The TB's birthday

This year it's 20 years since the TB and me went on our first date...everyone say ahhh. And we went to Brown's restaurant in Cambridge for his 23rd birthday. Indeeed, he was but a boy when he got saddled with me the poor dear.

Anyway, co-incidentally having moved house we are now only about 20 miles from Cambridge and so I was thinking that I'd take him back there again.... only this time with an overnight stay at the rather fabulous Hotel Du Vin just up the road.

His usual complaint about being taken anywhere posh is that, "yes but if it's £200 a night I just won't enjoy it!" but now, I can pay it without him ever knowing because I can pay it with the corporate check and refund the business out of drawings. ...and I think I just shouldn't tell him.

It's a bit an expensive time for celebrations though, it's my parents golden wedding party next month ( which their kids are paying for obviously) lunch for 60 at a really nice country hotel, we fixed a fairly tight wine budget and anything over they can pay for themselves! - you know how these pensioners can drink. And the week after my sister's 40th....

So better do some work quick to pay for it all.

Sectioning Amy

Apparently Amy Winehouse's Dad has asked that she is compulsorily admitted to hospital under the mental health act because she is clearly "a danger to herself"

Unfortunatley for Dad Winehouse - in order to be "sectioned" you not only have to be a danger to yourself or to other people you also have to be suffering from a recognised mental illness. And poor old Amy is bad not mad.

Years ago I acted for a lady whose alcoholic husband would regularly drive his car through her front room window when pissed out of his mind. He was clearly a danger to loads of people. but as with Miss Winehouse bad and not mad, so all the police could do was arrest him every time and throw him into a cell to sober up.

There isn't any law - apart from affray and posession of narcotics that works in this situation. Should there be - should you be able to lock up a drunk or a drug addict just for being a drunk or a drug addict ?

I don't think so actually.

Mediation

The current thinking is that disputes should be resolved where possible by mediation rather than a court hearing. The process itself is a bit of shuttle diplomacy - parties in the same building, often in different rooms, but meeting up from time to time to air their views and a mediator being the UN and shuttling between the parties.

Even when it doesn't get all that far it's very revealing as to the parties motives and preconceptions. In one case that I had a while ago the other side clearly thought our chap had a porsche and a boat where in fact he has a push bike and a rubber band collection.....

If nothing else it's illustrative of the elusive nature of "truth" because all the time what someone else believes to be true is not what I beleive to be true, and we are only telling each other half truths anyway.

Poor girl

Oh poor Lily Allen, you think you are "safe" to tell people at 16 weeks, you really do and then..........as I recall it you are in the ultrasound suite, lots of excited couples having been pushed out of the way and the conversation goes like this

*long pause*

"I'm really sorry Mrs L, I can't find a heartbeat"

and you can't think of one single thing to say back except "it's all right" and it isn't.

And you then have this dreadful procedure to remove what they call "retained products of conception"...............yeah.

And it's really difficult when you have been together a few years - but in a beginning relationship I can't imagine how alone she must feel. Poor poor kid.

Crap day - no sunshine

It's one of those days when my only conversations have been along the line of;

"it's in the contract"

"haven't you read the manual"

"whoever did those land registry searches (me of course) is hopelessly incompetent."


and it's raining and I'm getting a migraine from looking at a computer screen so much and I'm going to have to pay someone else's costs of around £1000 - shit.

Stamina or lack thereof

Endurance exercise or endurance training consists of performing low- to medium-intensity exercise for long periods of time. E.g., jogging or running several miles to hundreds of miles; cycling dozens of miles to thousands of miles; swimming hundreds of yards or meters to dozens of miles or km.
Physical endurance is differentiated from other forms of physical stress in that in endurance exercise fatigue of the muscles and cardiovascular system do not force the effort to end. The need for sleep, the buildup of non-recyclable waste chemicals, the depletion of convertible energy stores and other needed chemicals (e.g., water, sodium), physical injury, psychological failure, or attainment of the goal will bring the effort to an end.

So says Wikipedia - but look at me, two hearings in a week, three days of working full on until 10 o'clock at night and I'm so knackered that I can't remember my own name, let alone everyone elses. Maybe if I could swim a mile I could work harder and more consistently without falling to bits - another suggestion is that I should just go to sleep for a bit.

Kingdom

Oh heavens, I hear you cry, not more inane whittering about Stephen Fry. But we have to talk about Kingdom gentle readers, for you are not going to find a more intelligent, learned and kindly East Anglian solicitor outside the pages of this blog.

Although I must say his case load is very boring, and on the fees he is earning from advising the WI on buying a light house he isn't going to be able to afford to run a Bentley convertable for very much longer now is he?

But it is mental cocoa for a Sunday night and it does speed along the ironing in a helpful manner - for which , Mr Kingdom, I thank you. I am however hopeful that now your wicked, swindling brother has returned from the dead things might get a lot more interesting. And I'm also hoping that , in the interests of artistic verisimilitude naturally - that given the swindling brothers antics your practice is subject to the intervention of the Law Society and that darling Simon is struck off the register!

Old Vic Panto

I went with the fam to the matinee performance of the Old Vic's rendition of "Cinderella" yesterday.......and our reaction to this latest incarnation of the genuis that is Stephen Fry was a hearty, "hmmmmm".

Whilst I was delighted that the obvious love between Buttons and Dandini finally dared to speak it's name, the rest of the show couldn't decide whether it was a kid's panto, post modern ironic adult pastiche of a kids panto, an old style bawdy panto, or a highly intellingent panto for an audience of regular theatre goers - so in the end it was a bit of all those things and not really a good enough version of any of them.

Sandi Tosveig playing Stephen Fry (well, the narrator was clearly the man in himself) made a passable drag king - but was at her best and funniest when adlibbing her own lines. Pauline Collins I loved as the fairy godmother but no one else did. And what was the cake fetish all about?

Oh well, lots of work to do and no more outings for me in the near future...ho hum.

Time Flies when you Are Having Fun!

This time of year all the magazines are full of ideas on how much better your life would be if you "just put aside an extra half an hour a day!" to do whatever it is they suggest. So I thought I'd have a bit of a tot up and see how much time a perfect life actually takes;

Half an hour to cook a nutritious meal for the family ( x 3 ) - 1 hr 30 mins
An hours exercise a day to stay healthy - 1 hr
30 minutes "me time" for those little grooming jobs (nails/eyebrows etc) - 30 mins
Ideal amount of sleep - 7 hrs
If you do an hour and a half housework every day you'll stay on top of it - 1hr 30 mins

(some of this is suggested management time for a law practice)
Chargable hours per day target - 7 hrs
Suggested budget for marketing hours per day for a new practice - 2hrs
Keeping on top of the accounts - 30 mins

That's 21 hours a day, and I haven't had a shower, or driven to the gym or eaten anything myself yet! Nor does it allow for going to the post office or the shops or saying hello to anyone!

No wonder I feel as if I am permanently behind - thank goodness I don't have to commute!

Tis the season to de-tox

De- toxing is scientifically bollocks...but there is something about January that makes you feel spotty and posinous, and it doesn't help that half the world has been stricken down with "winter vomiting virus" - how nice.

I don't even deserve to feel toxic - I've walked the dog for an hour every day and ridden the horse most, and not been to many parties and I still look red-eyed and about to expire from exhaustion! It's not right!! So more water, less caffiene and much boring being realistic, once the credit card has recovered from the sales!

I am trying to formulate a plan for the next little while to market the business. But I do find that business opportunites are rather like love affairs and don't often come along when you are looking for them!