Original Thinkers of Our Times

The Today programme this morning had several slots on various aspects of the obesity report put out yesterday, the very last item being Norman Tebbit and Boris Johnston, not that I could quite understand why (I was in the whosershower when they started).

According to Uncle Norm, the rise in obesity is due to this government "doing everything it can to encourage buggery".

Que? Something about destruction of the family it seems.

Cue Humphries effectively telling him to shut up and Boris coming out with some polite variant on "what a load of rubbish". Oh, and then he started banging on about how it used to be possible to bring up families on one income so the woman (obvs) could stay at home, but mercifully the beeps came. Honestly, why do we give these loonies airtime? And why does anyone care? Same goes for Princess Michael of Kent. Why does anyone care? One can usually get even fairly devout royalists to admit that she's particularly stupid, ignorant, arrogant and unpleasant so why the surprise? The only question is why Her Lizzyness allows a relatively third-rate royal who by all accounts she personally dislikes; with a cloud over her re use of grace and favour apartments and a habit worst than Philip's of opening her mouth before engaging what it pleases her to call a brain; to do these junkets at all.

Heigh ho. Been fairly busy, went to see Almodovar's Bad Education with Anna-who-lives-upstairs Tuesday (worth seeing, full of Almodovar's usual things, perhaps not his best though) and dinner with the lovely Frankie last night.

Was coming out of the Winding-Up court yesterday morning in full get-up and a very cute member of a party of American tourists/exchange lawyers/whatever who were wandering through the costume exhibition evidently thought I looked great. Remind me to see if I can change my vote in the internal survey on court dress to keeping wig and gown... (though it would be better if we came out of mourning for Queen Anne (? I think) and went back to red robes).

Dodgy Travel?

KLM are being unhelpful about Istanbul flight dates.

Do we feel we ought to be worried about Azerbaijan Airlines as an alternative?

Abu Hamza

The London Evening Standard informs me that the US authorities have told Abu Hamza he may face the death penalty if extradited.

Really? Well, that could leave them in severe difficulties, as the practice is, to the best of my knowledge, that extradition is only granted by the UK Home Secretary in such cases on the undertaking that the death penalty will not be imposed: see Soering v United Kingdom (1989) 11 EHRR 439 and Re: Al-Fawwaz [2001] UKHL 69 at para.121, and that conventional practice is probably so embedded now that Blunkett might well face a judicial review if he failed to honour it, on the basis of the principle of legitimate expectations, not to mention section 6(1) of the Human Rights Act 1998, Article 2 of the European Convention and Article 1 of the Sixth Protocol.

This could be interesting to watch.

(For the record, I think Abu Hamza is a prick, a rabble rouser, and a crook, I have no opinion on whether or not he is likely to have been involved in terrorism, and I oppose the death penalty even for those undeniably guilty of the most heinous crimes.)

Edited to note that by the next morning Downing Street had flatly stated that extradition would not be granted unless such an undertaking was given.

Darth Vader QC

In an echo of a post Joff wrote some time ago, on my way home I was passed in Lincoln's Inn by Darth Vader and a storm trooper. But both of them were wearing, along with the appropriate stuff, t-shirts emblazoned with the name and logo of a Top Chancery Set.

The point that really gave me pause was the fact that Top Chancery Sets are now expected to have their own t-shirts. I know Denton Wilde Sapte, or whatever they are these days, have their own fleeces but this is ridiculous. Should I raise the matter in the forthcoming Chambers AGM? After all, we want to keep up.

I am procrastinating. Apparently-not-at-all bad Azerbaijan Airways 9th to 16th August 185.60 quid incl. taxes or 10th to 17th with BA, 198.80 quid incl. taxes? Am I being bonkers in wanting to go with the Azerbaijanis not for the sake of 15 quid but for the romance of it, and despite the fact that different flight times mean I'll have almost a day less there?