The Meaninglessness of Meaninglessness

Visit the Daily Mail website. It is an everyday example of why nothing matters. The news, for them, is how much bigger, or less big, Jordan's tits were yesterday than the day before. The news, for them, is how many more, or fewer, drinks Jade Goody's ex-husband had the night before.

The Daily Mail is an easy target. The Daily Mail takes itself seriously but is in fact a shameful disgrace - as are all those who work for it, including its pompous self-regarding columnists: the opinion formers of middle England.

Is The Times any better? No, not really.

It is all a charade. Even the news about death and destruction, the machinations of infantile politicians and reviews of Chris Keil's books are wholly without merit or content of any kind that might for even the briefest second be meaningful.

Really, it is all Chris Keil's fault that I hardly bother with this blog any more. He has done you a service.

Oh, well, nothing new here then.



Cheer up! If it is all meaningless then you might as well have some fun.

Amazing Confessions: Chris Keil is Not a Dog

Ok, I admit it. Chris Keil is not a dog; not even the very nice looking pooch portrayed in my last post. It was a cruel and inhuman thing for me to do to place that picture above those nasty derogatory comments. I was, of course, legless when I did it. That, as Mr Keil has insinuated, excuses everything.

The Bible in English Just Like Jesus Talked

I thought P J O'Rourke made the title up but I have found it, or something so similar that it makes no difference; except, that it is written by an agnostic who wasted part of his life doing it. Go on, you believe it all now. See the title link.

Margaret Haywood, The Brighton Sussex Hospital and Elder Abuse

Margaret Haywood went undercover for the BBC and secretly filmed neglect/abuse of elderly patients at the Royal Sussex Hospital in Brighton, England.

After the film was broadcast, the trust responsible for the hospital admitted and apologised for "serious lapses in the quality of care".

I think we can take it that this was the most anodyne formula the trust's lawyers felt they could get away with.

The Times reports today that the Nursing and Midwifery Council has found that Ms Haywood had prioritised filming over her obligations as a nurse and had breached patient confidentiality.

In consequence, she has been struck off and cannot act as a nurse. That is, her career has been destroyed.

Oh, by the way, it is also reported that all of the patients (subsequent to the filming) waived confidentiality. I would too. If I was a vulnerable elderly person and was being maltreated but with no means of doing anything about it, I would positively want someone, anyone, to do something about it and by whatever means possible.

Ordinary mortals will find the decision to strike this nurse off the register inexplicable other than as a protective act of revenge and as a blatant attempt to discourage others from blowing the whistle on National Health Service malpractice.

She did a greater service to these patients than the hospital or any of their other doctors or nurses.

I hope Margaret Haywood takes this matter further. I am sure she has access to proper advice and I can think of many lawyers who would take this case on a no win no fee basis.

The decision of the Nursing and Midwifery Council, on the facts available in the public domain, is an utter disgrace and wholly against the public interest.

Trent Health Authority Guilty of Abuse of Power but No Redress for Victims: A Monstrous Injustice?

I am conscious of the need for a sub-editor to work on a title such as the above but read this...

Trent Strategic Health Authority* has been held guilty by the House of Lords of ruining Mr and Mrs Jain's nursing home business and causing them "serious economic harm" on the basis of a "without notice application that ought never to have been made".

[*Note: Trent's liability arises as successor to the Nottingham Health Authority, as is made clear in the judgments. But "they inherit any liability incurred by their predecessors". ]

Yet, Mr and Mrs Jain have no redress under English domestic law and will receive no compensation.

All of the law lords expressed great sympathy for the Jains and reached this second conclusion "with regret" for their "undeserved fate".

Many will be be of the view that where a government established body causes financial ruin to those subject to its authority AND is found to have behaved wholly improperly BUT its victims have no remedy THEN it follows that:

(a) something has gone badly wrong with the law; and

(b) a serious injustice has been allowed by the law to happen.

This is simply a logical proposition based on underlying assumptions concerning morality and justice. The assumptions are shared by most who live in democratic societies (of whatever religion or none). Such people may struggle to understand this decision but only if they are not also lawyers. We lot are used to the discordance between the law on one hand and justice on the other. It's one of the things that get us a bad name.

