A few weeks ago on a train to Birmingham for the Conservative Party conference I found myself in a heated debate with two fellow travellers, only one of whom I know. I should point out this doesn’t happen very often, but party conferences do funny things to people, of which talking to complete strangers on the train is possibly the least weird.
Read more...‘Trust’ and ‘lawyer’ are not words you would automatically put together, but the incomprehensibility of legal language may leave you no choice. Worryingly, while you would expect consumers to trust lawyers a lot less than they do nurses, doctors or teachers they also trust lawyers less than they used to.
Read more...Should prisoners have the right to vote? It sounds like a simple yes-no question and most people would probably be able to give a yes or no answer, but it is giving the government no end of headaches.
Read more...You should never meet your heroes, there is only one possible outcome. At best you will be disappointed they seem indifferent to your adulation; at worst they will turn out to be shorter, balder or scruffier than you expected, have bad breath or be downright rude.
Read more...I try not to be too political in this blog because it has someone else’s name on it and they don’t necessarily want to be associated with my lefty government bashing. That said, sometimes it’s quite difficult to avoid getting down and dirty.
Read more...As I write this, the sun is setting over the pool, the palm trees are swaying gently in the breeze and the sound of the sea breaking against the volcanic sandy beaches is wafting gently across the terrace. Well, not quite. I am on holiday, but childcare dictates that most evenings I am watching TV rather than enjoying the balmy evenings (and dodgy resort ‘entertainment’).
Read more...There is nothing quite so satisfying as a celebrity divorce. There is a pleasing sense of schadenfreude in knowing that people for whom everything appears so wonderful and perfect can have as miserable and depressing a time as the rest of us. We can also gloat in having known that it would never work because ‘she’s so talented and he’s, well, a bodyguard’ and because getting hitched only weeks after meeting usually turns out not to be the good idea it seemed at the time.
Read more...I seem to have a habit of working for organisations that then very inconveniently change their name after I've left. First it was The New Opportunities Fund (although to be fair no-one knew who they were even when I worked there), then the Consumers Association (now it’s all Which?) and now it's law firm Russell Jones & Walker (RJW to their friends).
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