Defence

I enjoy watching one particular defence solicitor work. She's not widely appreciated by some of the bench chairmen - they see her as insubordinate and rude. Personally, I see someone engaging in a full-throated support of the interests of her clients.

I've seen way too many lethargic defence briefs doing as little as possible for their money. Don't think for a moment that I give any extra credence to what she says, just because she says it well. It's just that it's good to watch a professional doing good work.

If one of my friends were in legal trouble, I'd advise them to do three things.

(1) Phone her and pay whatever it costs. It's probably a lot, but this one is worth it.
(2) In court, do exactly what she says.
(3) In court, don't do anything she doesn't say.

The last few times I've seen her in court she has been representing people on Legal Aid, and so they have been getting world-class legal representation and not paying for it. Do they rejoice in this and take full advantage by letting her work ? No, they tend not to. They answer back to the prosecutor, they chew gum, they swear under their breath. In one case they even turned up drunk and told a long rambling story while she was speaking.

She's a lot older than her clients and this is the point where she suddenly turns into Mother-from-Hell on her clients. In one case her client was in the dock behind a sheet of plexiglass, digging a hole for himself with his big mouth. She put on a face like thunder and turned and strode over. His eyes widened and he shut up, stepped back and involuntarily sat down. She winked to the bench and without missing a beat carried on with her argument. Pure class. Her client was someone too stupid to fear the police, the courts or anyone on the streets. And yet, through an inch-think sheet of plastic, a middle-aged woman in an ethnic skirt knocked him over with a look.

Unfashionable

I'm still doing lengths up and and down England every week in the Big Stupid Spanish Diesel, which has given me scope to get extremely bored with the usual dozen or so albums I play on the journey.

For a change this week I went out of my way to pick out music I hadn't heard for some time - the theory was that if it was rubbish, Oxfam would get it, and if it was good then it would go on the list to freshen up my music rotation.

First up was "A Love Supreme" by John Coltrane. I've heard it half a dozen times without getting it at all. I've been told a few hundred times in hushed tones by better musicians than myself that it is brilliant - which always makes me feel thick.

After listening to it again, I'm no closer to understanding it and nowhere near enjoying it. Too many notes ! It still sounds to me like a pre-schooler blowing through daddy's sax after too much sugar. One for Oxfam.

Next though was a real find - Film Four's "Essential Soundtracks Compilation" album. Just check out the track list here - I listened to the second CD first and was immediately in Eclectic Music Heaven, where Chuck Berry, The Prodigy, Jimmy Cliff and The Pixies come together.

I had heard "Speaking of Happiness" many times before but would never have been able to put the name to the gloriously clear soulful voice that sings it. It's Gloria Lynne - she deserves to be better known.

But the biggest joy was hearing "Happy Heart" by Andy Williams. Big and unfashionable - it demands your attention. I imagined someone in 1969 driving up the pre-motorway trunk road in a Ford Anglia listening to it on a tinny radio. Then in my head-film, I cut to myself in 2009, driving at £60-fine-and-three-points mph on the M6 listening to it on my rather excellent stereo. Can anyone point me to more powerful voice from the last forty years. Tom Jones ? You're having a laugh.

The fact is - female "Torch" singers have never been more popular (Duffy, Amy Winehouse, the Pop Idol lot etc.) but all the male voices these days seem to be whiny indie kids. But these things should by rights come round in cycles.

So here's a prediction : the biggest selling song of the next 12 months will be a man in an Italian suit with a voice like a Viking God singing a torch song, backed by a big band playing real instruments.

Turing

They talk about "once in a generation minds", but there are actually few generations lucky enough to see a mind like Alan Turing's. Unfortunately Society's response to his homosexuality was to impose a deadly "cure" and to cut him out.

In the 1950's, his gayness totally eclipsed his accomplishments as it had with Oscar Wilde in the 1890's. Couldn't happen today, right ?

There's a petition on the government's website asking for an apology for the way he was treated. I signed it, not because it would actually help Mr Turing (it won't - he's dead), but because it's a timely warning that we need to cherish all our brilliant minds, irrespective of what they choose to do to get through the night.

The Referee's Mistaken

I don't enjoy shouting at football referees as much as I used to before I became a Magistrate. We have too much in common :-

* We do an essential job that is under-valued
* We have to make complex decisions based on little information too quickly
* Everyone thinks they can do the job much better than we can

That said, I did add my my voice to the 20,000 or so Bolton fans to argue with Mr. Wiley whose shocking decision-making cost Bolton the game against Liverpool. On the plus side, it was a remarkable game of football, and Steven Gerrard's winner was an absolute belter.

I also had a bad day on the job recently, and there was one particular case which I was glad wasn't played out in a stadium.

It concerned a man that I can only describe as "a local gangster". Hardly any earnings reported on his means form, but dressed head to toe in designer gear. He walked into court holding hands with his girlfriend, who looked like a model and dressed like one too. Not cheap to run one of those I imagine.

He and some "colleagues" had been out drinking champagne in a local bar. One of them decided to do something really stupid. He went up to the bar and asked them to make "the gayest drink possible". Lots of fruit, little umbrellas, pink glass and a little pink straw. Then he brought it over to our gangster with a big stupid smile on his face.

When the dust had settled, many things had been tipped over, a face had sustained some aesthetic damage - all before Mr Corleone remembered that he was on a suspended sentence for another matter.

I don't want to go into the exact details, but every single person involved in the sentencing decision had a disaster, including this inexperienced winger. The chairman committed us to a decision early, probation took an early lunch break, and the legal advisor neglected to give us the full facts about his previous and the options available to us.

Looking back on it though, justice still ended up being done. Maybe he got a slightly lighter slap than he deserved, but it wasn't a complete disaster.

Although that's where the parallel with the Bolton vs Liverpool game breaks down - Bolton actually deserved to win, and they didn't. Thank you, Mr Wiley.

Pour marcher sur un nuage

"Man on Wire" won this year's Oscar for best documentary film and I've only just gotten around to watching it.

It's the story of a French tightrope-dancer (not a mere walker) who limbered up on a wire over Notre Dame de Paris and the Sydney Harbour Bridge before taking on the newly-built New York Twin Towers in 1973.

It's a pretty cool stunt but the real story is the way his monomania sucked in a circle of friends to make this impossible dream happen. I won't spoil the plot, but there have been wars fought with less preparation and planning than went into this caper.

A highlight for me was the way he described the first step onto the wire - the moment when he shifted his weight from one foot anchored on a building to one on a swinging, dipping, twisting wire over a quarter mile column of air.

Why would anyone do that ?

Like Louis Armstrong said :

"If you have to ask, you'll never know."

Or as he put it :

"I did something magnificent and mysterious, and I got a 'why?' - and the beauty of it is that I don't have a 'why.'"

The very best Art forces you to change your ideas about what is possible, and by that standard this is great art indeed. A man walking on clouds certainly doesn't need a "Why?".

Speaking of great art, the soundtrack is amazing - Michael Nyman's greatest minimalist hits, including the jaw-droppingly awesome "Memorial". Also his equivalent from the century before - Satie's Gymnopédie and Gnossienne. And Fleetwood Mac's "Albatross" and "A Fifth of Beethoven" as a nod to the era of the stunt and just for laughs.