside of both the banking regulations and the UK, you’re asking for trouble. I know people who put all their savings in such as Icesave. They’d have got a better return in Corals, backing horse number 7 in each race.
But the individuals were all compensated by Gordon Brown, using our hard-earned taxes. After all if he hadn’t, the election result might have been different!
Councils, like these in Scotland are still waiting.
Commentators and politicians say the dispute will end up in court. So the lawyers will love that one!
Did Jack Warner Ask for a Bribe?
Read this story from the Press Association about a possible meeting between Jack Warner and two of the leaders of the England 2018 World Cup Bid team.
I thought when I read the article in The Times this morning that Mr. Warner might consider it to be a libel. Let’s hope he tries to prove it in a UK Court of Law! I’m sure Rupert Murdoch would enjoy the challenge.
I’m very much against libel tourism, but in this case I might be prepared to make an exception.
Twibel
The papers are talking about the problems of libel associated with Twitter. Here’s the Daily Mail, on what happens when it all goes wrong.
It all looks to me like a nice new area for lawyers to earn a few pounds, dollars or euros.
But then it’s not the first tweet, it’s the repeating of that tweet to everybody else. So are we all guilty?
Should Sex Offenders be on the Register for Life?
The UK Supreme Court has said that they shouldn’t and Scotland has already allowed appeals. According to the BBC, the government is now going to allow appeals in England and Wales.
I welcome this as despite the well-known proverb about leopards, we all know of people, who have modified their behaviour from what was definitely beyond reason to one of being an asset to society.
So if people can do this in areas such as violent crime or serious anti-social behaviour, what is to say that some sex offenders modify their behaviour to be no danger to anybody. Obviously, some will never be safe, but others may well be and should be given the right of appeal.
But I suspect that the Vengence Tendency will feel that no change should ever happen.
The Supreme Court on More4
There was a good documentary on the UK Supreme Court on More4 earlier in the week.
For those who missed it, it’s here.
And there is a review on the program in the Telegraph.
Prisoners and Votes
This is a difficult one as I said earlier and I suspect that when the Commons vote tonight, they’ll make the worst of a bad job.
The general population and the tabloids and especially those of the vengeful tendency are all for a total ban, but perhaps what we need is a radical approach.
After all the number of people in jail, is probably more than have the right to vote in many constiuencies. So why not have another parliamentary constituency and they can vote for who they want? You might put restrictions on those who could stand, so such as the Yorkshire Ripper couldn’t. And obviously anybody serving a current sentence would find it difficult. But then no-one could argue that we weren’t giving prisoners representation and voting rights.
It is not for me to call lawyers greedy, but if we don’t give prisoners some rights in this area, my learned friends will have a lot of work to do, dealing with compensation claims against the government. And then if the prisoners should win compensation, their victims would then have some assets to fight over!
So voting not to give prisoners the vote could be a beanfeast for lawyers.
The World’s Most Stupid Hotel Owners
The ruling against hotel owners in Cornwall reported here on the BBC, probably says that some people shouldn’t open certain businesses for their own financial health. I’ve listened to what they have said and they would like to ban any unmarried couples from sharing a room in their hotel. So it’s not just gays, but from what they have said, they wouldn’t allow me, as a widow to share a bed with one of either sex.
Surely, in times of austerity, you want all of the business you can get.
Now here’s an idea! There are a lot of widows out there living as couples. Why not book a night in the hotel? When they say you can’t sleep together, you can supplement your earnings with a little bit of legal chicanery. There are also plenty of lawyers out there who would do it on a no-win no-fee basis.
Where C Used to Work
C was a family barrister and this picture shows one of the places, where her important cases used to end up, The Principle Registry of the Family Division.
The Principle Registry of the Family Division
It is rather anonymous building for such an important court. For many years the court was in the grandeur of Somerset House and then in a less grand building by Holborn Tube Station. I think it is true to say that the later buildings were chosen for cost rather than legal gravitas reasons.
Free Speech in the Coeliac Area
Someone, who lives outside of the UK, has said that their coeliac society has objected to criticism of the society, that they wrote in an Internet chat-room.
I’m all for free speech as you know, providing it’s not malicious and very much support the reform of the libel law in the UK. I’m a big supporter of Sense About Science, who are trying to stop commercial interests using the UK’s libel laws for their our ends.
The coeliac area has been pretty free of legal spats so far, but I suspect we will see quite a few in the next few years.
So many companies make a lot of money and they don’t like new entrants to the market and so many doctors have a nice simple living from coeliac disease, and probably wouldn’t like changes to diagnostic methods and then there’s the charity racket. Certainly in the UK, there are loads of retired great and good, who get on the charity bandwagon to have a nice lifestyle. I have no knowledge of the UK Coeliac society as I’m a Marxist of the Groucho tendency, who wouldn’t join any club, that would have me as a member. But as it’s fairly small according to the accounts, it probably hasn’t any places for freeloaders. But sadly there are many charities, that are virtually run for the benefit of their board, if you believe some of the accounts I’ve read in the newspapers.
The problem with the coeliac market is that any good cook, can create their own completely gluten-free meals. I would argue you don’t even have to be a good cook, as some of the recipes I use are very much enjoyed by my friends and family. Most have been stolen from the Internet or borrowed from friends.
Also on the coeliac front in the UK, there is a war out there, partly driven by the recession, in that quite a few intelligent and ethical food technologists see the coeliac market as a place of expansion. Every week I go to Waitrose or other supermarkets, there seems to be something new. Yesterday it was the Honest bread, but there has been Lazy Days biscuits from Scotland and now there may be Estrella Damm Laura beer from Spain. I’ve also seen some luxury foods, like soups, that have been made deliberately gluten-free so that their market is bigger. Established coeliac food companies and even mainstream ones are under threat, but they have nowhere to complain about companies who are being both ethical and commercial. Even the supermarkets can’t help, as I suspect that the new quality entrants can give them better sales and possibly better margins.
An Original Painting by M. Levett
I’ve finally got around to putting some paintings on the wall.
An Original Oil Painting by M. Levett
This painting is the first to go up and is an original oil by a barrister called Levett, who once came on holiday with us at our house in France. This is the story of the painting from the original post.
One holiday stands out. C and I took, one of her barrister colleagues, away to the house for a few days. He was and hopefully still is very outspoken. He would lie on that beach and say in a loud upper-class English voice, ‘Look at that lump of lard over there’ at some lady who’d been eating for two. Luckily, no-one understood his English or perhaps most were laughing with him.
That holiday too we went to a Michelin starred restaurant in Antibes, where the wine waiter was the spitting image of Stephen Fry, doing an impression of Lord Melchett from Blackadder, doing a cariacature of a wine waiter complete with tastevin. He never understood why we kept laughing at him.
The painting was a contribution to his lodging and very much a surprise to both of us. Especially in its quality. Note the label on the bottle says Chateau Melchett.
The Anonymous Widower 