Barrister with, er, "interesting" opinions to stand trial
Discussion
In a previous life I had occasion to see a chap who had wandered onto a notorious sink estate, knocked on a door at seven o'clock on a Sunday morning and announced to the tussle haired occupant that he had come to see what the conditions of the poor were like. Dressed in a silk quilted smoking jacket and a Fez he was quite an unusual sight in said environs.
His story was that he his troubles had started at Eton, and worsened at Oxford. He blamed his father who he described as being a General very close to Churchill.
Having had a chat with this chap I the spoke to his brother: "John's troubles had started at Eton, and worsened at Oxford. He's always blamed father who whilst a fine General was lacking in the parenting stakes". I drove him back to the airport where he got back on his company Lear.
Just shows you...sometimes loons are not so loony, whilst of course at the same time being mad as a box of frogs.
His story was that he his troubles had started at Eton, and worsened at Oxford. He blamed his father who he described as being a General very close to Churchill.
Having had a chat with this chap I the spoke to his brother: "John's troubles had started at Eton, and worsened at Oxford. He's always blamed father who whilst a fine General was lacking in the parenting stakes". I drove him back to the airport where he got back on his company Lear.
Just shows you...sometimes loons are not so loony, whilst of course at the same time being mad as a box of frogs.
Edited by IanA2 on Tuesday 29th April 20:17
Red 4 said:
Are you suggesting people who suffer with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder are, in fact, mad ?
There's a fine line between genius and insanity. 
Sounds like a good All in the Mind at 21.00 on Radio 4. They're currently discussing blind Magistrates on the disability programme the name of which I can't remember.
Breadvan72 said:
Are you suggesting that my enormous invisible friend Mr Cuddles the Venusian Sex Badger isn't real? That's fighting talk.
Don't be a fool. Of course he's real. He is standing as a UKIP candidate in Gusset under Ronseal, so do you vote with your heart or your head? Tricky...Edited by Breadvan72 on Tuesday 29th April 17:37
Red 4 said:
Are you suggesting people who suffer with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder are, in fact, mad ?
Many studies have shown high correlation between PTSD & low intelligence.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/03/98032...
eldar said:
Breadvan72 said:
Are you suggesting that my enormous invisible friend Mr Cuddles the Venusian Sex Badger isn't real? That's fighting talk.
Don't be a fool. Of course he's real. He is standing as a UKIP candidate in Gusset under Ronseal, so do you vote with your heart or your head? Tricky...Edited by anonymous-user on Tuesday 29th April 17:37
head I will be voting with my, er....I feel very sorry for the man. A fairly powerful intellect gone awry must be very hard to live with - it can conjure up chains of causation, complex narratives etc rather than just throwing up free-form anxiety.
MS is so obviously unwell that it makes it really tragic to see him being prosecuted.
MS is so obviously unwell that it makes it really tragic to see him being prosecuted.
Amateur shrink hour: One of the problems leading to the mental collapse may be frustration. Mr S is not, based on my professional contact with him, particularly bright. His legal opinions that I have seen suggest that he does not really understand how the law works. The Defence Statement linked to above, even leaving aside the madness, is the work of a distinctly second rate legal mind, and reads more like what internet-taught litigants in person produce than the work of a lawyer. To be a bit of a legal duffer could be frustrating when you seek to operate in a world where the best practitioners and the senior Judges are fiercely intellectual and will eviscerate the second rate without mercy.
I agree with that - some brainy people do not make good practical lawyers. It is hard, however, to be a good barrister if you are not very bright, and the best barristers are without exception stunningly clever. I'm reasonably brainy, but one of the pleasures of my job is that I am surrounded by people who are far more brainy than me. It's very stimulating.
A mate of mine used to be a Barristers assistant.
He tells a story of sitting quietly on a train with the barrister who was reading the paper and just randomly said a word.
When my mate asked what he meant the barrister said he'd just got the last troubling crossword clue.
My mate took the paper to see the crossword and it was empty, the barrister didn't even have a pen.
He'd done the entire cryptic crossword in his head.
