From: antipope@rachel.ibmpcug.co.uk (charless@scol.sco.com)
Subject: Re: Halfwits.
Organization: The IBM PC User Group, UK.
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 09:04:09 GMT

booter@Autodesk.COM (Elaine Richards) writes:

> This is alt.peeves and we have a parlor game called Peevetown. We need 
> material for peeving. Incessant flame wars and driver/car peeves wear
> thin after a while. Lawyers, on the other hand, provide a rich, new
> ground for us to harvest fresh peeves. Lawyers are intensely peevesome
> and surprise us daily with new outrages.
> 
> The man is needed here, Russ.
 
Maybe I could lend you my cousin. I've got two cousins; one of them's
more or less fine, but the other one ... well, he fits the bill.
Literally. (Horrendous UK cop-pun elided.)

Luckily I don't see much of him, but whenever I have to think of the
fact that I'm related to this guy my blood runs cold. It seems to
afflict the men in my family; a horrible tendency towards squareness
that hits them when they pass twenty-eight. My brother, for example.
I remember when he was a doped-out hippie. (He's seven years older
than me.) Now he wears three-piece suits, runs a business, drives
a red Volvo estate with a ``baby on board'' sticker, and I have a 
nasty feeling that he might be a freemason. But even this shocking
display of conformism pales into nothing compared to my cousin.

My cousin is not merely a lawyer. He's a senior partner ... and
he was recently made a [very junior] judge.

Now I don't know if I can convey the true horror of this individual
to those of you who are unfamiliar with the English legal system.
Suffice to say that every joke about the British judiciary being
like something out of the middle ages is solidly based on fact.
For those of you who are hemispherically challenged, I can only suggest
that you go forth and rent a video of _A Fish called Wanda_, watch
it in the company of six-pack or two, and observe carefully 
the courtroom scenes. Yep, they really _do_ dress like that. 
Worse, some of them think like that, too. To coin a metaphor,
if American lawyers are sharks and ambulance-chasers, then the
British legal profession consists of fossilized plesiosaurs
and hearse-followers.

Indeed, a lot of the judiciary probably date from the middle ages,
either in physical body or in mental outlook. My cousin, by these
standards, is probably a raving radical; that is, he'd be considered
rather reactionary by Victorian conservatives. I probably shouldn't
say anything else (unless I want to spend a few weeks banged up 
for Contempt of Court -- he doesn't have much of a sense of humour 
either) except that when he was given his commission it confirmed
_all_ my worst fears about the British legal system. I have  so far
managed to avoid appearing in court for any reason whatsoever 
... I am now determined to avoid this fate like the plague, for
I could expect little understanding and scant mercy.  

Defense:  M'lud, I implore you to look beyond the witness's 
          appearance --
Judge:    Why has that man got a ponytail? What are those *things* 
          on his feet? Is he wearing point-tipped shoes? We know that 
          pointy-tipped shoes were the cause of the Plague back in the
          good olde days! Insufficient respect for the court! Mm, yah!
          Have that man strung up! Contempt of court!
Clerk:    Er, you can't do that any more, m'lud.
Judge:    [peeved] 
          Why not? If it was good enough for His Lordship
          Jeffries[*] it's good enough for this court! 
          [Drags out black hat.] 
          I hearby sentence you to be scragged by the neck until dead,
          and may the Inland Revenue have mercy on your bank account.
Witness:  EEEK!!
Defense:  But, your honour, he hasn't done anything! He's the --
Judge:    WHAT do you mean, he hasn't DONE anything? It is blindingly
          obvious that the man's a -- a ---
          [subsides into apopleptic fit, choking]
Defense:  -- witness for the defense?

------------------------------------------------------------

[*] Note for the continentally challenged: Judge Jeffries 
presided over the Bloody Assizes in seventeen-thingummy.
On one occasion alone he is said to have sentenced seven
hundred defendants to death without benefit of a jury 
trial. On another, he is said to have become peeved at a
jury who refused to return a verdict of guilty, and 
sentenced _them_ to death for contempt of court.

He is generally considered to have been a progressive and
enlightened influence on the English legal system ...


-- 
Antipope -- HE gives you Bull, I give you the Straight ... er ....

Newsgroups: alt.peeves,rec.motorcycles