You should read the judgments by following the title link if you want to see how this discordance occurs.

Let us look at what Trent did (this is paragraphs 6-9 of the judgment of Lord Scott of Foscote):

"6. Mr and Mrs Jain's only recourse was to appeal to a Registered Homes Tribunal. This they did. But there was no procedure available for an expedited appeal and no procedure enabling a stay of the magistrate's order pending an appeal to be obtained. We were told that the procedures under which appeals to a Registered Homes Tribunal can be made lead to a minimum delay of six weeks before an appeal can be heard. In the event, Mr and Mrs Jain's appeal was not heard until February 1999, over four months after the order had been made, and, not surprisingly, by the time the appeal was heard irrevocable damage had already been done to their nursing home business, with an adverse knock-on effect on other assets that they owned.

7. The appeal, heard by the Tribunal on 8 and 9 February 1999, was a resounding success. But the success came too late to afford them more than the satisfaction of vindication. The Tribunal, having heard evidence from the Authority in purported justification for the action they had taken, did not call for any evidence from the Jains in response and were scathing in their criticism of the Authority. In the Tribunal's nineteen page Reasons For Decision one reads of the inclusion of irrelevant and prejudicial information in the statutory statement that had been placed by the Authority before the magistrate, of insinuations by the Authority of abuse of residents notwithstanding the absence of evidence sufficient to justify any charges of abuse, and of untrue suggestions by the Authority of failure by the Jains to comply with various statutory regulations. Some of the complaints made in the statutory statement about the running of the nursing home did, in the view of the Tribunal, have some substance but, commented the Tribunal, "none warranted the immediate closure of the home". They said that "there was no reason for supposing that the residents could not properly have been protected by proper monitoring by the inspectors and the provision of advice where necessary". The statutory statement had complained that building works of improvement being carried out at Ash Lea Court had produced an unsatisfactory physical environment for the residents, but the Tribunal noted that there was no evidence that the dust from the building works "posed any risk to the life or health of the residents" and concluded that the conditions at Ash Lea Court had not justified an application for an order under section 30 :

"… the respondents have wholly failed to persuade us that an application for an order cancelling registration under section 30 was an appropriate way of meeting [the Authority's concerns about the running of the nursing home]"

8. The Tribunal was particularly scathing about the Authority's decision to make their application ex parte and without notice to the Jains. While accepting that there had been "no bad faith" on the part of the officials who, on behalf of the Authority, had been responsible for making the application, the Tribunal said that they could see

"… no justification whatever for the failure to warn [the Jains] that the application was to be made"

So the Tribunal allowed the appeal, set aside the magistrate's order of 1 October 1998 and expressed, as a coda, their regret that they had no power to order the Authority to pay Mr and Mrs Jain's costs: cold comfort, no doubt, for the Jains.

9. The upshot of this sad story is that Mr and Mrs Jain's nursing home business had been ruined and serious economic harm had been inflicted on them by an ex parte without notice application that ought never to have been made".

Well, there you go Mr and Mrs Jaine. Trent are wholly discredited, have abused their powers, you have been ruined and all you get is "vindication". Oh, you can try your luck in Europe if you like. You will need to finance it if you can or get funding from the LSC.

You might also sympathise with the Jaines in respect of the finding of no bad faith. Read all of the judgments. I do.

An American Litigant in London

The case is Barclay v British Airways.

I wonder how this case would have been decided in the USA. Perhaps, someone will enlighten me.

Similar fact cases could be litigated in any country that is party to the Montreal Convention 1999. There was no dispute as to the facts of the case and everything turned on the construction of Article 17.1 of the Convention:

[British Airways] is liable for damage sustained in case of death or bodily injury of [Beverley Anne Barclay] upon condition only that the accident which caused the death or injury took place on board the aircraft or in the course of any of the operations of embarking or disembarking.

So there was only one question: Did the agreed facts constitute an "accident"?

