Celebrities
The case of Steven Gerrard is in all the newspapers at the moment. It raises a lot of issues, including the case of celebrities behaving properly.
After all, we’ve had a lot lately, who have got into trouble. Read something like Popbitch and you’ll get all the dirt on many who have overstepped the mark.
I go racing a lot, mainly at Newmarket. You see quite a few people there, who are in the news and they are rarely bothered and I’ve never seen anyone behaving less than impeccably. So perhaps, what happens occasionally and gets in the papers is just an aberration.
One tale I remember, is when we were flying to Greece I think and Susan Hampshire was on the plane. It must have been some time in the 1980s and the plane only had one class. She just said hello to everyone, signed a few autographs and just was extremely pleasant. We all left that plane, saying that she such a nice lady. I’ve had a soft spot for her ever since.
It must have been about 1973 or so, when I travelled to Middlesborough on a train. I had breakfast on the train and sat in a set of four seats in the dining car, with two gentlemen from Evans, who ran the shops for larger ladies, and their guest, Janet Webb. If you remember her from her closing the Morecambe and Wise Show, you will remember that she wasn’t a small lady. She entertained the whole carriage. What a trouper!
I also shared a similar four going to Liverpool on a train with two railway engineers and Virginia Wadeat about the same time. I think she was tired as she slept most of the way. Or was it that we talked about trains all the way up! If I remember, she got off at Crewe to take the train to the tournament at Hoylake. How lives have changed for tennis players since.
These are just three instances, where celebrities have enlightened the everyday lives of others. I could add more.
Libel
I have been rather amused when yet another high-profile figure loses a libel case over something in a book, that I would consider trivial and ignore. I would hope I have better things to do than go to court over something like that.
What is interesting about this case, is that I have not heard or seen it being reported on the BBC. Are they frightened that they might get sued for repeating a libel? At least the case is fully reported in the Guardian and there is some wonderful reporting, which may be quite fanciful, scurrilous and made up, in the blogosphere.
Increasingly, as I read my papers and watch the television, I get the impression, that libel is used more and more, by the rich, famous and the powerful to stop adverse or unwelcome views being distributed. Now, I don’t mind if the law is used to protect privacy and keep the secrets that we all would prefer to keep secret, but when it comes to suing those who say Company X is an environmental disgrace, then I’m of the opinion that you turn the other cheek. In my opinion you look an idiot by suing, as you certainly make many more people aware of what was said, whether it is true or not.
My late wife did her first pupilage in libel chambers in Inner Temple. The tales she heard about what people were thinking of suing on were quite hilarious. Unfortunately, most never came to court, as the libel was in fact just an opinion and no-one would care anyway. But it was obviously a very nice earner for the barristers. Interestingly, she told me that regularly members of chambers would go down the road to Fleet Street to read the next day’s papers before printing.
One story, I’ve heard a couple of times, is of the abrasive city tycoon, who was frequently misrepresented in the press. He kept all his cuttings for the visitors to his office to see and actually liked the more outrageous ones. But he never sued. His attitude was right! I don’t think he suffered the Curse of Gnome either. This is a misfortune that occurs if you issue a writ against Private Eye.
So my late wife’s advice to anybody who is thinking about suing for libel was don’t. You’ll make it worse and you’ll only end up with a large bill from lawyers. Even if you win! I agree entirely.
Sometimes in this blog, I might offend someone. I intend not to, but then I might unintentionally. At a first instance, I’d remove the offending post, but then if I knew I was right, I’d fight. But then, I’d go to court as a litigant in person. That would really upset everybody and get maximum publicity.
Incidentally, I shall be buying Private Eye today, to see what they say about yesterday’s case. I probably wouldn’t if the case hadn’t occurred. It will be interesting to see if their sales are up!
Goat Finds God
Lord Myners is discussed in this article, titled “Lord Myners attacks bankers’ greed and finds God” in the Sunday Times. The opening paragraph says it all.
Lord Myners, the minister appointed to clean up the City, is so disenchanted by bankers’ greed and self-aggrandisement that he is planning to become a theology student.
He is one of Gordon Brown’s “Government of all the talents” and was Financial Services Secretary. It’s alright for this goat to find god, as he has already amassed a fortune of about £30 million.
I’m no fan of bankers, but by increasing the top rate of tax in the UK, Gordon Brown is actually playing into their and the smart lawyers’ hands. I sold two technology companies in the seventies and eighties, when top tax rates were at eighty percent and the lawyers had a field day and made large amounts of money, so that my hard earned money didn’t go to government schemes of which I do not approve. So we’ll see increased profits for lawyers and bankers again.
