Do you want the good news or the bad news? It is not always easy to decide! As is so often the case, there has been both good news and bad in the past few weeks, so let’s start with the bad news in the hope that we will all feel better once that is… Read More »
Thomas Paine was born in Thetford in Norfolk in 1737 and died in NYC in 1809 and is credited with being the inspiration behind the decision which led America to secede from Britain. Paine had an extraordinary life. Starting as a corset maker by trade, he emigrated to the USA and participated in the revolution there. Despite… Read More »
Called upon to give advice to an excited 27 year old who had just heard she had been offered her dream job and wanted to give her current boss a piece of her finely educated mind, I believe I was able to prevail upon her that that particular approach is almost always doomed to ultimate… Read More »
According to the National Leprechaun Museum, the leprechaun is a mythological Irish character. Usually male and dressed in green, the little man is often a shoemaker providing dancing shoes for fairies. Because fairies like to dance, the leprechaun is kept very busy. In fact this is the best way to catch one. If he is… Read More »
Authors often say they experience difficulty in deciding on a title for their scribblings. Naming a film, book or poem can pose problems, although sometimes the answer is obvious. Think about Jane Austen’s eponymous novel Emma! Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey are similar no brainers and even Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice… Read More »
April 1st has come and gone once more. This year All Fools’ Day fell on Easter Monday and as such was not a working day for most. Nonetheless, unless you have inhabited a different planet from others for much of the past six months you will know that the new CPR rules about disclosure, costs… Read More »
No, this is not a post by a disgruntled North London fan fed up with the inability of Arsene Wenger’s team to win a trophy! We are on much more interesting territory! It appears to me that there has been a lull recently in the flood of articles and comment on predictive coding or computer… Read More »
I would not want you to think that I spent all my recent skiing trip pondering the technical aspects of computer assisted review. In fact, I confess to spending almost all my recent seven days in Austria doing nothing much except enjoying the atmosphere, the food and, by and large, the snow conditions. However, one… Read More »
Sitting on a plane recently, I was passing the time between one gin and tonic and the next by reading The Daily Telegraph. With thoughts about today’s Budget filling the columns I was bemused to learn from an article by Ian Cowie that we paid a truly mind boggling £437.6 billion in taxes in the… Read More »
Bates is a reasonably common English surname. It may derive from the Old English “bat” meaning a boat and thus boatman. It may be a diminutive of “Bartholomew” which itself is a patronymic meaning “rich in land.” For example there is a record of a Bate le Tackman owning land in Lincolnshire in the 13th… Read More »