The Agreed Facts

I summarise the key agreed facts as follows:

1. The aircraft was in normal working condition and all applicable aviation regulations had been complied with.

2. As she lowered herself into her seat, with her body weight towards the right, Ms Barclay's right foot suddenly slipped on a strip embedded in the floor of the aircraft and went to the left.

3. Ms Barclay suffered injury in consequence of 2 above.

4. Ms Barclay had no remedy in contract or negligence but only under the Convention and only if she had suffered an accident.

This is only a brief summary and you should refer to the report for fuller details.

No Win No Fee?

You may by now have formed the opinion that this was a "brave" claim. But it went to the Court of Appeal and I, at least, would not have taken it on a no win no fee basis. Of course, Ms Barclay may be that rare litigant who is rich enough to fund speculative litigation regardless of advice because she is determined to have her day in court as a matter of principle.

Well, someone got it badly wrong.

This is Part 1 of a 2 part post. Look tomorrow for Part 2: The Decision.

Jonathan Ross Gets Away With It

Oh, well. A £1.3m loss out of £18m will really teach him. It's probably a tax deductible loss.

His contempt for the rest of humanity shows him to be a spineless git.

The BBC are utterly spineless as well but what do you expect?

The only way either of them will learn anything is if the rest of us DO NOT WATCH OR LISTEN TO JONATHAN ROSS SHOWS.

How Not To Tell A Joke

The Times maintains a list of the top ten gaffes in various areas. Reading these will fill an idle moment or two. The title link takes you to one such list, but it links to all or most of the other lists so that is the only link I am posting here.

Here is a truncated example of the most famous and possibly the biggest gaffe of all time:

In the early 90s Ratners was one of Britain’s biggest jewellers...

When asked to speak at a dinner held by the Institute of Directors, [Gerald Ratner said:]...

"We also do cut-glass sherry decanters complete with six glasses on a silver-plated tray that your butler can serve you drinks on, all for £4.95. People say, 'How can you sell this for such a low price?' I say, because it's total crap."

If you compare this with the original you may feel that The Times's sub-editor did not do all that he or she could or should have done.

The questions are:

1. What, of importance, does my version sacrifice?; and
2. Is my version punchier?

Here is the full text of The Times version:

Gerald Ratner (1991)

Ratners

In the early 90s Ratners was one of Britain’s biggest jewellers. You won't find a Ratners on the high street anymore though, and all because of a notorious gaffe made by Gerald Ratner, the company's boss.

When asked to speak at a dinner held by the Institute of Directors, he made the decision to lighten up his speech with a few jokes at the expense of his business. He joked that his Ratners High Street chain 'sold a pair of earrings for under a pound, which is cheaper than a prawn sandwich from Marks & Spencer, but probably wouldn't last as long'.

He didn't stop there adding: "We also do cut-glass sherry decanters complete with six glasses on a silver-plated tray that your butler can serve you drinks on, all for £4.95. People say, 'How can you sell this for such a low price?' I say, because it's total crap."

He lost his job and the firm quickly changed its name (to Signet in case you were wondering).

His faux pas has since been immortalised in the phrase "Doing a Ratner", which means making a massive error of judgment. Fame of a sort.

My view is that almost all of the extra information in the above can and will be readily inferred by a reader of the truncated version.

The only exception is the actual name of the new company.

The Banking Crisis For Dummies: Really Complicated Investment Vehicles

Really Complicated Investment Vehicles ("RCIVs") are the cause of the current "credit crunch" or "international banking crisis".

It is simple:

1. The sacked heads of UK banks were not themselves capable of creating or understanding RCIVs.

2. In fact, no-one was.

3. There were no RCIVs capable of real world risk assessment (a "RWRA") by someone outside the elite group of their creators ("the inner cabal").

4. The inner cabal consists of people in banking who can devise RCIVs that are inexplicable.

5. The inner cabal know that they cannot conduct an RWRA on a RCIV. But they also know that no-one else can either.

6. However, with a little finesse the inner cabal have been able, by complex but essentially meaningless explanations, to persuade their bosses and customers that their particular RCIV was a sure fire money maker ("an SFMM").