A few collective nouns sum up professionals.
- An anarchy of computer programmers
- A wunch of bankers
- A delay of solicitors
- A self-interest of politicians
Feel free to add some more.
Courts in Crisis
This is the title of an article in The Times, with the sub-heading “Judges working overtime as cuts and delays put justice at risk”. Read it fully.
Many of my friends are judges, barristers and solicitors and this has been happening for years, but no-one has really stood up to what the Labour government has been doing to justice.
My worry is one that my late wife was very vociferous about. She did a lot of family work, which involved money, child problems and adoptions. She was adopted herself and she never really said, but I suspect it was much more a personal thing, than anybody suspected.
She also did a lot of this work on Legal Aid. Ten years before she died, she was paid more than what she got in her last year of practice. She also got more time for preparation in those far off days and everybody was properly represented by competent solicitors and barristers.
But the cuts in Legal Aid, meant that experienced barristers and solicitors no longer wanted to do this work, as they really didn’t cover their costs and there was more lucrative work available. With the retirement of experienced lawyers, like my late wife, this will all get worse.
And these cases will get handled worse and worse unless the government puts more money in the work.
So should we bother. After all, if people can’t make their marriages work, why should we as taxpayers subsidise their woes?
Yes!
Statistics show that the children of broken marriages are more likely to be the ones that will have problems in the future.
Not in My Name
My late wife was a barrister and had a very deep sense of justice. I do too, and we both feel or felt very strongly that not only should justice be done, but it should also be seen to be done. I also should say that my family comes from Jewish and Huguenot roots and this makes me feel strongly about how people are treated.
So when David Davis gets up in the House of Commons and using Parliamentary privilege accuses the Labour government of torture, I am not happy to say the least. Those that authorised the release of Rangzieb Ahmed and tipped off the Pakistani authorities, should be in the dock themselves.
David Davis has made a stand on the subject of human rights before, when he fought a by-election.
We need more MPs, like David Davis, to stand up and be counted.
How I Met My Wife
My wife and I were together for forty years before she died in 2007. I say together, as we were effectively living together for a year before we married in 1968.
How we met was unusual, but before I say how, it is worth adding a little bit of interesting history to this note. At the time, along with many of the other students at Liverpool University, I filled in the forms from Operation Match, which was one of the first computer dating agencies.
Two Harvard students — Jeff Tarr and Vaughan Morrill — came up with the idea for Operation Match, a computer dating service, in the mid-1960’s. But they had some help from a Cornell dropout named Douglas Ginsburg.
Did it work? No! I got some names, but I don’t think I ever even met any of them.
In my second year at the University, I shared one of the world’s worst flats with three other students in Princes Avenue in Liverpool 8. Upstairs lived Mike Davidson, who was the Entertainments Secretary of the Students Union. He was trying to get more students to go to Guild Ball and had the idea of running his own Operation Match.
When I heard of this, I asked if I could have first pick!
And that is how I met my wife.
Interestingly, Douglas Ginsburg seems to have dropped in and is now a senior judge in the United States.
This Old Lawyer
My late wife was a barrister, who did an awful lot of family work. Perhaps because of this, I like to think that a sensible approach to the law can help us in all our situations.
I have just found Melvin Jay Schwatz, who writes eloquently on his site, This Old Lawyer.
His general advice on widowhood is good and funny in a macabre way.
Gay Sex in India not Criminal
The Indian High Court has just ruled that gay sex is not criminal according to the BBC.
This appeared to be on the cards when I posted about Gay Pride in India.
I have no particular axe to grind, but I do think that what people do in their lives provided it doesn’t affect anybody else should be left to them. As an example, I don’t take drugs, but feel if someone wants to smoke cannabis, then it’s up to them. But if they then commit crime to feed the habit, then it is wrong.
Ronnie Biggs
It is wrong that Ronnie Biggs is being kept in jail. He has had several strokes, he can’t speak and what else does he suffer from. He is no threat and would be cheaper to keep in a hospital than a prison. So why not let him out on grounds of costs alone?
In his excellent book, Prison Gate, David Ramsbotham talks of lifers with severe mental disorders and Alzheimer’s who are cluttering up prisons. Like Biggs, they are no threat.
We must be humane in our treatment of prisoners as we will only lower the whole of society to their level.
The Anonymous Widower 