SOPHIE LANCASTER"Sophie, 20, was booted in the face and left in a coma as she tried to protect Robert Maltby, 21, during the “totally unprovoked” attack in a park.
The couple were so badly beaten that medics and police could not tell which was which as they lay side by side unconscious in a pool of blood."
DAVID MORLEY"Mr Whitehead described lying on the pavement and putting his hands around his head while he was kicked and punched in the ribs and head.
He told the court one of his assailants "seemed to be getting enjoyment" out of it and was smiling or laughing.
He described looking over to see Mr Morley sat against hoardings near the bench.
"A girl ran up and kicked his head like a football. There was only the girl when I saw him. She went over to David. She pulled her foot back and was kicking him like a football very hard to the head two or three times.""
"In the case of fishnet tights versus office decorum, the jury was most certainly out yesterday.
A law firm's decision to ban women wearing fishnets to work has left lawyers as neatly divided as a divorcing millionaire's fortune.
The unidentified firm has decreed that female lawyers in fishnets distract male colleagues and look unprofessional".
AND WHAT THE JUDGES ARE DOING:
Mr Justice Coleridge blames youth crime, child abuse, drug addiction and binge-drinking on the "meltdown" of relations between parents and children.
He warns that the collapse of the family unit is a threat to the nation as bad as terrorism, crime, drugs or global warming.
"He will say: "Almost all society's ills can be traced directly to the collapse of family life. We all know it. Examine the background of almost every child in the care system or the youth justice system and you will discover a broken family.
"Ditto the drug addict. Ditto the binge drinker. Ditto those children who are truanting or who cannot behave at school.
"Scratch the surface of these cases and you invariably find a miserable family, overseen by a dysfunctional and fractured parental relationship - or none at all."
Calling for action before it is too late, the judge will say family breakdown is as serious as global warming."
"This is a most peculiar judgment that will please nobody. It raises more questions than it answers. Having demolished every single argument advanced by Gary Brooker's legal team, Lord Justice Mummery suddenly produced an argument of his own, like a magician producing a rabbit out of a hat.He comments elsewhere that he went down 2-1 and he is right. However, the third Court of Appeal judge (Sir Paul Kennedy) did not give a reasoned decision and simply confirmed his agreement with Lord Justice Mummery.
This argument is so obscure and oblique as to defy comprehension. It had never been anticipated, either by the two legal teams concerned, or by any of the many legal commentators who have written about the original trial. It will be interesting to hear the reactions of other specialist copyright lawfirms such as Clintons or Davenport Lyons.
Nevertheless, from my point of view this case was never about money - it was about getting my name on the song to which I contributed the most commercial and essential feature [i.e. the organ tune]".
"In summary, my reason for allowing the appeal against declarations (2) and (3) is that Matthew Fisher's conduct makes it unjust that he should succeed in his claims to a joint interest in the Work or to have revoked the implied licence for the defendants to exploit it. The judge should have taken a broader approach to the application of the delay defences. In particular:I am not a specialist in copyright law but this seems like pure common sense to me.
(1) Matthew Fisher is guilty of excessive and inexcusable delay in asserting his claim to title to a joint interest in the Work. He silently stood by and acquiesced in the defendants' commercial exploitation of the Work for 38 years. His acquiescence led the defendants to act for a very long period on the basis that the entire copyright in the Work was theirs. They controlled the commercial exploitation of the Work without any reference or reward to him.
(2) His acquiescence has made it unconscionable and inequitable for him to seek to exercise control over the commercial exploitation of the copyright in the Work. The combination of a declaration of a joint interest and a declaration of revocation of the implied consent would enable him to control future commercial exploitation by means of a final injunction against the defendants. For this reason declarations (2) and (3) should be set aside.
(3) If the implied licence has become irrevocable by acquiescence Matthew Fisher cannot claim damages for infringement of copyright, or any share of the monies collected by the copyright collecting societies, or obtain any contractual right for payment of royalties in the future as the price for granting an express licence for the exploitation of the copyright in the Work. For these reasons the order for an inquiry as to damages since 31 May 2005 should be set aside."
NOT A PROPHET
PETER KING“This may sound ridiculous, but I do believe that I’ve been called to be a lawyer.” Peter King, a corporate partner at Shearman & Sterling in London, knew within two days of starting his law degree at Cambridge that he had found what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. “I don’t know why,” he says. “There was just some chemistry.”It would be overly cynical to suggest that Christian faith and being a lawyer are mutually incompatible. I think of all the lost souls slaving for the Legal Services Commission. They certainly manage to combine being lawyers with holding irrational beliefs. I do not mean that they believe in a god. They may or they may not. But they subscribe to an even more improbable belief; namely, that the UK government will one day treat them fairly. The probability that this is true is much lower than the probability that a god exists. This proves only that some lawyers suffer from delusions. If I add that I have met many very able lawyers who used to or still do legal aid work then I must accept the proposition that there exist lawyers who are good at their jobs but cleave to irrational beliefs.
EMBRYO POLITICIANS: HOW TO SPOT THEM
We cannot know whether God exists. He may; in which case we are damned if we do not believe in him. He may not; in which case no consequence follows whether we believe or not. Therefore, a sane man will place his bet on God's existence and believe with all his heart. This is because this is the only choice that has any possibility of a desirable outcome i.e. salvation.The senior partner (who does have a belief system ecompassing matters beyond the material world) reacted instinctively (as most people do) that this was an intellectually dishonest, or, at least not an honourable reason, for believing in a god.
"If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is. This being so, who will dare to undertake the decision of the question? Not we, who have no affinity to Him.and:
Who then will blame Christians for not being able to give a reason for their belief, since they profess a religion for which they cannot give a reason? They declare, in expounding it to the world, that it is a foolishness, stultitiam;[90] and then you complain that they do not prove it! If they proved it, they would not keep their word; it is in lacking proofs, that they are not lacking in sense. "Yes, but although this excuses those who offer it as such, and takes away from them the blame of putting it forward without reason, it does not excuse those who receive it." Let us then examine this point, and say, "God is, or He is not." But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions."
"For it is no use to say it is uncertain if we will gain, and it is certain that we risk, and that the infinite distance between the certainty of what is staked and the uncertainty of what will be gained, equals the finite good which is certainly staked against the uncertain infinite. It is not so, as every player stakes a certainty to gain an uncertainty, and yet he stakes a finite certainty to gain a finite uncertainty, without transgressing against reason. There is not an infinite distance between the certainty staked and the uncertainty of the gain; that is untrue. In truth, there is an infinity between the certainty of gain and the certainty of loss. But the uncertainty of the gain is proportioned to the certainty of the stake according to the proportion of the chances of gain and loss. Hence it comes that, if there are as many risks on one side as on the other, the course is to play even; and then the certainty of the stake is equal to the uncertainty of the gain, so far is it from fact that there is an infinite distance between them. And so our proposition is of infinite force, when there is the finite to stake in a game where there are equal risks of gain and of loss, and the infinite to gain. This is demonstrable; and if men are capable of any truths, this is one."
"Do not then reprove for error those who have made a choice; for you know nothing about it. "No, but I blame them for having made, not this choice, but a choice; for again both he who chooses heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault, they are both in the wrong. The true course is not to wager at all.""The Gutenberg Project's edition is a reproduction of the Dutton 1958 New York edition. This is a particularly good choice as the translation has an introduction by T.S.Eliot, one of whose comments is that "Pascal is one of those writers who will be and who must be studied afresh by men in every generation."