7. The inner cabal knew that there was no RCIV that RWRA would show to be a SFMM.

8. However, they also knew that their bosses and customers did not know this.

9. So, they could sell them both a pup and earn huge bonuses whilst the bubble expanded and did not pop.

10. The bubble popped.

QED.

Now that you understand that, you also understand how the inner cabal did it.

They simply flummoxed everyone with the use of acronyms and persuading bosses and customers alike that they were too stupid to understand what they were doing and so should simply trust them with their money.

A more serious approach to this question can be found at the title link.

Oh No They Didn't! The Compensation Culture.

The court has not held that Jeanette Cenet (nee McGlennon), the Claimant in this personal injury case, or Mr Maguire, "the alleged eye witness", were complete scam artists as alleged by the defendant, Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council. I emphasise the word "not".

This was despite the judge stating:

"There was a history of involvement by the claimant and her witness in similar claims. Mr Maguire, the alleged eye witness who gave evidence on the claimant's behalf, had himself submitted claims in respect of three highway tripping accidents in 1998, 2001 and 2004. In addition, he claimed to have been an eye witness to a similar accident suffered by Mrs Barry, another resident of Chatham Road, on 12 August 2004. That accident was said to have taken place on Chatham Road within a few yards of where the claimant's accident occurred. Mrs Barry's claim had been due for trial at the same time as that of the claimant (at the direction of the Designated Civil Judge, having regard to the issue of credibility arising from Mr Maguire's involvement as a witness in both claims); however, she discontinued her action the day before trial."

Luckily, some may think, the judge was able to uphold the Council's appeal on a different ground - i.e. the area where this trip and slip occurred was not, in fact, dangerous.

Go to the title link if you think that there is no compensation culture in the UK.

QUIZ QUESTION:

Is there a compenation culture developing in the UK?

NB: I am a claimant lawyer in respect of personal injury work. There are just some cases I would not touch.

Eshaq Khan: The Mad Khan And The Inept Electoral Rigging

This is old news but the case has only recently surfaced on BAILII.

The judgment is a lot of fun, however, and really worth a visit. See the title link.Eshaq Khan is very possibly the most stupid vote rigger in history.

When he was found out in an obvious scam which was bound to be exposed in court, what did he do?

Put his hands up and beg for mercy? Not a bit of it.

He lied.

He claimed that lots of people lived at a small flat uccupied entirely by someone else and their family. He claimed that 16 of his voters lived at a boarded up property. He presented to the court bogus tenancy agreements.

Then he encouraged other members of his gang (mainly family members) to perjure themselves with lies so hilarious and incapable of belief that the judge was wholly bemused that the matter had ever come before him.

It is safe to say that Eshaq Khan is (a) very stupid and (b) a criminal,

The full judgment makes entertaining reading. That cannot be said of every judgment I report but this one I leave you to read for yourself. You will enjoy it.

Amy Whitehouse: World's Silliest Woman

Yuk! This is is the silliest woman in the world. See the title link. £10m allows you to biff lesser mortals with impunity.

Speaker Martin: Update, Update, Update!

MPs back down on expenses

In Atticus in The Sunday Times today:

"An obscure Tory backbencher has made himself the member least likely to catch the Speaker’s eye in the Commons. Douglas Carswell has become the first MP to call publicly on Michael Martin to resign.

The Harwich MP says a new Speaker is the only way to regain public confidence in the Commons. “Speaker Martin must step down,” says Carswell. “Perhaps not immediately, but he needs to set a date for his departure now. MPs need to choose a Speaker who understands there is a problem with Westminster politics”. The question now is: are any other MPs brave enough to line up alongside Carswell?"

At last, even if only a little one, an MP speaks up.

They really are a bunch of cowards! No bones in their blubbery little bodies at all.

Mr Carswell is, after all, merely stating the obvious. But, why not immediately?

The 100th Post

I have now managed 100 posts without any (or much) feedback. This may be a record. Well, at least, most people would have given up by now.

Statistics

The first post was on 24th January 2007.

That is 437 days ago.

The average number of posts per day is therefore 0.228833.

It looks better if you use a 5 day working week, take off bank holidays, 5 weeks annual leave and weekends. My average then is 2.7297534 posts per day.