My mate took out a pen and told the Barrister to prove it, who answered every single question as my mate asked them. 100% accurate
Very clever people indeed.
He tells a story of sitting quietly on a train with the barrister who was reading the paper and just randomly said a word.
When my mate asked what he meant the barrister said he'd just got the last troubling crossword clue.
My mate took the paper to see the crossword and it was empty, the barrister didn't even have a pen.
He'd done the entire cryptic crossword in his head.
My mate took out a pen and told the Barrister to prove it, who answered every single question as my mate asked them. 100% accurate
Very clever people indeed.
BTW, being good at crosswords proves only that you are good at crosswords. I have a first class degree from a posh university, but I could not complete even the simplest of crosswords if my life depended on it. At school, in those IQ tests that they used to give us, my scores were off the scale at the bottom end, equating to an IQ of minus 947 or something; but I was the highest achieving pupil in my year at a high achieving school. Minds work in various ways, which is why measures of intelligence are pretty much meaningless.
Breadvan72 said:
Barrister's assistant? We work alone, although sometimes we form ad hoc teams for a particular case. We have pupils, and a good pupil can be very helpful, but I have never heard of a barrister having an "assistant".
My mates words, not mine.Is there a specific term for the recent graduate who gets paid a small wage to tag along, carry the heavy paperwork and get the coffee.
Actually, it might not have been a barrister, it could have been a solicter or some other lawyer type job.
It's an old story.
Clever chap though.
Snowboy, senior Solicitors used to call junior solicitors assistants, but nowadays they may have titles such as Associate. Solicitors used to have Articled Clerks, now called Trainee Solicitors.
Barristers have pupils. Pupils are themselves fresh-called barristers who are training to complete their entitlement to practise law. Being a pupil barrister is not a job in itself. It's a training role, but nowadays it tends to be quite well paid. When I did it in the 1980s there was no pay. Go back to the 1950s* and the pupil had to pay the barrister. Times change.
It sounds like your friend was either a pupil barrister, or a trainee or junior solicitor.
* Voting UKIP is the way to do this, apparently. Bonus free Polio, slum housing, and not many of those tiresome darkies! Oooh errrr! Bit of politics there, but not totally OT as the loon Shrimpton is a 'kipper.
Barristers have pupils. Pupils are themselves fresh-called barristers who are training to complete their entitlement to practise law. Being a pupil barrister is not a job in itself. It's a training role, but nowadays it tends to be quite well paid. When I did it in the 1980s there was no pay. Go back to the 1950s* and the pupil had to pay the barrister. Times change.
It sounds like your friend was either a pupil barrister, or a trainee or junior solicitor.
* Voting UKIP is the way to do this, apparently. Bonus free Polio, slum housing, and not many of those tiresome darkies! Oooh errrr! Bit of politics there, but not totally OT as the loon Shrimpton is a 'kipper.
Rovinghawk said:
Red 4 said:
Are you suggesting people who suffer with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder are, in fact, mad ?
Many studies have shown high correlation between PTSD & low intelligence.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/03/98032...
Edit: This link gives a bit more information:
http://dujs.dartmouth.edu/fall-2007/resilience-in-...
However, this research faces some limitations. Something that looks like a vulnerability may in fact be a consequence of PTSD or vice versa, depending on the perspective from which the study is conducted. For example, a smaller-than-average hippocampus has been implicated as a potential vulnerability to PTSD and other anxiety disorders (4, 10), but also as a consequence of trauma (11). Ultimately, research on the relationship between PTSD and hippocampal size was inconclusive (12, 13). Likewise with the child’s intelligence quotient (IQ) – it is commonly believed that low IQ is another potential vulnerability to PTSD, but at the same time, the expression of PTSD symptoms may have an adverse effect on IQ test scores. (In any case, IQ is only a reflection of a child’s cognitive potential in areas such as executive function.) In sum, there is a chicken-and-egg problem – causality is difficult to determine for many biological and psychological aspects of PTSD.
Edited by Devil2575 on Wednesday 30th April 12:44
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