The Death Cat

Never let it be said that I do not report miracles.

Apart from the headline article you can view a typical Daily Mail response by, well, clicking on Daily Mail. I hope that will not be too confusing for Daily Mail readers. If it is then they can click here.

A cat's affinity for dying people is hardly unusual in a nursing home.

Cats are wonderful beings and so unlike dogs and humans. Their insouciance is unsurpassed by any other creature. They have an individuality and a complete disregard for man-made law that renders them supremely admirable. Yet, they are not wholly anarchistic and will be lovable and comforting to their human companions when it suits them.

It is the "when it suits them" bit about cats that dog-lovers hate. A dog will obey orders. A dog will fetch a stick but a cat will only fetch a small rolled up ball of silver paper if it happens to be in the mood for a game. If it is not then it will toss you a disdainful look indicating that the whole idea of this game at this time is simply beneath contempt. You will then end up apologising to the cat. No-one apologises to dogs.

Here, in Worthing, England, cats stroll across the road and if they see a car coming, they lie down in the middle of the road and start washing themselves. The car stops. The horn is tooted. Eventually, the cat gets up and strolls nonchalantly to the same side of the road it had come from.

It has made its point. Cats rule. Humans are merely servants or slaves to the cats' needs.

The case of the Right Honourable Gentlemen

NB: This is an old one just now made widely available on the BAIILI website.

There was an all star cast for this case including Lew Grade, Anthony Quayle, Coral Browne, Anna Massey and Corin Redgrave. Yes, the two separate branches of the acting profession combined here!

A Mr Littler thought he was being shafted when his four stars served notice to expire on the same day that they would be leaving, again on the same day 28 days later. It was accepted by the court that this would terminate this successful play.

Mr Grade (as he then was) represented all of the actors through one of his companies. All of the resignation letters were in essentially the same terms.

Mr Littler thought that it was a conspiracy to get him out of the theatre because Mr Grade wanted to move another play into the theatre.

Do you agree? I will not spoil the ending. Read this one.

The Mad Barrister: You Must Read this Judgment

I read this judgment with incredulity.

It is the case of Stewart Dunn v Glass Systems (UK) Ltd

Mr. Dunn's antics are hilarious and it is very difficult to understand why anyone would ever instruct him.

His behaviour reminds me of the worst kind of litigant in person. The kind who get disqualified from pursuing further actions without leave of a High Court Judge.

But he is a barrister. And he is absurdly incompetent.

This is a judgment I recommend you to read. I have not the time this evening to provide selected extracts but may do so over the weekend.

Jobs for the Unemployable

I posted the following on the Sunday Times board about Boris Johnson running for mayor of London. There would appear to be no connection at all. A totally mad post, you may think. But you haven't read the article on young Boris. When you do you will have a greater insight into madness.

Those people who the PM most wants to find jobs for would appear to be the most unemployable and slothful and alienated, the least educated and the most delinquent.

Surely those who are slightly less ignorant and have only minor violent tendencies may wish to complain about this patent discrimination in favour of the abominable, apparently on the basis that they are more in need of improving. They have got further to go. A simple lesson then. Be worse and we might give you a job.

It is the PM who is mad, of course, not Boris. Boris is immensely entertaining and must run for mayor. Stuff his family. The nation needs a really entertaining electoral contest. It's nothing to do with politics. I could not care less who runs (or thinks they run) London. But, Boris trying to run anything would be a huge laugh. Think of all those wonderful pratfalls we are in store for!

DISCLAIMER: "Cretins" below does not refer to Boris but to the other nutter.

Lack of Posts

I have not been around in a while. I have a major learning curve to navigate = MYSQL and PHP. More another time.

Smoking and Freedom

I regard it as unadulterated nanny statism to ban smoking in pubs, and, god help us, on open air railway stations. It is also an attack on freedom. But, I do want to give up smoking and it may therefore be helpful to me personally. I am not going to want to spend a lot of time outside under shelters in the wind and rain.

The ban is unsupportable, though. This infingement of the liberty of the citizen cannot be justified. Nanny has become a dictator and good motives do not justify that.

Freedom must include the freedom to say unpopular things or to do unpopular acts or it is not really freedom. It is the dictatorship of the majority.

Freedom is about minority rights and upholding them. Freedom is about letting other people do or say things you dislike them doing or saying.

There were perfectly obvious other solutions that would have infringed no-one's rights. The simplest would have been a law that said that pubs with one bar should be non-smoking but that pubs with two or more bars could designate one of them as a smoking bar. In employment law it could have simply have been enacted that it would amount to discrimination to fail to employ bar staff who only wanted to work in a non-smoking environment.

It is legitimate to restrict freedom im in extreme circumstances (in the face of terrorism, for instance) but only so far essential, not merely expedient. To restrict freedom unnecessarily is both foolish and dictatorial which will be part of the Blair Legacy.