I just thought you might be interested. Even if you do not exist.

The National Health Service and Me: A Food Review

There has been a lack of posts this month despite my unending resolutions to post more often for my dwindling audience of one; me. The audience is dwindling because I just write into the ether without much bothering to read the result. Gosh, this site is turning into therapy.

However, I have a better excuse this time. I have spent two spells in hospital recently. I will not bore you with the details but they involved lots of drips into my veins and trying to enable me to eat again.

It is the getting me to eat again that troubles me.

I am a diabetic who was having serious trouble holding anything solid down. Neither hospital addressed the issue of a diet to wean me back on to real food rather than a dextrose drip.

The Royal Sussex County Hospital (Brighton) was better on anti-emetics, anti-thrush etc. (as the consultant said, she was going to throw everything at me) so I could eat quite quickly. Worthing Hospital was less good but that is not the point; Worthing could not provide me with anything edible even if I had been fully fit.

At Brighton they bring around a menu asking you to select from it for lunch and dinner. You get to choose separately what you want for pudding. This is very important; it meant that I could choose ice cream even if nothing else was suitable for my acidic stomach. It was Wall's Cornish at my guess but that is good enough in hospital.

I had one decent meal at the Royal Sussex which was a very good Shepherd's Pie. Good mince, nice real potatoes well cooked and mashed. It may have been followed by ice cream but I also got a medium to good egg custard at the Royal Sussex.

I had one meal at Worthing Hospital. Liver & Onions. I could have eaten liver & onions prepared by myself. OK, I would have used lambs or calves livers thinly sliced in a nice sauce a la Hannibal. This was a hard turd on a plate.

Worse, it was served with what purporded to be mashed potatoes. It was not. It was a ball of glutinous gell.

The pudding (compulsory) was pineapple chunks. For a diabetic with suspected ketoacidosis? It might as well have been arsenic.

When I told two of the doctors about the above meal, one of them turned her nose before I had got so far as "Liver &..." and the other said he never ate in. He did promise to do something about it but I had discharged myself and signed a waiver before he had the chance to do so (about a day later).

I knew that if I did not discharge myself and sign the waiver they would surely kill me.

Oh, by the way, they punished me for discharging myself by refusing to issue to me a prescription for the antibiotics they said I needed.

This is a little postscript on breakfast. Royal Sussex wins again.

Royal Sussex offers about 5 or six cereals. Worthing offered cornflakes, some other type of grainy cornflakes or a weetabix substitute. But you could have sugar on your rice krispies at Royal Sussex!

Another very big thing is toast:

At the Royal Sussex they bring along toast after you have eaten your cereal. You choose how many slices you get, how many pats of butter and how many (and what variety) of preserves you got.

At Worthing Hospital I got, along with my cereal, one slice of stale untoasted bread, one pat of butter and one pack of liquid raspberry flavoured something or other. The latter two items were of course entirely redundant. Nothing could have disguised the unwholesomeness of the stale bread.

I have saved the best for last. Worthing boasts about its catering. See the luxury world.

The January 2008 Archive is Screwed

The January 2008 Archive is corrupt. It is probably to do with the google changes. Ah, well.

It seems that it will continue to affect the current page until January posts no longer appear. That is a guess. It may be worse.

Whatever the cause (and it might be my fault) all the right hand links appear at the bottom; but not if you go to the February 2008 archive page which also contains this post and the one below.

Whether "affect" should be "effect" in the first sentence of the previous but one paragraph is the subject of my monthly quiz question - now instituted. They may not be monthly and they may not be questions. They may occur more or less than once a month and they may simply invite an opinion rather than an answer.

This Blog is Unsafe!

Blogger is preventing me posting securely.

The new link up with Google requires a google account to access your blogger account and make posts. Fine.

But you have to set your security settings very low.

The Q&As lead you to believe that this is not the case. You would think that you could get away with high-medium or medium settings in IE7 but I simply cannot. I have followed Blogger's detailed instructions several times to no avail.

To get this post up I have had to remove all security and I will not do that long term.

Something must be done!

Please treat the above as if it was handwritten in green ink and was signed off "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells."