Jacob Gifford Head

What has happened to this an other sculptures commissioned at the same time tells us a lot about attitudes towards public art in poorer parts of the country. And much of it is not encouraging.

Kinetic or interactive public art has faired badly though, I think. I saw that San Francisco has just removed Armand Vaillancourt's brutalist fountain, which spent much time not functioning. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaillan...

What has happened to this an other sculptures commissioned at the same time tells us a lot about attitudes towards public art in poorer parts of the country. And much of it is not encouraging.

I have plenty of sympathy for the idea of vegan pesto but shouldn't there be some sort of law that if you call something "pesto" but its main ingredient isn't olive oil (because you've cut it with rapeseed) & you don't include pine nuts you go to gaol?

This is a very interesting case. I wonder what they have pleaded as a cause of action? A declaration (do they mean an injunction?) to require someone not to publish a benchmark price isn't someone one sees everyday.

I suppose a consequence of the BBC's cybersecurity correspondent not having messed around with php at any stage of his life is that all the jokes about languages in Bob Kanefsky's "Eternal Flame" are completely obscure...

I always wanted to be able to code in lisp but never had a reason to try & learning it in the abstract never appealed. I guess I should have started with emacs rather than vim as my text editor!

I think one of the problems is that a lot of these figurative sculptures are just not that good: the Kindertransport monument at Liverpool Street; the Windrush one in Waterloo; and—worst of all—The Meeting Place at St Pancras.

This is absolutely infuriating. In England, we absolutely do not take this for granted. Most courts do not provide adequate facilities for parties and their lawyers. Public access is often difficult & sometimes impossible. These are luxuries that the UKSC & not much else possesses.

As for “legal disputes should be heard in a courtroom”, I agree. But there has been a significant roll-back here. For example, CPR 51ZC and the “Small Claims Paper Determination Pilot” or the “Single Justice Procedure” in the Magistrates’ Court. Access to a courtroom has never been harder.

Barros is one of the more affordable Port shippers these days. The fact that this bottle had two foil caps & a cork marked simply "Porto Vintage 1996" suggests to me they were hedging their bets under which brand it would eventually be sold. But that shouldn't put you off buying it!

1996 was an under-rated year, being nearly surrounded by the general declarations of 1994—the year of the decade—and 1997 but some very good Port was made, particularly the Vesúvio which is one of my favourites.

“To start with, litigation is an inherently adversarial process and there is a degree of opportunism in much litigation activity.” And this is, with respect, why civil procedure has lost its way in England as litigants are faced with a thicket of rules full of traps for the unwary or unfortunate.

Secondly, let us stop the procedural tail from wagging the dog of justice. The purpose of procedural rules is to enable the courts to deal with cases justly and at proportionate cost (to coin a phrase). That means there needs to be much, much more flexibility.

“To start with, litigation is an inherently adversarial process and there is a degree of opportunism in much litigation activity.” And this is, with respect, why civil procedure has lost its way in England as litigants are faced with a thicket of rules full of traps for the unwary or unfortunate.

This remains a highlight of the year. And glorious weather today which I hope will mean lots of cash for the Spa Valley Railway. But, whisper it softly, most of the green hop beers are now boringly competent rather than wild & experimental...

It's probably an inevitable feature of modern British brewing that you find a local brewery that makes the sort of beers you really like; have a look on their website to see how you could buy some more; and find that they are looking to sell up... www.kissingate.co.uk/sale.html

I am often restricted in setting out some of the nonsense the court system produces because of client confidentiality. But, in this case, I am the client. Here is the court being an obstructive as possible to get in the way of a settlement when, as is hinted at, it has no jurisdiction.

Notice, too, the obfuscation. “Legal Advisor Fox”: since when is being a legal advisor a title? Notice, too, the typo. There are more. If this is what lawyers face when litigating, what hope litigants in person?

This is about Magistrates recruitment. It is something which I think is a greater issue in the Family Court. The whole purpose of lay involvement in decision making about children is defeated if the benches routinely do not contain people who have or are friends with people with young children.

Far too often the bench is comprised of people in their 60s making decisions about parents in their 30s who have children under 10. The dynamic is one of grandparents making decisions about grandchildren: very different from what it should be.

I am planning a trip to Denmark in December. I've been to Copenhagen a few times and it will also be my destination. I've also been to Billund & Helsingør. Do any of my followers have any other recommendations of places to visit, within a few hours of the capital?