Law and Disorder by Tim Kevan Page A

Woman would give an unfair advantage with the judges. Pupils, well, they could have red learner plates on their backs and then green ones for the first year of practice. Oh and if we’re going to have things pinned on to us, then let’s have a few adverts for good measure, tennis player style.
    Still, for today I liked it. We waltzed into court and for just a second the flowing robes felt almost like a suit of armour all set for gladiatorial combat. Such a shame then that by the end of the hearing any dignity with which I had started was in tatters. You see, there I was. Sitting next to TheBoss. Nodding intelligently and making notes in all the right places when all of a sudden I got a terrible urge to sneeze. Well, as you can imagine I suppressed it immediately. Except it didn’t go away. It was one of those sneaky little sneezes which slips around everything you throw at it and comes back even stronger for the next round. At one point I gave in to it and held my head back about to sneeze as the whole courtroom looked at me and then, as if it was just being mischievous, it went away without actually happening. But, you guessed it. It hadn’t gone away. It’d just side-stepped for a minute and then was back in action and hit me without any warning with an almighty thunder. Boy, I think it was so loud that they could hear us all the way along in the Court of Appeal. In itself though, that would probably have been OK. I could just about have lived with that by burying my head in my notebook and imagining I wasn’t there. The problem with this particular sneeze was that it had taken me unawares and on my first day of wearing my wig. The significance of this was that as my head was levered backwards I didn’t have time even to consider that when it was triggered forward it would literally be bombs away. You guessed it. As I play it back in my mind it is all in slow motion, but at the time it happened in an instant. My wig was displaced from my head and sent flying, not onto the floor in front of me or anywhere so convenient. It went flying through the air only to land on the judge’s desk, knocking over his jar of ink and his water glass and sending it all everywhere. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, after having wiped off most of the water and ink, the judge then peered down at me and asked, ‘Mr BabyBarista. Do you have an application which you would like to make?’
    You what? An application? It was like having to go round to the next door neighbour’s and ask for your football back.
    â€˜Er, yes, My Lord. Can I have my wig back?’
    â€˜What’s the magic word, Mr BabyBarista?’
    â€˜Please, My Lord. May I have my wig back?’
    â€˜You may.’
    Friday 24 November 2006
    Day 40 (week 8): Piffling
    Today I went to Willesden County Court with OldSmoothie who was not at all happy when he saw the name of the judge.Apparently they fell out at university ‘over a particularly strong-minded filly’. Whatever the details, there has been no love lost between them since and from the kick-off OldSmoothie was hitting the judge where it hurt most: his ego, addressing him as the more senior ‘My Lord’ rather than ‘Your Honour’ in reference to the high court judgeship he had failed to attain. Each time he said it (which was frequently), you could detect a slight twitch around the corner of the judge’s mouth. To correct OldSmoothie would only highlight his point. Not to correct him left OldSmoothie getting away with an insult. All he was left with was to remind OldSmoothie that, for today, the upper hand was his.
    â€˜It must be a great comedown, OldSmoothie, to have had to come to Willesden and fight with the baby Bar on such a piffling case as this one.’
    I don’t know whether OldSmoothie had deliberately provoked such a remark but I wouldn’t put it past him. He certainly seemed well prepared with his