Collective nouns

Light relief from the mind numbing tedium of page turning an SPA. My client offered his collective noun for lawyers: a “Fleece”. I am still trying to work out what he was trying to tell me. And in reply, answers please for a collective noun for clients.

Ring No: GB 07 D2608 a.k.a “Pidge”

For the past fortnight we have enjoyed the company of a racing pigeon in the garden. He, or perhaps she, “flew down”, as we have learnt is the correct expression, one afternoon and was happily perched on the wall when we returned from work. His favoured position since has been either huddled on the wall, or on top of Caroline’s greenhouse, dropping down when we have come out to feed him. We haven’t been able (or brave enough) to pick him up, to check under his wing where he was from; equally, he has not been afraid either of us or, it seems, the hoodlum rooks and ravens who live in the Church tower and bully the smaller songbirds, eating the peanuts and monopolising the feeders. Feeding time has, however, seen us stay in the garden just in case. Although he should have gone for corn, his favourite was the small black sunflower seed in the wild bird food.

We have no idea why he flew down, where he had started from, nor where home is. He had his green racing band on, and the knowledgeable member of the Fancy that Caroline called told us he might stay a few days or a few weeks. We reported his arrival with us to the Royal Pigeon Racing Association (their website allows you to report a stray pigeon), and secretly hoped he might stay. He hasn’t. This morning, after two nights of heavy rain, he has gone. We feel quite bereft, and hope that we hear, one way or another, that he has made it back to his loft.

A bag of sweets for Gorbals Mick

Why are we so cynical about Parliament? The answer in part lies in the almost total disregard that MPs have for all of us (not only have we voted them in, or possibly voted against them but are stuck with them) but we are also paying for them (and with most of them, their wives, husbands, mothers (thank you Mr Hain), no doubt fathers and their wider family, sons, daughters, illegitimate offspring, guide dogs, hamsters, goldfish etc.; to say nothing of the fact that with Mr Prescott most of it went down the tubes).

Anyway, see Sue Cameron’s article in the FT, Nice little earners for Mr Speaker. I cannot think of a less deserving recipient. But they are all in it: see the BBC News report on “lump sum expenses plan” for MPs. And who is leading the charge? No prizes: Gorbals Mick

Stopping at nothing

Is there nothing that Hillary Clinton will not do or say to get the Democratic nomination? Obama’s was a measured reaction to her quite extraordinary remark that she was continuing to run because of what happened to Robert Kennedy,

“I have learned that when you are campaigning for as many months as Sen. Clinton and I have been campaigning, sometimes you get careless in terms of the statements that you make. . . And I think that is what happened here. Sen. Clinton says that she did not intend any offense by it and I will take her at her word on that.”

But we now have (see Clinton Camp stokes RFK Controversy by blaming Obama in The Huffington Post) the riposte,

“The Obama campaign … tried to take these words out of context,” Clinton campaign chairman Terence R. McAuliffe said on “Fox News Sunday.” “She was making a point merely about the time line.”

And so it goes on. All that is certain is that whatever rage drives her, she is showing herself to be a deeply flawed person. There has been much about her determination, and husband Bill has been railing against the way she is being treated by the media. Sarah Amos on ABC News (quoted in The Huffington Post) reported

“Former President Bill Clinton in South Dakota today delivered a harsh critique of how his wife has been treated during her presidential bid, telling the crowd that he has “never seen a candidate treated so disrespectfully just for running,” and that, “she will win the general election if you nominate her. They’re just trying to make sure you don’t.”

As it all starts to unravel, where best to throw blame?

Words matter?

It is not just lawyers in the UK that are concerned about their professional standing (see my recent post Whither the legal profession? The same is true in Canada.

A recent post by Jordan Furlong a little over a week ago in his blog Law 21 took me to Law Times ,

“Toronto immigration and criminal law lawyer Mary Boyce submitted the motion at the [Upper Canada] law society AGM. It states that “it is demeaning to lawyers to be treated as a class of licensee.”. . . Boyce told the meeting that she first noticed the use of the term “licensee” in her member’s annual report. “For some, it seemed to be a lowering of the bar, a demeaning of the bar,” she said. “Words matter; they are our stock and trade.”

Many lawyers at the meeting voiced their concern with the change in language. Karen Andrews said she keeps a copy of the barristers’ oath at her desk. “This is fundamental to who we are and how we practise, and now it’s gone,” she said.

A lawyer who identified herself as a provincial offences prosecutor said she’s been disturbed by a recent trend of justices of the peace referring to paralegals as “officers of the court” or “friends of the court.” “We are no longer a profession,” she said. “I think it’s a mistake.”

Like Jordan Furlong

“I’m far more interested in the language used by the lawyers to describe their concerns. What’s at play here is more significant than semantics — it’s an illustration of the visceral reactions provoked when members of a group long accustomed to exclusivity and privilege suddenly find those characteristics slipping away.”