(no subject)
Dec. 3rd, 2003 10:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liadnanIt's almost 11PM as I write this for later posting, and I've done nothing with my evening. So I shall sit and write a post before going to bed, because that's a productive way to spend my time. Obviously.
The flat is cold and silent. As is increasingly common these days, there is nothing I feel like watching on television, so I've been reading and catching up with about a week's worth of list email. And drinking port. The cases that have been taking up much of my working hours for the last few weeks are, I hope, safely laid to rest, at least until after Christmas, which I have suddenly noticed approaching like a boy racer. I actually write some Christmas cards last night, though only a small fragment of the list. By the end of the week I might actually manage to post them.
Hah. My English teacher in primary school taught us that one should generally seek to avoid using the words "get" and "got". Hence the rewriting of that last sentence to avoid the term "get around to". It's strange how certain idiosyncracies of my teachers stay with me. Like the insistence of my history teacher -obviously a major influence on my life- that when writing an essay one should never use the words "I think", because everything in an essay except for those rare birds, incontested facts, which usually turn out to be chimeras in any event, is an opinionated argument anyway, or should be if it's worth reading at all. I stuck to that line for years, but it's general practice in my profession to use the phrase "in my opinion" to a quite ludicrous extent.
Where was I.... nowhere particularly important it seems.
I've had a string of probate cases recently. I really dislike them quite intensely. As I'm sure some judge somewhere said wisely once, there is nothing like a will for bringing out all the petty jealousies and old arguments that lurk beneath the surface of any family, and it often seems that the less actual money is involved the more unpleasant things become. Once families descend into that kind of bitterness, they never seem to listen to their lawyers telling them (if those lawyers are being ethical) that between them they're pissing away more than half the estate on said lawyers fees. (There is a judge's quote about this, something to the effect of "he finished his homemade will and went about his business, probably thinking he had done a good days work. As indeed, for the legal profession, he had.") And before anyone calls me and my profession rapacious, let me point out that to reach where I am now I've accumulated more than £20,000 of debt, nor was I a registered charity last time I looked. I do pro-bono work when I can afford the time.
Sorry, that was snippy. But it occasionally becomes necessary to point this out. Frankly give me big commercial disputes any day of the week. No, don't give me criminal work: it's ill-paid, depressing, and involves associating with lots of criminals... (yes, like many people in my profession, some of my high ideals have been replaced, or at least tempered, by cynicism...)
Ho hum. Maybe I should go to bed... Currently reading Mary Hoffman's Stravaganza: City of Stars, the second in the series, which is fairly good children's fantasy, particularly if you're interested in Renaissance Italy, and A.S. Byatt's Little Black Book of Stories, which I love.
The flat is cold and silent. As is increasingly common these days, there is nothing I feel like watching on television, so I've been reading and catching up with about a week's worth of list email. And drinking port. The cases that have been taking up much of my working hours for the last few weeks are, I hope, safely laid to rest, at least until after Christmas, which I have suddenly noticed approaching like a boy racer. I actually write some Christmas cards last night, though only a small fragment of the list. By the end of the week I might actually manage to post them.
Hah. My English teacher in primary school taught us that one should generally seek to avoid using the words "get" and "got". Hence the rewriting of that last sentence to avoid the term "get around to". It's strange how certain idiosyncracies of my teachers stay with me. Like the insistence of my history teacher -obviously a major influence on my life- that when writing an essay one should never use the words "I think", because everything in an essay except for those rare birds, incontested facts, which usually turn out to be chimeras in any event, is an opinionated argument anyway, or should be if it's worth reading at all. I stuck to that line for years, but it's general practice in my profession to use the phrase "in my opinion" to a quite ludicrous extent.
Where was I.... nowhere particularly important it seems.
I've had a string of probate cases recently. I really dislike them quite intensely. As I'm sure some judge somewhere said wisely once, there is nothing like a will for bringing out all the petty jealousies and old arguments that lurk beneath the surface of any family, and it often seems that the less actual money is involved the more unpleasant things become. Once families descend into that kind of bitterness, they never seem to listen to their lawyers telling them (if those lawyers are being ethical) that between them they're pissing away more than half the estate on said lawyers fees. (There is a judge's quote about this, something to the effect of "he finished his homemade will and went about his business, probably thinking he had done a good days work. As indeed, for the legal profession, he had.") And before anyone calls me and my profession rapacious, let me point out that to reach where I am now I've accumulated more than £20,000 of debt, nor was I a registered charity last time I looked. I do pro-bono work when I can afford the time.
Sorry, that was snippy. But it occasionally becomes necessary to point this out. Frankly give me big commercial disputes any day of the week. No, don't give me criminal work: it's ill-paid, depressing, and involves associating with lots of criminals... (yes, like many people in my profession, some of my high ideals have been replaced, or at least tempered, by cynicism...)
Ho hum. Maybe I should go to bed... Currently reading Mary Hoffman's Stravaganza: City of Stars, the second in the series, which is fairly good children's fantasy, particularly if you're interested in Renaissance Italy, and A.S. Byatt's Little Black Book of Stories, which I love.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-12-03 03:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-03 04:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-03 04:03 am (UTC)I'm $90,000 in debt, all to be part of a profession I don't even participate in anymore. Please, be as snippy as you like on this point. It does my heart good to read it.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-03 04:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-03 04:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-03 05:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-03 05:25 am (UTC)Probate
Date: 2003-12-03 06:31 am (UTC)My father is the executor and is dealing mainly with two elderly aunts and an attendent mob of cousins. His solicitor has been advising him on what to tell them and when and is a fountain of advice for dealing with cantankarous elderly relatives, especially as one aunt is as deaf as a post and both have dubious control of their wits. I really don't envy anyone who deals with that on a regular basis, and I'm not even directly involved!
no subject
Date: 2003-12-03 07:09 am (UTC)Re: Probate
Date: 2003-12-03 07:10 am (UTC)And you do get an odd insight to the very strange lives of some people...
no subject
Date: 2003-12-03 07:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-03 07:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-03 07:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-03 07:13 am (UTC)But yes, anyone who owns real property should have a will.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-03 07:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-03 07:34 am (UTC)NB you may end up drinking the whole bottle of port by mistake but that's not my fault, guv.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-03 07:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-03 07:36 am (UTC)Quel amusing, no?
(The good bit is I'm pretty well resigned to it ... I just see it as something I'll pay off for the rest of my life, like taxes. Either that or I'm operating in a deep, deep denial. Either way, it doesn't make my stomach hurt anymore.)
no subject
Date: 2003-12-03 08:44 am (UTC)Too true. I still can't use the word "definitely" without fearing that the English Teacher Gods will strike me down.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-03 09:11 am (UTC)The priest who taught English my junior year of high school deducted 10% from our grade everytime anyone pronounced often with the "t."
My "t" is silent to this day.
Re: Probate
Date: 2003-12-03 11:44 am (UTC)Possibly planned as post-shuffle entertainment, if you believed in such a thing...
no subject
Date: 2003-12-04 08:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-04 09:47 am (UTC)I do actually agree with our teachers re: "I think", but sometimes you're obliged to write in the style people expect.