The poster, old and faded, and tacked to the back wall of a potting shed, said this: The best time to plant a tree was fifty years ago. But the next best time is today. Life’s like that, isn’t it? Imagine if you had started putting 10% of your income into a retirement fund when…
On most mountainous roads you will encounter runaway ramps– unpaved spurs branching off the highway, with loose sand and gravel sloping sharply upwards, and prominently marked “TRUCK RUNAWAY RAMP”. It’s just a fact of life that if you’re a trucker, eventually something will go wrong, and sometimes very, very wrong. Up in the mountains, when…
It was my first divorce case. My client was a middle-aged nurse, and as such was pretty resilient and pragmatic. If anybody knows how to deal with the stinky stuff life can throw at you, it’s nurses. So, with her “life is life” attitude, she was prepared to work through the mechanics of custody, access,…
The expression “fishing expedition” is a very old legal term, certainly dating back to an era before sonar and fish finders. In legal circles, you accuse your opponent of “engaging in a fishing expedition” when you want the judge (or public opinion) to tell your friend opposite to stop examining your witness. Conjuring up the…
For the longest time I thought I was just a lawyer. Then I came to realize that I was something more than that. At first I saw only the things that others did better than I. Not a brilliant cross-examiner, I never dazzled in the courtroom. Yes, I could run a decent trial, but it…
If you always play your music too loud, soon enough you’ll go deaf. If you consistently over-spice your food, you’ll lose your taste for subtle, nuanced flavours. And if we, as a society, continue to rage indignantly at each other, we’re going to lose what’s left of public civility. Once upon a time, clever put-down…
Eccentricity is something like nuclear fusion– uncontrolled it could end civilization as we know it, but contained and controlled, it provides boundless energy. Today, let’s celebrate “good eccentricity”. I’ll bet you’ve never met a boring genius. Almost without exception, really bright people have a broad weird streak– they do stuff that is completely off the…
I grew up in a time when the British Empire still had some grandeur. May 24 was still “The Queen’s Birthday” and was joyously celebrated as such. It was always a matter of pride to point out, especially to visiting Americans, that nearly a quarter of the globe was Britannic red. Every civic office and…
This is not the Friday Briefing I had written for Christmas, but perhaps it’s a more valuable gift. The original piece came very much from my heart, and encapsulated both my love of the original Christmas story and my revulsion at what has become of it. It was carefully and painstakingly crafted. I knew it…
Sounds kind of silly, doesn’t it? Really, what would you say if after each commercial flight the aircraft was junked and replaced by another brand new one? You’d say that was crazy. Yet sixty-two years after Sputnik it’s still a big deal that SpaceX has begun to re-use its rockets and space capsules. After six…