I am not a writer. Sure, I’ve spent most of my adult life being paid to put words together. (Not just the putting of pen to paper - or far more frequently finger to keyboard or stylus to screen. But the thinking and reading and researching and talking to
A truth in life is that the older you get, the more endings and fewer beginnings there are. You don’t lose beginnings altogether. Heaven forbid. There is always the space to to encounter something or someone fresh, unknown, inspiring or just piquing your interest. But inevitably, people and things
Most of us, I think, have people online whose stuff they'll mostly (if not always) at least glance at: people who, over years, have proved themselves to have thought-provoking, interesting or just worthwhile (for whatever reason) things to say. Dan Davies is one of mine. I've
Well. For four months, cryptolaw nerds have been awaiting this one: Mr Justice Mellor’s judgment in COPA v Wright. Everyone knew it wouldn’t be kind to Craig Wright, the Australian who has asserted for years (often litigiously) that he is Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous progenitor of Bitcoin. After
Well. I guess that last post took a bit more of a bite out of my creative muscles than I thought. So to keep things ticking over, a scattering of things that caught my eye; and that may, I hope, prove to be food for thought. The death (again) of
It was my dad's old driving gloves that brought me face to face with the fact that my mum was going to die. We’d lost my dad in late 2014, in the fourth year after his retirement. The first year had ended with his stroke. The second
There's a rule of thumb in compliance work. I can't remember where I picked it up: it might have been from Jim Nelson, my first financial crime boss in banking, to whom I owe a huge amount. Or it might have been from Hui Chen, an
Because I'm a barrister, I'm regulated by the Bar Standards Board.
One could argue that this post is a wee bit previous. But yesterday was a huge, huge moment - for the crypto industry, certainly, but also for a whole raft of lawyers who've been following this case with bated breath for years. Which case? The one where an
For years, I've looked without success for a downloadable or streamable copy of a BBC Radio 4 show called The Tingle Factor. Not the whole thing; just one episode, which I must have caught on the radio entirely by accident while driving years, and years, and years ago.
Work is piling up. And so are the quarter-written posts. So pending a moment when I have the brainspace to finish a couple of them, it's time to drop some hopefully interesting stuff into the pot. The Science Fiction of the 1900s: by Karl Schroeder. Karl is a
There’s a fundamental philosophical difference between official attitudes to whistleblowers here and in the US. (Or at least it’s sometimes intimated that it’s “philosophical”. I’m far from convinced.) In the US, various statutes enable the compensation of whistleblowers. At federal level, the main one is the
We're tool users, us humans. Often we don't think about the tools we use. They're just there. Extending our limbs, our brains, our capabilities. Our ability to do this is pretty much a definition of who and what we are. But anyone who does
I have nothing terribly useful to add to the tale of Alexei Navalny. All I can do is bow my head to someone who's (a) been murdered - yes, I know this isn't technically proven, but please; (b) by someone who's self-evidently a dictator
Dan Hon is a smart person. I've mentioned his "Things that caught my attention" newsletter once or twice. It rarely disappoints. He often manages to look at things from a different angle, shining light on facets I hadn't considered before. (I prize this trait
A short one this time. Just three pieces, and put out quick because one of them is just... well, read it yourself. ‘I’m sorry to have to announce that my cancer situation has developed not necessarily to my advantage’: by Simon Boas. (Brought to my attention by my colleague
This is by way of a linkblog today. Not my usual Commonplace, although it shares some characteristics with it. One of my long-held beliefs, one of the things that has had me fuming for ages, is the UK’s complacency about corruption. I can date the beginning of my engagement
A short hit here. And again - this one is sounding the politics klaxon. So as always with political stuff, this is going on the site but not out on email. Any successful fraudster or con artist knows how to exploit blind spots. Sometimes they're off the peg:
The Bar still has an access problem. Lots of barristers, and the Inns of Court, are collectively and (hey, this is the Bar after all) individually trying to do various things about it. But the fact remains. This is a weird job, which costs a lot to get into and
A couple of hangers-on from Monday, now: Walkers Snack Foods Ltd v Commissioners for His Majesty's Revenue and Customs (VAT - snack foods - whether standard rated by Note 5, Group 1, Part II Schedule 8 VATA 1994 - whether products made from the potato or potato starch)